Her sister darted across the kitchen, crying:
"I'll get the witch hazel--you poor dear!"
She had forgotten Aunt Dora, hiding in the pantry, and she collided with her with considerable force.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded the exasperated old lady.
"Nothing with me," returned the hurrying girl. "It's _she_ who's burned."
"Who's burned?" cried Aunt Dora. "Which of you is hurt?"
The girl who had stopped recovered her self-possession. "Let me go, Auntie," she said, quietly. "_My sister_ has burned her wrist."
And so the anxious and determined aunt did not catch the twins off their guard, neither in war nor peace.
When the girls invited to Evangeline Sitz's "party" hurried out of Central High on Monday afternoon, they found, as Laura Belding had promised, her father's automobile, as well as one of Mr. Purcell's big, three-seated "lumber barges," as the boys called Centerport's sight-seeing autos. There were three seats behind the driver's, each wide enough for four persons.
Laura and Chet (the latter of whom drove the Belding machine) had their own close friends in the smaller auto, and it was well filled. Mr. Purcell stood by the chauffeur of the big car as the Lockwood twins whisked into the front seat, completely filling it. Dora and Dorothy always preferred to keep together, and nobody could get between them here.
The girls heard the automobile owner ask the driver:
"How do you feel now, Bennie? All right?"
"Pretty good, Boss," said the man, who, the twins noticed, was pale.
"Sure you can make it all right? If you feel bad, say so, and I'll take your place."
"I'll be all right, Boss, once we get moving," said the chauffeur.
"Oh, look who's here!" whispered Dorothy, suddenly, to her sister, pinching her arm to attract her attention.
"It's Pretty!" gasped Dora. "Isn't he a vision of loveliness?"
The dandy of the school came mincing along the sidewalk with the evident intention of joining the auto party. He had been excused from classes early to go home and "rig up" for the occasion; and he certainly was--as Lance Darby said from the head automobile--"a sight for gods and men!"
Prettyman Sweet wore a white flannel coat and trousers, with a very fine line of blue running through the goods lengthwise. He wore a canvas hat and canvas shoes, cut low to show open-work crimson silk socks--oh, they were dreams of the hosier's art! He wore a flowing crimson tie, too, and around his waist, instead of an ordinary belt, he wore a new-fangled, knitted, crimson sash-belt, the like of which none of the boys of Central High had ever beheld before.