“Father, I mean, and he is coming to-morrow.” Tom spoke impatiently, for he thought Dorothy was much more thick in the head than she ought to have been.
“Father coming to-morrow?” Dorothy’s voice rose in a shout of sheer ecstasy. “Why, Tom, we will make him stay over Wednesday, and then he will be present when the Bursary winner is declared!”
No sooner had she uttered that joyful exclamation than a cold chill crept into her heart. How dreadful for her father to be present if she had really won the Mutton Bone; for he would have to be told perhaps that she could not be allowed to keep it because of that ugly fact of his past, which had landed him in prison for fourteen days.
What a shame that there should be any clouds to mar his coming—and it was really a cloud of an extra heavy sort that was the reason of his being obliged to come.
“It is pretty rotten that he should have been sent for,” growled Tom. “All the fathers have been asked to come. So you see Rhoda raised a pretty heavy dust when she butted in.”
“Why have they all been sent for?” asked Dorothy in dismay. To her way of thinking such extreme measures boded very ill for the culprits.
“The fathers and the masters are going to confer as to what is to be done with us,” explained Tom, who was leaning against a tree and moodily kicking at the turf. “Dr. Cameron has got a bee in his bonnet about the gambling stunt going on in the schools; he is making a bid to wipe it out for always—don’t you wish he may do it? He thinks the best way is to let our governors take a hand in the business. He told us that if it had only been a question of our sneaking out of dorm when we were supposed to be fast asleep in bed, he would have dealt with the matter himself, and taken care that we had so much work to do that we would be thankful to stay in bed when we had a chance to get there.”
“Oh, Tom, how I wish you had never given way to betting and that sort of thing!” cried Dorothy, dismayed at the turn things had taken.
“You’ll have to be more sorry still if I have to lose the scholarship,” said Tom with a savage air.
“It won’t—it surely won’t come to that!” said Dorothy in dismay. Again a pang smote her as she thought of the double trouble there might be in store for the dear father. It did not even comfort her at the moment to remember how wholly innocent she was of any hand in bringing on the trouble which might arise on her account.