Page [108]
CHAPTER XIV
TAVIA IS DETERMINED
“After that scare I’m afraid the boys will have to go without a bird dog,” Tavia said that night as she and Dorothy were brushing their hair before the latter’s dressing-glass.
Tavia and Jennie and Ned and Nat were almost inseparable during the daytime; but when the time came to retire the flyaway girl had to have an old-time “confab,” as she expressed it, with her chum.
Dorothy was so bright and so busy all day long that nobody discovered—not even the major—that she was rather “out of it.” The two couples of young folk sometimes ran away and left Dorothy busy at some domestic task in which she claimed to find much more interest than in the fun her friends and cousins were having.
“It would have been a terrible thing if the poor dog had bitten one of us,” Dorothy replied. “Dr. Agnew, the veterinary, says without doubt it was afflicted with rabies.”
“And how scared your Aunt Winnie was!” Then Tavia began to giggle. “She will be so afraid of anything that barks now, that she’ll want all the trees cut down around the house.”
“That pun is unworthy of you, my dear,” Dorothy said placidly.
“Dear me, Doro Doodlekins!” exclaimed Tavia, suddenly and affectionately, coming close to her chum and kissing her warmly. “You are such a tabby-cat all of a sudden. Why! you have grown up, while the rest of us are only kids.”
“Yes; I am very settled,” observed Dorothy, smiling into the mirror at her friend. “A cap for me and knitting very soon, Tavia. Then I shall sit in the chimney corner and think——”