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 gone away to a boarding-school! You know very well you wouldn't have offered to carry any high-school girl's bag for her last year if you were to die for it. Nor walk to school with her either. Go on back into the house. Your teeth are chattering.'

'From sheer nervousness.'

'And I suppose it's from nervousness your hands are turning purple.'

'Well, will you wait till I go back and put something on?'

'Of course I won't. Do you think I want to appear with you traipsing along beside me, carrying my school-bag, as if I had a weak back?'

'But I want to ask you something.'

'Well, ask it. And do hurry.' She glanced at his head. 'It is already coated,' she warned.

'It's an invitation,' he said. He became suddenly serious, and a little self-conscious. 'I've just heard I can ask a girl for next Saturday. Our school Prom, you know. I thought I was out of it because of this darned quarantine business' (Nevin had been at home for over a week because of an exposure to measles), 'but the doctor says I can go back to school to-morrow, and that I'm perfectly all right for the dance Saturday. I want you to be my girl, Sheilah. I mean my girl at the dance,' he flushed, suddenly brownish red like his hands. 'My mother,' he hurried on, 'will chaperon you. She is