“The unkindest cut of all! But I tell you what I’ll do,” added Tavia, slowly. “I will bind an emergency bandage around one ankle, and put the flesh colored stocking on that foot. Then it will look the same color as the white one. ‘Ah-ha!’ says the villain. ‘I am avenged! Down to your doom, Jack Dalton!’”
And she sat right down on the floor and proceeded to do this, to Dorothy’s vast amusement.
The girls were scarcely dressed when a buckboard, drawn by a pair of half broken ponies, came into view over the break of the knoll, coming from the Dugonne trail.
“Here comes Lance!” exclaimed Tavia.
“And dear old Mrs. Petterby,” agreed Dorothy.
“Hi!” ejaculated Nat, whom the girls had joined on the big front porch. “What has the old lady in her lap, I want to know?”
“Oh!” gasped Dorothy. “How the ponies gallop. And look at the carriage hop and bounce. She was nearly thrown out that time. I wish Mr. Lance wasn’t so reckless.”
“But she’s hanging to that thing in her lap——”
“It’s Ophelia, of course,” said Tavia. “She’s brought her on a visit, too.”
“Why not?” demanded Dorothy, as the others laughed. “It’s the one thing that connects her with Rand’s Falls, Massachusetts. I expect without Ophelia Mrs. Petterby would be very homesick out here in Colorado.”