Miette blushed. Certainly she did have “lovely red cheeks.”
“And your walk has done you so much good,” added Tavia. “Nothing like Dorothy Dale and fresh air to cure the blues. You should repeat the dose—every day. It’s a great thing for the nerves.”
“I agree with you,” said Miette, smiling with more reality than she had been noticed to assume since her very first day at Glenwood. “I think your autumn air would cure almost anything,” she finished.
“Except poverty,” joked Tavia. “It never puts a single cent in my purse, much as I coax and beg. I have even left my pocketbook wide open on the low bough of a tree all night, and in the morning went to find I was slighted by the woodland Santa Claus. And lots of girls had passed and looked deep down into that poor pocketbook’s sad, empty heart.”
“And so you got nothing?” asked Miette, laughing.
“Oh, yes, I got a poor scared treetoad, and I’ve got him yet. If you come over to room nineteen after tea I will show him to you. He is a star treetoad, and I’m teaching him tricks.”
Miette thought Tavia the funniest girl—always joking and never seeming to take anything—not even her lessons—seriously.
“I must wash up,” said Tavia, as they reached the turn in the corridor. “And I’m so torn—I don’t believe it will pay to try to patch up. They all match this way,” indicating the rents, one in her sleeve, one in her blouse, and a series of network streaks in her stockings.
“You should wear boots when you go in the woods, your briars are so affectionate.”
“But I have no boots,” answered Tavia, “except the big rubber kind I use at home when I go a-water-cressing.”