“Now, young lady,” snapped Miss Olaine, “you may go into that room and remain with your friend until I choose to release you both. And I hope Mrs. Pangborn will return in season to take the responsibility of your further punishment off my hands.”
“Gracious!” exclaimed Tavia, quite loud enough for the teacher to hear, when Dorothy was rudely thrust into the dressing closet by the shoulders, “she thinks hanging’s too good for us, doesn’t she, Doro?”
But Dorothy was too angry to reply at first. She felt that the new teacher had gone quite beyond her rights in handling the matter. To push her into the room so!
“Why,” thought Dorothy, “she might as well have struck me! And Mrs. Pangborn would not have allowed such a thing. We—we are almost grown up. It is an insult.”
But she said nothing like this to Tavia. Besides, Tavia had brought punishment upon her own head in the first place by her practical joke. At the moment, Dorothy could not see that she was in anyway at fault. Miss Olaine had just “pounced upon” her, with neither right nor reason on her side!
“And here we are, shut into this little old room,” croaked Tavia. “Not even pigs for company.”
“Do be quiet, Tavia,” begged Dorothy. “You’ll have her back—and she’ll do something worse to us.”
“Here’s some books on the shelf,” said her friend. “Oh, dear! I wish they were story books. Only old textbooks.”
“All right,” said Dorothy, more cheerfully. “Let’s get up lessons for to-morrow.”