“Then you do expect the boys to motor in by this road?” cried Tavia. “Sly Puss!”
“No, Ma’am. I am not thinking of Ned and Nat—or even of Bob Niles.”
Tavia made another little face at mention of Bob’s name. “Poor Bob!” she sighed. “No fun for him this summer. His father says he must go to work and begin to learn the business—whatever that may mean. Bob wrote me a dreadfully mournful letter. It almost tempted me to go to the same town and get a job in his father’s office, and so alleviate the poor boy’s misery.”
“You wouldn’t!” gasped Dorothy.
“Got to go to work somewhere,” decided Tavia. “And I hate housework and cleaning up after a lot of children.”
“But just think! how proud your father will be to have you at the head of the household. And remember, too, how much your brothers and sisters need you.”
“Goodness, Doro! You talk like the back end of the spelling-book—where all the hard words are. And the hardest word in the whole vocabulary is ‘duty.’ Don’t remind me of it while I am here with you at North Birchlands.”
“And think!” cried Dorothy, giving a little skip as they walked on. “Think! we are not a week away from dear old Glenwood School yet, and to-day Aunt Winnie’s surprise is coming. Gracious, Tavia! I can scarcely wait for ten o’clock.”
“I know—I know,” said Tavia. “If your Aunt Winnie wasn’t the very dearest little gray-haired, pink-cheeked woman who ever lived, I’d have shaken the secret out of her long ago. I just would! And we can’t even guess what the surprise is going to be like.”
“Goodness! No!” gasped Dorothy. “I’ve given up guessing. I know it is something perfectly scrumptious, but nothing like anything we ever had before.”