“Is he really my brother?” demanded Jennie, in amazement. “Why, you know he is, Tavia Travers!”
“Oh, no! I mean are they going to be married at Christmas?”
“Yes. That is the plan now. And you’ve all got to come to Sunnyside to the wedding. Nothing less would suit Jack—or father and mother,” Jennie said happily. “So prepare accordingly.”
Nat raced with Tavia for the bag she had dropped. He got it and clung to it all the way in the car to The Cedars, threatening to open it and examine its contents.
“For I know very well that Tavia’s got oodles of new face powder and rouge, and a rabbit’s foot to put it on with—or else a kalsomine brush,” Nat declared. “Joe and Roger want to paint the old pigeon house, anyway, and this stuff Tavia’s got in here will be just the thing.”
In fact, the two big fellows were so glad to see their cousin and Tavia again that they teased worse than ever. A queer way to show their affection, but a boy’s way, after all. And, of course, everybody else at the Cedars was delighted to greet Dorothy and Tavia. It was some time before the returned travelers could run upstairs to change their dresses for dinner. Jennie had gone into her room to change, too, and Tavia came to Dorothy’s open door.
“Oh, that letter!” she exclaimed, seeing Dorothy standing very gravely with a letter in her hand. “Haven’t you sent it?”
“You see I haven’t,” Dorothy said seriously.
“But why not?”
“It seems such a bold thing to do,” confessed her friend. “We know so little about him. And it might encourage him to write in return——”