"Where is she sick?"
Carol leaned limply back against the pillar, trying to compose her bright face into a semblance of illness. "In my tummy," she announced weakly.
This called forth more laughter. "It"s her conscience," said Fairy.
"It"s matching pennies. Maybe she swallowed one."
"It"s probably those two pieces of pie she ate for dinner, and the one that vanished from the pantry shortly after," suggested Aunt Grace.
Carol sat up quickly. "Welcome home, Aunt Grace!" she cried. "Did you have a pleasant visit?"
"Carol," reproved Prudence.
"I didn"t mean it for impudence, auntie," said Carol, getting up and bending affectionately over the hammock, gently caressing the brown hair just beginning to silver about her forehead. "But it does amuse me so to hear a lady of your age and dignity indulge in such lavish conversational exercises."
Lark swallowed with a forced effort. "Did it hurt, Carol? How did you get it all out in one breath?"
"Lark, I do wish you wouldn"t gulp that way when folks use big words,"
said Fairy. "It looks--awful."
"Well, I won"t when I get to be as old and crabbed as--father," said Lark. "Sit down, Carol, and remember you"re sick."
Carol obediently sat down, and looked sicker than ever.
"You can laugh if you like," she said, "I am sick, at least, I was this afternoon. I"ve been feeling very queer for three or four days. I don"t think I"m quite over it yet."
"Pie! You were right, Aunt Grace! That"s the way pie works."
"It"s not pie at all," declared Carol heatedly. "And I didn"t take that piece out of the pantry, at least, not exactly. I caught Connie sneaking it, and I gave her a good calling down, and she hung her head and slunk away in disgrace. But she had taken such big bites that it looked sort of unsanitary, so I thought I"d better finish it before it gathered any germs. But it"s not pie. Now that I think of it, it was my head where I was sick. Don"t you remember, Lark, I said my head ached?"
"Yes, and her eyes got red and bleary when she was reading. And--and there was something else, too, Carol, what--"
"Your eyes are bloodshot, Carol. They do look bad." Prudence examined them closely. "Now, Carol Starr, don"t you touch another book or magazine until after the wedding. If you think I want a bloodshot bridesmaid, you"re mistaken."
They all turned to look across the yard at Connie, just turning in.
Connie always walked, as Carol said, "as if she mostly wasn"t there."
But she usually "arrived" by the time she got within speaking distance of her sister.
"Goodness, Prue, aren"t you going to do anything but eat after you move to Des Moines? Carol and I were counting the napkins last night,--was it a hundred and seventy-six, Carol, or--some awful number I know. Carol piled them up in two piles and we kneeled on them to say our prayers, and--I can"t say for sure, but I think Carol pushed me. Anyhow, I lost my balance, and usually I"m pretty well balanced. I toppled over right after "G.o.d save," and Carol screamed "the napkins"--Prue"s wedding napkins! It was an awful funny effect; I couldn"t finish my prayers."
"Carol Starr! Fifteen years old and--"
"That"s a very much exaggerated story, Prue. Connie blamed it on me as usual. She piled them up herself to see if there were two feet of them,--she put her stockings on the floor first so the dust wouldn"t rub off. It was Lark"s turn to sweep and you know how Lark sweeps, and Connie was very careful, indeed, and--"
"Come on, Fairy, and see the veil!"
"The veil! Did it come?"
With a joyous undignified whoop the parsonage girls scrambled to their feet and rushed indoors in a fine Kilkenny jumble. Aunt Grace looked after them, thoughtfully, smiling for a second, and then with a girlish shrug of her slender shoulders she slipped out and followed them inside.
The last thing that night, before she said her prayers, Prudence carried a big bottle of witch hazel into the twins" room. Both were sleeping, but she roused Carol, and Lark turned over to listen.
"You must bathe your eyes with this, Carol. I forgot to tell you. What would Jerry say if he had a bleary-eyed bridesmaid!"
And although the twins grumbled and mumbled about the idiotic nonsense of getting-married folks, Carol obediently bathed the bloodshot eyes.
For in their heart of hearts, every one of the parsonage girls held this wedding to be the affair of prime importance, national and international, as well as just plain Methodist.
The twins were undeniably lazy, and slept as late of mornings as the parsonage law allowed. So it was that when Lark skipped into the dining-room, three minutes late for breakfast, she found the whole family, with the exception of Carol, well in the midst of their meal.
"She was sick," she began quickly, then interrupting herself,--"Oh, good morning! Beg pardon for forgetting my manners. But Carol was sick, Prudence, and I hope you and Fairy are ashamed of yourselves--and auntie, too--for making fun of her. She couldn"t sleep all night, and rolled and tossed, and her head hurt and she talked in her sleep, and--"
"I thought she didn"t sleep."
"Well, she didn"t sleep much, but when she did she mumbled and said things and--"
Then the dining-room door opened again, and Carol--her hair about her shoulders, her feet bare, enveloped in a soft and clinging kimono of faded blue--stalked majestically into the room. There was woe in her eyes, and her voice was tragic.
"It is gone," she said. "It is gone!"
Her appearance was uncanny to say the least, and the family gazed at her with some concern, despite the fact that Carol"s vagaries were so common as usually to elicit small respect.
"Gone!" she cried, striking her palms together. "Gone!"
"If you do anything to spoil that wedding, papa"ll whip you, if you are fifteen years old," said Fairy.
Lark sprang to her sister"s side. "What"s gone, Carrie?" she pleaded with sympathy, almost with tears. "What"s gone? Are you out of your head?"
"No! Out of my complexion," was the dramatic answer.
Even Lark fell back, for the moment, stunned. "Y-your complexion," she faltered.
"Look! Look at me, Lark. Don"t you see? My complexion is gone--my beautiful complexion that I loved. Look at me! Oh, I would gladly have sacrificed a leg, or an arm, a--rib or an eye, but not my dear complexion!"
Sure enough, now that they looked carefully, they could indeed perceive that the usual soft creaminess of Carol"s skin was p.r.i.c.kled and sparred with ugly red splotches. Her eyes were watery, shot with blood. For a time they gazed in silence, then they burst into laughter.
"Pie!" cried Fairy. "It"s raspberry pie, coming out, Carol!"
The corners of Carol"s lips twitched slightly, and it was with difficulty that she maintained her wounded regal bearing. But Lark, always quick to resent an indignity to this twin of her heart, turned upon them angrily.
"Fairy Starr! You are a wicked unfeeling thing! You sit there and laugh and talk about pie when Carol is sick and suffering--her lovely complexion all ruined, and it was the joy of my life, that complexion was. Papa,--why don"t you do something?"
But he only laughed harder than ever. "If there"s anything more preposterous than Carol"s vanity because of her beauty, it"s Lark"s vanity for her," he said.
Aunt Grace drew Carol to her side, and examined the ruined complexion closely. Then she smiled, but there was regret in her eyes.
"Well, Carol, you"ve spoiled your part of the wedding sure enough.
You"ve got the measles."