“And that’s not measles, Virginia, I’ll have you to know!” the owner of the disposition announced fretfully. “It’s just from being burned alive! Now, I’m not going to do another thing, so you might just as well put away those two suits of underwear. One’s enough!”
“Well,” said Virginia a little doubtfully, as she folded the extra suit and replaced it in the drawer; “well, it does seem as though if they’d been coming they would have come after all that steaming. I wish Hannah were here! She’d know. But, if I were you, Priscilla, I’d just keep thinking I wasn’t going to have them. That will probably help.”
This prescription compared to the preceding one was easy to follow, and all through the next two weeks Priscilla, when she remembered it, maintained that she was not to have the German Measles! For the rest of the time, which was by far the larger portion, she was perfectly oblivious as to even the possibility of her having them, so elated was she over her preparation for the Gordon dance. She and Miss Wallace and Jean Blackmore, who was really to be allowed to go after all, were to make the journey, a distance of twenty-five miles, by automobile. The two weeks dragged their days slowly along, but at last Thursday night arrived, and Priscilla, with a happy heart, surveyed for the last time that day her new dress, which her mother had sent from home.
“Just one more night to wait,” she said, as she got into bed. “Oh, Virginia, I wish you were a Junior! I don’t see why Miss King won’t let new girls go. Carver said if you only could, he would have asked you, because his grandfather had told him so much about you, and his room-mate, Robert Stuart, whom I’ve met, would have asked me. Then we could have gone together.”
“I don’t mind. It’s been such fun getting you ready. Maybe next year we’ll both go. Isn’t it the luckiest thing you haven’t had them at all?”
“It certainly is! It just shows how powerful thought is! Really, I have more faith in it than ever. You see, if they were inside of me, they didn’t get any attention, and probably decided not to come out.”
“Well, if they’d been there, they would have come out with all that heat, I’m sure,” said Virginia, still faithful to Hannah. “But it doesn’t matter whether they were there or not, just so long as they’re not here. Good-night.”
In the gray early morning Virginia was rudely awakened by some one shaking her. She sat up in bed to find Priscilla desperately shaking her with one hand and the witch-hazel bottle with the other. Priscilla was apparently in trouble. What could be the matter? She sat up, dazed, half-asleep.
“Why, what is it? What’s the matter? Was the dance lovely? Did you have a good time?”
At these last remarks Priscilla wept.