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Page 42
"Surely you haven't been near any of those people, have you? Passed them
on the road, or met them at the station at any time?"
There was a long pause in which nobody answered, and in which Betty
could hear her heart beat fast.
"Lloyd, answer me," insisted Mrs. Sherman.
"Eu-Eugenia won't l-let me!" sobbed the Little Colonel. "She made us all
p-promise not to tell."
Eugenia's face turned pale, but she lifted her head defiantly as Mrs.
Sherman turned to her, calling her name.
"What is the trouble, child? You surely didn't go to the camp that
morning when I warned you not to?"
"Yes, we did," answered Eugenia, a little frightened now by the
expression of Mrs. Sherman's face, but still defiant.
"When was it?"
"About a week ago, I think. I don't remember exactly."
"It's been nine days," said Betty, counting her fingers. "I remember it
because it was the day before the picnic at the old mill."
"And there was a sick baby in the tent when we went in to have our
fortunes told," added Joyce. "It lay in the old woman's lap all the time
she held my hand, and it kept turning its head from side to side, and
fretting in a weak little voice as if it didn't have strength to cry
hard. That must have been the poor little thing that died."
"And you all went into that tent and all let that old woman hold your
hands?" asked Mrs. Sherman, looking around from one to another with a
distressed face.
"No, mothah," cried the Little Colonel, "Betty didn't go, and she tried
to keep us from goin'. She said you wouldn't like it."
A loving smile of unspoken approval, that made Betty's heart glow with
pleasure, lighted Mrs. Sherman's face for an instant. Then she turned to
the others.
"Well, I'll send for Doctor Fuller immediately. If it proves to be the
measles, we will turn the house into a hospital at once. If the old
saying is true that misery loves company, then you ought to be a
contented quartette."
"Oh, I've already had the measles," said Betty, quickly, "two years
ago."
"Then I'm glad that you will not have to suffer for the disobedience of
the others," answered her godmother. "It has brought its own punishment
this time, so I'll not add a scolding. I'll leave the measles, if that's
what it turns out to be, to preach you a sermon on the text, 'Be sure
your sin will find you out.'"
Sally Fairfax welcomed no guests from Locust that night at her party,
for the doctor made his visit and pronounced his verdict. No parties for
many a long day. Lloyd and Eugenia and Joyce had the measles, and nobody
would want Betty to come for fear of the contagion.
Mrs. Sherman and Eliot and Mom Beck went from one darkened room to
another with hot lemonade, and Betty was left to roam about the place by
herself. Once she slipped into the sewing-room where the tissue-paper
costumes were laid out in readiness beside the dainty little
flower-shaped hats. Joyce's was patterned after a pale blue
morning-glory, and Eugenia's a scarlet poppy. Lloyd's looked like a pink
hyacinth, and Betty's a daffodil.
"It's too bad," mourned Betty, tilting the graceful daffodil blossom of
a hat on her brown curls, and admiring it in the mirror. "_I_ haven't
got the measles, and this is so sweet, it's a pity not to wear it
somewhere."
Late that evening she heard the Little Colonel grumbling: "Well, this is
a house pahty suah enough, I must say! Heah we are in the house, and
heah we'll stay and miss all the fun. I don't like this kind of a house
pahty!"
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