“Why did I come to Oak Knowe alone? Because there was nobody to come with me. That is, Dinah or Ephraim, who might have come, couldn’t be trusted to go back alone. My dearest girl friend, Molly Breckenridge, had been enrolled here and we expected to come together, but the Judge’s health suddenly broke down and he was ordered to California and couldn’t part with her. Uncle Seth wasn’t well. He’s my guardian and Aunt Betty’s friend. She’s my great aunt who takes care of me but she wouldn’t leave Uncle Seth, even if he’s not our kin at all, though we call him so. Jim Barlow is tutoring in a boys’ school and; well, Aunt Betty said I could perfectly well and safely travel alone. I was put into the conductor’s care when I started from Baltimore and he passed me along to the next one, and they’ve all been splendid to me. There’d have been no mistakes if I hadn’t been careless myself. But I was. I missed a train I should have taken and didn’t send the telegram I ought at the right time and there was nobody at the station to meet me and—and—”
“The idea! A girl like you, traveling all the way from Baltimore to Toronto without a maid or any grown-up to take care of her! That’s the strangest thing I ever heard. Weren’t you just awfully scared all the time?” asked Florita Sheraton, amazed. “An English girl would have been in a blue funk every minute of the time.”
“I don’t know anything about a blue or other colored funk, but every well-bred American girl can take care of herself if she chooses. If she ‘loses her head’ she gets into trouble right away. I lost mine last night and went riding off at dark with a strange old man, who said he’d bring me here, instead of stepping into the telegraph office and wiring the Lady Principal. Then all I’d have had to do would be to wait for her to send for me, and after all it wasn’t the old man who brought me, it was Dr. Winston in his motor. He called here this morning and asked me to ride back with him and see Robin, but Miss Tross-Kingdon wouldn’t let me.”
“Course she wouldn’t. She never lets anybody do anything she wants to, if she can help it. Hateful old thing!” remarked Bessie Walters; at which the others laughed and Annie Dow inquired, “Who is Robin?”
Dorothy told the story of last night, her new acquaintances listening intently, and Winifred commenting:
“If you aren’t the very luckiest girl in the world! Why I never had an adventure in my life, yet I’m ages older than you.”
At this a shout of derision rose, and Fannie Dimock exclaimed:
“Don’t believe that, Queen Baltimore. There’s scarcely a day passes that she isn’t in some scrape or other. Why, last term, she was in disgrace so often I really believed she wouldn’t be allowed to come back.”
“Oh! little things like that don’t count. But—” she stopped speaking so abruptly and such an earnest expression settled on her face that a mate remarked:
“Look! There’s something brewing this minute! Look out, Win, what you do! Don’t mix any of us up in your schemes. I don’t want any more extras so soon again;” then explained to Dorothy that “extras” were some difficult lessons any culprit was obliged to learn.