The day had been unusually tiresome, all the little spots of jollity, club meetings, evening fudge parties and the like having suddenly been abandoned, and Dorothy, with Rose-Mary, was trying to find comfort in watching a winter sunset.
"Did you know Mrs. Pangborn had come back?" asked Rose, burying her chin in her palms, and dropping into a reclining attitude.
"No," said Dorothy, simply, still watching the floating clouds.
"Yes, and I overheard a maid ask Viola Green to go to the office after tea."
"Viola?" echoed Dorothy abstractedly.
"Of course you know it is she who made all this fuss, and I'm right glad she has been called to give an explanation at last."
"I have not been able to get the least hint of what it was all about," mused Dorothy. "I had a letter from Tavia to-day, and I'm afraid she cannot come back this term. My last lingering hope went out when I read that. Tavia would be sure to dig it out someway."
Rose-Mary thought how foolish had been the talk she had "dug out," and smiled when she imagined Tavia at work at such nonsense. But she would not pain Dorothy with the thought of that talk—too silly and too unkind to bother her with,—decided Rose, so that then, as well as on other occasions when the opportunity came to her to mention the arrest story, she let it pass.
"Let's go see Dick," suggested Rose, "we'll find Ned there and perhaps we may manage some fun. I'm positively getting musty."
"You go," said Dorothy, just as Rose had expected, "I'll do my exercises—I'm pages behind."