"At school?" echoed Joe, "he is never there to get along at all. I think it is clothes that keeps him home. I was going to ask Aunt Libby if any of mine might be spared—"
"Why, of course, you have some that are too small. I will see about them myself. It is too bad those children have no one to manage for them."
"What's the matter with their mother?"
"I don't know—that is—of course they have their mother, but she does not seem to know how to manage."
"And we have you and you do seem to know," responded the boy, trying the bow to make sure it would not shoot backwards. "Well, sis, you're a brick and Tavia, well, she is brick-dust, at any rate, but Jack—well he is Jack, and that is all there is to it. I'm going to ask father to let him carry Bugles next week. What little he could earn would do something for him."
"Mr. Travers is such a nice man," went on Dorothy, "I think Tavia is exactly like him."
"And Jack is like his mother. But we musn't back-bite," seeing the look of reproach on Dorothy's face. "I hope you have a jolly good time at the picnic."
One hour later the girls of Dalton school were crowded around Dorothy, asking all kinds of well-meant questions concerning her health. Tavia, too, came in for her share of the queries, although hers did not relate to health, but to other interesting little confidences, least of which was, by no means, the new dress.
But the fact that her own cousin Nannie gave it to her put Tavia at ease and questions that might otherwise seem impertinent were considered compliments—showing what a "stir" the dress created.
Dorothy looked a trifle pale, and the light blue muslin gown she wore brought out a mere gleam of the pink flush that usually shown in her cheeks. Her blonde curls—the delight of all her friends, fell in a mass about her shoulders, so that even Tavia in the famous pink and white dress did not outdo Dorothy in pretty looks.