Betty was a little puled, but the push and stir of her own life with the hard lessons and all the “extras,” as she told the family, she hardly had time to breathe! She came through some examinations on Friday, prepared Monday’s lessons on Saturday, went to Sunday school and church on Sunday and helped get the family dinner. Then she declared that she was a wreck and curled up on her bed, under a warm extra blanket, for a nap.
She had scarcely more than dozed off, she thought, though she found afterwards that she had been sleeping for two hours, when she heard a gay voice and some one coming down the hall; and here was Doris, coming in to put Betty’s over-night bag, borrowed for the occasion, down on the floor with a bump, and a voice none too gracious exclaim, “You here, Betty? I thought I was going to get a rest by myself!”
“You shall,” answered Betty, springing up, thoroughly awake now and looking at her watch. “I thought you weren’t coming home till tonight.”
“I wasn’t,” said Doris, banging the door shut. Betty winced and wondered if Mrs. Lee would not reprove Doris for that. But wise Mrs. Lee had seen the storm behind the gay manner and jolly greeting with which Doris had favored her and her father on her entrance. There was a sudden change now.
“I couldn’t stand it any longer, Betty,” said Doris. “I told Mother just now that I had a little headache from too much candy and that is the truth, but not all of it. I haven’t slept a wink, I do believe, and I’m about dead!”
Betty was off the bed by this time, helping Doris take off her coat and taking her hat from her hand. “You poor little thing! Let me get you into bed! How about some peppermint and soda or some milk of magnesia for the indigestion?” Betty half laughed as she asked this, and Doris laughed too, but quaveringly, and all at once she put her head on Betty’s shoulder and sobbed. “Mrs. Barnett gave me an aspirin for my head. I hated to take it for I never took one before and it made me feel awfully funny for a while. But I had to make some excuse for coming home and my head did ache, though not so terribly. They were just as kind as could be, or meant to be and I’ll never tell anybody but you all about it.”
Doris said all this in jerks as she sat on the bed, half crying into her handkerchief and letting Betty draw off her shoes and stockings. Only a week before Betty had had another experience with tears, at Lucia’s. It made her feel happier than she had been then, to know that her prickly little sister was returning to the state of confidences.
“I can’t imagine, Doris, but the thing for you to do is to get to sleep. I’m going to fix something warm for you to drink first.”
“No, don’t. Get me the peppermint and that will fix me, and don’t let Mother know that I’m so dead!”
Usually Mother would have been the first to console, but Doris was sensitive. When Betty appeared in the living room, Mrs. Lee asked how Doris was feeling. “There is something the matter, but I thought that you might handle it.”