They watched the girl. She was receiving compliments on her striking costume, from one girl and another, and was in high spirits. She glanced triumphantly about her, her eyes lighting up when they fell on Maine in her yellow dress. She certainly looked brilliantly handsome, the flaming scarlet of the leaves setting off her dark skin and flashing eyes to perfection.
Presently she put her hand up to her cheek, and held it there a moment.
"Aha!" said Massachusetts, aloud. "She's in for it!"
"In for what?" said Maine, who came up at that moment. Following the direction of Massachusetts' eyes, she drew her apart, and spoke in a low tone. "I shall not say anything, Massachusetts, and I hope you will not. Don't you know?" she added, seeing her friend's look of inquiry. "Those are my scarlet leaves."
"No!"
"Yes. I have found out all about it. Daisy lingered behind the rest of us the other day, when I had been telling you all about the leaves, to pick blackberries. She saw Chicago come out of the wood a few minutes after we left, looking black as thunder. Don't you remember, I thought I heard a rustling in the fern, and you laughed at me? She was hidden there, and heard every word we said. Next day the leaves were gone, and now they are on Chicago's dress instead of mine."
"And a far better place for them!" exclaimed Massachusetts, "though I am awfully sorry for her. Oh! you lucky, lucky girl! and you dear, precious, stupid ignoramus, not to know poison dogwood when you see it."
"Poison dogwood! those beautiful leaves!"
"Those beautiful leaves. That young woman is in for about two weeks of as pretty a torture as ever Inquisitor or Iroquois could devise. I know all about it, though there was a time when I also was ignorant. Look! she is feeling of her cheek already; it begins to sting. Tomorrow she will be all over patches, red and white; itching—there is nothing to describe the itching. It is beyond words. Next day her face will begin to swell, and in two days more—the School Birthday, my dear—she will be like nothing human, a mere shapeless lump of pain and horror. She will not sleep by night or rest by day. She will go home to her parents, and they will not know her, but will think we have sent them a smallpox patient by mistake. Her eyes—"
"Oh, hush! hush, Massachusetts!" cried Maine. "Oh! poor thing! poor thing! what shall I do? I feel as if it were all my fault, somehow."