“Buffalo?” repeated Nat, vaguely.
“Any objections?” asked Ned pointedly, to tease his younger brother.
“Well,” replied Nat, lamely, “Buffalo is a big city and Tavia is—is—merely a little girl.”
This remark only made matters worse for Nat, as the others joined in the “jollying” and he was obliged to admit that he did miss Tavia, and was very sorry she had decided not to visit Birchland first.
“I don’t blame you, little brother,” declared Ned. “Tavia certainly is a winner, and when it comes to an all-round jolly, good-natured—er—ah—um—help me out, Dorothy! Any new adjectives at Glenwood?”
“Try ‘dandy,’” suggested Joe.
“Oh, great!” put in little Roger, to whom ‘dandy’ always meant something great.
“Thanks! Thanks!” acknowledged Ned. “I think if Lady Tavia stands for all of that she surely will be well done.”
“Oh, she can stand for more than that,” insisted her champion. “She once confided to me that she ‘stood’ for a colored baby. It was christened in the Dalton canal I believe, and no one, in the crowd of spectators, had the nerve to stand for the little one but Tavia.”
“And did she give him his name?” asked Roger, all at once interested in the black baby in the canal.