in
while she was being taken home by Mr. Bonner in the Bonner surrey--she
had never dreamed a surrey could bump and lurch and jostle so. But
people seldom die of measles; and that was what young Doc Alison, next
morning, diagnosed her malady. It seemed that there is more than one
kind of measles and that one can go on having one variety after another,
ad nauseam, so to speak.

"The case is well developed--you should have called me yesterday," said
young Doc rebukingly.

"I knew you were sick yesterday!" chided mother. "And to think I let you
go to that party!"

"Party?" queried young Doc. "What party?--when?"

Then he heard about the function at the Bonners', and Missy's debute.

"Well," he commented, "I'll bet there'll be a fine little aftermath of
measles among the young folks of this town."

The doctor's prophecy was to fulfill itself. On her sick-bed Missy heard
the reports of this one and that one who, in turn, were "taken down."

For the others she was sorry, but when she learned Mr. Archibald Briggs
had succumbed, she experienced poignant emotions. Her emotions were
mingled: regret that she had so poorly repaid a deed of gallant service
but, withal, a regret tempered by the thought they were now suffering
together--he ill over there in Raymond Bonner's room, she over here in
hers--enduring the same kind of pain, taking the same kind of medicine,
eating the same uninteresting food. Yes, it was a bond. It even, at the
time, seemed a romantic kind of bond.

Then, when days of convalescence arrived, she wrote a condoling note
to the two patients at the Bonnets'--for Louise had duly "taken down,"
also; and then, as her convalescence had a few days' priority over
theirs, she was able to go over and visit them in person.

Friendships grow rapidly when people have just gone through the same
sickness; people have so much in common to talk about, get to know one
another so much more intimately--the real essence of one another. For
instance Missy within a few days learned that Louise Briggs was an
uncommonly nice, sweet, "cultured" girl. She enlarged on this point when
she asked her mother to let her accept Louise's invitation to visit in
Keokuk.

"She's the most refined girl I've ever met, mother--if you know what I
mean."

"Yes--?" said mother, as if inviting more.

"She's going to a boarding-school in Washington, D. C., this winter."

"Yes--?" said mother again.

"And she's travelled a lot, but not a bi