ght appeared
she sat up in bed, pressing her hands to her smarting cheeks.

"If the freckles are gone, and my skin is fair, I won't say a word about
this burning," she said. "But how," she continued, "can my face look
even half-way decent, when it is smarting so furiously?"

At last, she could bear it no longer, and springing out of bed, she ran
to the dresser, and gasped as she looked at her reflection. Even in the
dim light of the dawn of a cloudy day, she saw that her cheeks, her
forehead, her chin, were all very red.

Were they spotty as well?

"O dear! If it was only light enough for me to really see!" she
whispered.

She looked at the tiny clock. At that early hour no one was stirring at
Glenmore.

No one would see her if she went down to the door, and it would be
lighter there. A gable shaded the window, and made her room less light.

Thrusting her tangled locks up under the elastic of her muslin cap, and
throwing on a loose sack, she snatched the hand-mirror from her dresser,
and softly yet swiftly went out into the hall and down the stairs.

She paused in the lower hall, there thinking that she heard some one
coming, she rushed out on the piazza, down the steps, and across the
lawn to an open space where nothing could obscure the light. Already it
was growing lighter, and she lifted the hand-mirror. A look of horror
swept over her little face.

"Oh, what a fright!" she cried, as she stood staring at the reflection.

Her face was scarlet, and if the freckles had disappeared, it was
because they had taken the skin with them when they went!

For a moment she stood as if rooted to the spot, then realizing that
some restless pupil might be up and chance to see her from the window,
she turned and ran at top speed toward the house. The big door stood
open as she had left it, and she raced across the hall and up the
stairway, entering her room just as footsteps echoed along the hall.

She closed the door and sat down.

"Why _did_ I see that horrid old advertisement?" she exclaimed. Her
smarting, burning cheeks were enough to bear, but worse than that was
the thought that she would be compelled to appear in the class-room.

How the girls would stare at her! What would they say among themselves?

[Illustration: "OH, WHAT A FRIGHT!" SHE CRIED.--_Page 73._]

Vera believed herself to be the only girl at Glenmore who had even the
slightest reason for worrying. Ida Mayo possessed the same idea.

*