"Ah, well!" Cousin Sophia sighed. "It might be better for you if it
wasn't! Such a lot of hair takes from a person's strength. It's a sign
of consumption, I've heard, but I hope it won't turn out like that in
your case. I s'pose you'll all be dancing tonight--even the minister's
boys most likely. I s'pose his girls won't go that far. Ah, well, I
never held with dancing. I knew a girl once who dropped dead while she
was dancing. How any one could ever dance aga' after a judgment like
that I cannot comprehend."

"Did she ever dance again?" asked Rilla pertly.

"I told you she dropped dead. Of course she never danced again, poor
creature. She was a Kirke from Lowbridge. You ain't a-going off like
that with nothing on your bare neck, are you?"

"It's a hot evening," protested Rilla. "But I'll put on a scarf when we
go on the water."

"I knew of a boat load of young folks who went sailing on that harbour
forty years ago just such a night as this--just exactly such a night as
this," said Cousin Sophia lugubriously, "and they were upset and drowned
--every last one of them. I hope nothing like that'll happen to you
tonight. Do you ever try anything for the freckles? I used to find
plantain juice real good."

"You certainly should be a judge of freckles, Cousin Sophia," said
Susan, rushing to Rilla's defence. "you were more speckled than any toad
when you was a girl. Rilla's only come in summer but yours stayed put,
season in and season out; and you had not a ground colour like hers