“There,” she said with a sigh of relief as she slipped the little cream-colored square into her blouse. “I shall just have time to run to the office with it before dinner. Somehow I feel better already. It almost seems as if I had been talking to Tavia. I will surely have an answer by to-morrow night. I do wonder—Oh, I wonder where Tavia is—and what she is doing just now!”
It was a pleasant walk to the country post-office, and Dorothy hurried along in a happier frame of mind than she had enjoyed during all that day. The small worry that had been smouldering in her heart for some weeks (ever since the night of Tavia’s queer actions in her sleep when she painted her face with the red crayon) did not need much encouragement to burst forth into a live flame.
And that was precisely what happened when Nat also expressed the opinion that Tavia should have come to North Birchland and that Buffalo was “a big place for such a small girl.” Then, that Dorothy’s aunt should state plainly her fear regarding Tavia’s love for the stage,—surely all this was enough to throw Dorothy into a very fever of anxiety.
That Dorothy knew of Tavia’s strange actions on that one occasion, and that she alone, was aware of this, added to the anxiety. The book “How to Act” had betrayed Tavia’s secret in clearer terms than even Dorothy would admit to herself. But if Tavia should run away! And if Dorothy had not warned the Travers folks in time!
That evening, after mailing her letter, Dorothy made an excuse to leave the rest of the family and so remained in her own room. She wanted to be alone—to think. In fact, she had been so accustomed to those little solitary thinking spells in Glenwood that the time at the Cedars seemed to be a trifle too exacting. The boys wanted to be with their sister, and Mrs. White had so much to talk over (it was so delightful to have a “big daughter” to converse with), then the major needed Dorothy’s counsel in many small, but important matters, so that, altogether, the girl from Glenwood found herself busy—just a little too busy, considering the problem she was trying to solve, which was how to get immediately into communication with Tavia.
That night she dreamed of it all, and for three days following the mailing of her letter she could scarcely think of anything other then why the expected answer did not arrive.
Finally, Dorothy felt that she must take some one into her confidence. All the nervous energy of her young nature had, for days, been so set upon that one point—to hear from Tavia—that the whole circumstance had assumed great importance. She could think of nothing else. Every hour added to her anxiety. She imagined all sorts of dreadful things. Yes, she must tell somebody of it and thus relieve her mind or she felt she would be ill. This seemed to her the greatest trouble she had ever encountered.
It was a delightful summer evening when Dorothy, dressed in her sea-foam mulle gown, with its dainty silver white trimmings stepped out on the porch, and had the good fortune to find Nat there alone. It was to her young cousin that she had made up her mind to confide her worries, and here he was, as if he was just waiting to help her in this matter of her own heart and Tavia’s.
“Great Scott! But you startled me!” exclaimed Nat, jumping up from the hammock. “I do believe, Doro, that I had clean forgotten that you were with us—no offense—but you see I was sort of dreaming and when you glided through that window—well—I say, Doro, I thought my dream had come true!”
“Nat, could you come for a little walk?” asked Dorothy. “You should not dream so early, and besides, you should not, at any time, dream of young girls. You admitted as much, you know. But Nat, I just want a quiet talk—come out along the road as far as the bridge. I want to make sure we are entirely alone.”