Nat promised, and in a few minutes Dorothy, hatted and cloaked and bag in hand, returned to the porch, ready to go. What was her surprise then, to find Tavia there before her. And Tavia also carried a bag!
“Wh-where are you going?” stammered Dorothy, and Tavia chuckled.
“With you, you ridiculous Doro,” she said. “Do you suppose for a moment I would let you go without me?”
“But your mother——”
“Oh, Ma will let me do anything I want to,” retorted Tavia, with a careless shrug of her shoulders. “She is lying down, so I didn’t even ask her. Just left a note pinned to the pincushion. When she sees that she will think for sure I have eloped.”
Dorothy hesitated, a tiny frown on her forehead. She could never become quite accustomed to the queerness of the Travers household. Everything in her own home had always been so orderly and comfortable and normal.
But with Tavia it was different, had always been different, and probably always would be different. For Tavia’s mother was extravagant, lazy, and often actually untidy. Tavia, left to the guidance of her mother, might have had a hard time of it.
But Mr. Travers was different, and though he had never made a great success of himself financially, he was genial, good-tempered and lovable. In fact, Dorothy had often, without wishing to be unfair in the least, attributed Tavia’s good traits to her father.
But now this action of Tavia’s leaving home at a moment’s notice to return for an indefinite stay at North Birchlands with only a scrawled note pinned hastily to a pincushion to announce her intention, seemed all wrong.
“But I want to say good-bye to your mother and tell her how sorry I am that I have to cut my visit short,” she protested.