“Oh, yes!” admitted Tavia, with a shudder. “I know she is to be pitied. But it is dreadful hard to be picked upon the way she picks upon me——”
“Now, you know that’s nonsense,” replied Dorothy, sensibly. “If you would not answer back and give her an excuse for punishing you, you’d not be in trouble. She gave me no condition.”
“Oh, that’s your luck, that’s all,” sighed Tavia.
“You know that’s not so,” replied Dorothy, mildly. “Do be careful, Tavia. And let us tell the other girls and get them to try to be kind to Miss Olaine. I am very sorry for her.”
“Well—I s’pose—of course I am, too!” exclaimed the really warm-hearted Tavia. “But she does get my ‘mad up’ so easy!”
“You get mad without much provocation, it seems to me. Now, after church service to-morrow, let’s get the girls all in our room—our crowd, I mean—and tell them about the Rector Street School fire.”
“All right. The poor thing——”
“Miss Olaine?”
“Of course,” said Tavia. “The poor thing must be always remembering about the little kiddies, and how she came near to forgetting them——”
“And if it hadn’t been for the man on the steel beam outside——”