“So do I. ’Twould be fun having the girls bring mail from every one. And maybe Miss Wallace would make us cream toast. That would be worth the regular measles, not to mention German. You don’t feel out-of-sorts yet, do you?”
“No, I’ll tell you when I do, or you’ll probably know anyway. Isn’t Jean a scream? Probably she was in bed when Miss Wood got there.”
“She’s dear. Why don’t she and Jess room together?”
“My dear, the whole faculty rose up in arms this year when they suggested it. They tried it exactly three weeks last year, and Miss Wood nearly resigned. One is bad enough, but the two are awful! They think up the most fearful things to do. Why, the summer before last, they’d been in England all summer, and had seen all kinds of new things. Well, the first thing they did when they got back to St. Helen’s was to play chimney-sweep. Jess had seen them in London and she couldn’t rest to see how it felt to be in a chimney. So, one day, she put on some black tights and an old Jersey of her brother’s, and made a tall hat out of paste-board. Then they went up on the roof of Hathaway, and Jean helped her get up on the chimney, and she dropped down. The chimney’s wide, you know, and she dropped straight down, making an awful noise and loosening all the soot, right into the living-room fire-place. Miss King and Bishop Hughes were calling on Miss Wood just then, though, of course, Jess didn’t know that. Down she came, feet first, into the grate, and scared Miss King and Miss Wood and the Bishop all but to death. She was all over soot, and was a sight! The Bishop laughs about it every time he comes.”
Virginia laughed and laughed. As long as she had been at St. Helen’s she had never heard that story.
“The thing that Jean’s crossest about,” Priscilla continued, “is the Gordon dance on Washington’s Birthday. Her cousin asked her to come, and she’s afraid Miss Wood won’t let her go.”
“Why, she’ll be all right by then, won’t she? The speckles are most gone already, and the dance is two weeks off.”
“I know, but Miss Wood is very careful, and, besides, Jess told her that Jean was subject to tonsillitis. Oh, dear, I was sort of hoping that Carver Standish would invite me! You see, I’ve never been to a really big dance in the evening in my life. But I guess he’s not going to. Jean got her invitation yesterday.”
But when they reached The Hermitage and their own room, Priscilla found the coveted envelope, with a card bearing the name “Carver Standish III,” and a note saying it would be “downright rotten,” if anything prevented her coming. Priscilla ran at once to ask for Miss Wallace’s chaperonage, but, when she returned, a worried expression had replaced the joyous one on her face.
“Won’t she go with you?”