"You shall help me pick it out," agreed Dorothy. "In the meantime don't sit on the only one I have. I just left it on the sofa as you came in—"
"And if it isn't the dearest, sweetest thing now," exclaimed Tavia, rescuing the mass of perishables she had unwittingly pressed into something like a funeral piece.
"Oh!" exclaimed Dorothy. "I did like that hat!"
"And so did I!" declared Tavia. "That hat was a stunner, and I deeply regret it's untimely taking away—it went to pieces without a groan. That comes of having a real Leghorn. I could sit all over my poor straw pancake and it would not as much as bend—couldn't. It would have no place to bend to."
"You could never wear anything that would become you more than a simple sailor," said Dorothy, with the air of one in authority, "and if I had your short locks I would just sport a jaunty little felt sailor all summer. But with my head—"
"Jaunty doesn't go. I quite agree with you, picture lady, your head is cut out for picture hats. Another positive evidence of money running in your family—my head was cut out for an economical pattern—lucky thing for me!" and Tavia clapped her aforesaid sailor on her bronze head at a decidedly rakish angle, while Dorothy busied herself with a thorough investigation of the wreck of her own headpiece.
As told in "Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-Day," the first book of this series, these two girls, Dorothy Dale and Octavia Travers, were school friends, home friends and all kinds of friends, both about the same age, and both living in a little interesting town called Dalton, in New York state. Dorothy was the daughter of Major Dale, a prominent citizen of the place, while Tavia's father was Squire Travers, a man who was largely indebted to Dorothy for the office he held, inasmuch as she had managed, in a girl's way, to bring about his election.
Tavia had a brother Johnnie, quite an ordinary boy, while Dorothy had two brothers, Joe, aged nine and Roger, aged seven years.
There was one other member of the Dale household, Mrs. Martin, the housekeeper, who had cared for the children since their mother had been called away. She was that sort of responsible aged woman who seems to grow more and more particular with years, and perhaps her only fault, if it might be termed such, was her excessive care of Roger—her baby, she insisted,—for to her his seven years by no means constituted a length of time sufficient to make a boy of him. The children called Mrs. Martin, Aunt Libby, and to them she was indeed as kind and loving as any aunt could be.
Dorothy had an aunt, Mrs. Winthrop White, of North Birchland in summer, and of the city in winter, a woman of social importance, as well as being a most lovable and charming lady personally. A visit of Dorothy and Tavia to the Cedars, Mrs. White's country place, as related in "Dorothy Dale," was full of incidents, and in the present volume we shall become still better acquainted with the family, which included Mrs. White's two sons, Ned and Nat, both young men well worth knowing.