“I hope he does not take it into his head to economize on my spinal cord by going over Evergreen Hill,” replied Tavia. “I tried that once in his rattletrap, and we had to walk over to Jordan, and from there I rode home on a pair of milk cans. But Doro,” she continued, “I cannot get over the sudden taking away of Mingle Dingle. Surely the gods sent that telegram to save me.”
“I hope nothing serious has happened at her home,” Dorothy mused. “I never heard anything about her family.”
“You don’t suppose a little mouse of a thing, like that born music teacher, has any family,” replied Tavia irreverently. “I shall ever after this have a respect for the proverbial feather bed.”
“Here is Stony Junction,” Dorothy remarked, as the trainman let in a gust of wind from the vestibuled door to shout out the name of that station. “Madeline Maher gets off here. There, she is waving to us! We should have spoken to her.”
“Never too late,” declared Tavia, and she actually shouted a good-bye and a merry Christmas almost the full length of the car. Dorothy waved her hand and “blew” a kiss, to which the pretty girl who, with the porter close at her heels, was leaving the train for her home, responded. Chairs swung around simultaneously to allow their occupants a glimpse of the girl who had startled them with her shout. Some of the passengers smiled—especially did one young man, whose bag showed the wear usually given in college sports. He dropped his paper, and, not too rudely, smiled straight at Tavia.
“There!” exclaimed she. “See what a good turn does. Just for wishing Maddie a hilarious time I got that smile.”
“Don’t,” cautioned Dorothy, to whom Tavia’s recklessness was ever a source of anxiety. “We have many miles to go yet.”
“‘So much the better,’ as the old Wolfie, in Little Red Riding Hood, said,” Tavia retorted. “I think I shall require a drink of water directly,” and she straightened up as if to make her way to the end of the car, in order to pass the chair of the young man with the scratched-up suitcase.
Dorothy sighed, but at the same time she smiled. Tavia could not be repressed, and Dorothy had given up hope of keeping her subdued.
“Come to think of it,” reflected Tavia, “I never had any permanent luck with the drinking water trick. He looks so nice—I might try being sweet and refined,” and she turned away, making the most absurd effort to look the part.