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Page 41
CHAPTER X.
"FOUND OUT."
"What makes everybody so snarly this morning?" asked Joyce, looking
around on the circle of moody faces. The four girls had been lounging in
hammocks and chairs under the trees for several hours, and in all that
time scarcely a civil word had been spoken.
"There isn't any reason why we should be cross," Joyce went on. "It's a
glorious day, we've had a delicious breakfast and a good ride, and there
is the tissue-paper party at Sally Fairfax's to-night to look forward
to. But in spite of it all I feel so mean and cross that I want to
scratch somebody."
Betty looked up from her book and laughed. "I don't feel snarly, but
I've been wondering ever since breakfast what had happened to make you
all out of sorts. Lloyd looks as if she had been eating sour pickles,
and Eugenia has snapped at everybody who has spoken to her this
morning."
"That's a story!" exclaimed Eugenia, tartly, with such a frown that
Lloyd began singing in a tantalising tone, "Crosspatch, draw the latch,
sit by the fire and spin."
"Oh, hush up!" exclaimed Eugenia, crossly.
"Why, Lloyd," said Mrs. Sherman, coming up just then in time to hear
Lloyd's song and Eugenia's answer, "you are surely not teasing one of
your guests! I am surprised!"
To every one's astonishment, Lloyd flopped over in the hammock, and,
covering her face with her arm, began to cry.
"What is the matter, little daughter?" asked Mrs. Sherman, in alarm,
sitting down in the hammock beside her and stroking the short soft hair
soothingly. She had never known Lloyd to be so sensitive to a slight
reproof.
"Mother didn't mean to scold her little girl. I was only surprised to
hear you saying anything unpleasant to a guest of yours."
"You-you'd have said it, too!" sobbed the Little Colonel, "if Eu-Eugenia
had been so mean to you all mawnin'! She's been t-talkin so hateful and
cross--"
"I have _not_!" cried Eugenia. "You began it, and you have tried to pick
a quarrel ever since we came out here, and Joyce has kept nagging at me,
too. You've both made me feel so miserable and unhappy that I wish I'd
never set eyes on you and your horrid old Kentucky!"
Here, to Mrs. Sherman's still greater surprise, Eugenia fumbled for her
handkerchief and began mopping up the tears that were streaming down her
face.
"Really, girls, I am distressed!" exclaimed Mrs. Sherman. "Is there
anything serious the matter that you have been quarrelling about, or are
you only ill and nervous?"
"I nevah was so mizzible in all my life," said Lloyd. "My throat is soah
and my eyes ache, and I can't help cryin' if anybody looks at me."
"That's just the way I feel," said Eugenia, still dabbing her eyes with
her handkerchief, "and my head aches, besides."
"I think we are all three taking bad colds," said Joyce, from her
hammock. "I haven't reached the crying stage yet, but I'm fast on the
way toward it. Betty will be the only one able to go to the party
to-night, and our tissue-paper dresses are _so_ pretty."
Mrs. Sherman looked from one flushed face to another with a puzzled
expression. "I don't know what to think," she said, "but if I were not
sure that you have been no place where you possibly could have been
exposed, I should be afraid that you are all taking the measles. Doctor
Fuller told me the other day that there are several children in the
gypsy camp down with it, and one poor little baby had died. It didn't
have proper attention. Why, what is the matter, girls?" Mrs. Sherman
paused, having seen a startled glance pass from Lloyd to Eugenia.
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