“And no whippings for girls?”
“I should say not!” cried Tavia. “There never was a girl who deserved corporal punishment.”
“Not even Nita Brandt?” suggested Dorothy, naming a girl who had ever been a thorn in the flesh for Tavia during their days at Glenwood.
“Well—perhaps she. But Nita’s about the only one, I guess.”
The next moment Tavia started to run down the long platform, dropping her bag and screaming:
“Jennie Hapgood! Jennie Jane Jemina Jerusha Happiness—good! How ever came you here?”
Dorothy was excited, too, when she saw the pretty girl whom Tavia greeted with such ebullition; but she looked beyond Jennie Hapgood, the expected guest from Pennsylvania.
There was the boys’ new car beside the station platform and Ned was under the steering-wheel while Nat was just getting out after Jennie. Of course, the two girls just back from New York were warmly kissed by Jennie. Then Nat came next and before Tavia realized what was being done to her, she was soundly kissed, too!
“Bold, bad thing!” she cried, raising a gloved hand toward the laughing Nat. But it never reached him. Then Dorothy had to submit—as she always did—to the bearlike hugs of both her cousins, for Ned quickly joined them on the platform. Tavia escaped Ned—if, indeed, he had intended to follow his brother’s example.
“What is the use of having a pretty cousin,” the White boys always said, “if we can’t kiss her? Keeps our hands in, you know. And if she has pretty friends, why shouldn’t we kiss them, too?”