“Well! I—like—that,” murmured Tavia in a tone that showed she did not like it, at all. “Just you wait, Doro. We haven’t heard the last of this. Old Olaine will just be waiting for half a chance to pounce on us again.”
Dorothy did not get at what she was looking for in the directory until the afternoon of the next day. Then she was very careful to ask permission to go to the office for reference.
She found the name and address of the secretary of the bridge builders’ union, and she wrote that afternoon asking about Tom Moran. She explained just why she wanted to learn about him, and his whereabouts, and tried to put before the person she wrote to the pitiful history of Celia Moran in a way that might engage his interest.
Dorothy had told nobody about Celia—not even Tavia. Of course her chum would have been interested in the child from the “Findling” and her lost brother. But just now—at the beginning of the term—there really was so much going on at Glenwood that aside from the hours that they spent in their imprisonment, the two friends had very little time to talk together.
This last half-year at Glenwood was bound to be a very busy one. Some studies in which Dorothy was proficient Tavia did not stand so well in, and vice versa. They had to study very hard, and when Tavia “broke out” as she was bound to do every little while, it seemed absolutely necessary that she “let off steam.”
Mrs. Pangborn understood, and so did the older teachers. But Miss Olaine was naturally a martinet, and she was very nervous and irritable in the bargain. She could not overlook the least exuberance of schoolgirl enthusiasm.
So, inside of a week, Tavia was “conditioned.” Each black mark that she had against her in deportment had to be “worked off” before the end of the half, or she could not graduate.
And in seeking to shield her chum again from the consequences of her folly, Dorothy found herself conditioned, too. Mrs. Pangborn demanded her presence in the office, and for almost the first time in her career at Glenwood, Dorothy Dale found herself at odds with the kind principal of the school.
“I am sure I have been here long enough for you to know me quite well, Mrs. Pangborn,” she said, with some heat, to the good lady who loved her. “Have I changed so much, do you think? Nobody else reports me but Miss Olaine——”
“You are changing every day, my dear. We all are,” said the principal, firmly. “But I do not believe your heart has changed, Dorothy Dale. Unfortunately Miss Olaine’s manner made all you older girls dislike her at the start. But have you stopped to think that perhaps there is something in her life—some trouble, perhaps—that makes her nervous and excitable?”