It was late one afternoon when the happy thought struck her. She was in her room and she immediately sat down and wrote out a telegram to Warburton, asking him to come to San Francisco at once, as she had something of the utmost importance to tell him.
Then she ran downstairs and stole away across the garden to a secluded arbor in the far corner of the seminary grounds. On a small ledge beneath one of the old rustic benches, among a mass of other clandestine correspondence, she placed the message and the money for the coachman—a sympathetic individual who, because of the handsome tips he enjoyed from his precluded side line, was a stanch advocate of drastic academic rules against letter writing.
Dot, having taken the first definite step to rid herself of the responsibility which had weighed her down since the morning she had opened her bureau drawer and discovered the prodigality of Billy Gee’s gratitude, hurried back through the garden. As she reached a point where she could command a view of the walk leading from the street to the seminary’s front door, she came to an abrupt halt. Slowly approaching along the walk came a familiar figure, that of a little old woman, dressed in a neat, correct street dress. One glance, and the girl gave a glad cry. It was Mrs. Liggs! Shrilling her name, Dot raced toward her.
“Mrs. Liggs! Mrs. Liggs! Where have you been? We waited so long. We didn’t know what—— You darling!” she cried. She caught the frail form in her strong young arms and hugged and kissed her until the pale-blue eyes glistened with joy.
Locked in each other’s arms they stood on the seminary’s steps for some minutes talking in a fury of happy excitement. It developed that Mrs. Liggs had come to the city a few days after she had received Lemuel’s telegram. She had not been able to meet them as she had intended because of a sudden change of plans, which had required her presence in the southern part of the State prior to journeying north. Inquiry at the Golden West Hotel on her arrival elicited the information that Dot’s trunks had been checked out to Longwell’s Seminary, but Mrs. Liggs had postponed her visit until she got settled in a quiet place, away from the nerve-racking noise of the city’s business district. She told the girl all this in a hesitant, wistful voice, much as if she were relating something that was not entirely to her liking.
Presently, Dot led the way inside and thence into one of the gloomy parlors, grim in its austere furnishings, high ceiling and scrupulous cleanliness. On one of the walls, in a plain black mahogany frame, the stern visage of one of the Longwell sisters glared icily down on them. Authorization to conduct the Longwell Seminary as an educational institution was strikingly displayed in a gold-bordered parchment, bearing the seal of the State of California, and a hundred words of beautiful handwriting painfully difficult to decipher under the most favorable conditions.
As they were about to seat themselves a maid attired in severe black made her noiseless appearance at the door and, with a cautious glance over her shoulder, motioned hurriedly to Dot.
“Something terrible has happened, Miss Huntington,” she whispered, when the girl joined her in the hall. “Miss Jessie Longwell phoned the trustees, and they’re holding a meeting in the office now, about——” She broke off, her eyes seeking the floor.
“Go on, Mary! They’re holding a meeting, you say, and it’s over me, isn’t it?” said Dot quietly.
The maid nodded. “They’re trying to decide whether to expel you or not.”