“And there isn’t a house on that road that is out of sight of at least two other houses,” laughed the principal of Glenwood. “Oh, my dear! Dorothy has undoubtedly been caught in the storm—and has been wise enough to take shelter until morning. Don’t worry, my dear.”
Mrs. Pangborn was so cool about it that Tavia was bound to have her anxiety quenched. Only—she did feel as though something was not altogether right with her absent friend. But Tavia went away to supper, feeling somehow relieved.
The girls of Glenwood Hall usually had a good time at this hour. As long as they did not become too hilarious, the teachers had been in the habit of overlooking a certain amount of boisterousness and display of high spirits.
That is, so it had been up to this term. But since Miss Olaine had been in the school a general drawing of the lines over all the girls had gone on until more than Tavia and her immediate friends complained of the strictness of the school discipline.
This evening Miss Olaine sat like a thundercloud at the head of the seniors’ table. Every time a girl laughed aloud the stern teacher turned her baleful glance that way.
“Something’s up!” whispered Edna to Tavia. “Never has Miss Olaine looked as grim as to-night. What have you been doing to her, Tavia?”
“Not a thing!” declared the girl addressed. But the remark set Tavia to thinking of the incident of the postal card. She hurried through her supper, was excused early, and went directly to the office for her own mail—and for Dorothy’s.
“If that card isn’t there——”
This was Tavia’s unfinished thought. She obtained Johnny’s letter and Dorothy’s packet of missives, and ran upstairs to the room. There she spread all of her chum’s letters out under the reading lamp.
There was more than one card; but Tavia knew the one Miss Olaine had read, very well. The other cards were souvenir cards; this was a regular correspondence card, addressed to “Miss Dorothy Dale, Glenwood School.” There was no mistaking it.