"Now, what are you going to send home? We must get the things first that will have to be sent away."
"I've fixed all that," stammered Tavia. "I won't have to get anything to send home."
"I didn't want to take her money," Tavia tried to tell herself, "and I was willing to tell her all about it, but she wouldn't listen. Now, if only I can manage to get Nat to keep quiet. But, at any rate, I did not mean to deceive Dorothy."
But all the same Tavia did not relish the handling of Dorothy's Christmas savings, and somehow she took little interest in all the possible gifts Dorothy made notes of, in preparation for the day's shopping in the city.
"I will have to tell Nat, I suppose," she was thinking, as she finally picked up the little shopping bag and was ready to start off with Dorothy. "I'll tell him to-night—but I do hate to. I wish Doro would not be so over-generous," and she crushed the money in the leather case and put it securely within the satchel.
"Come, Tavia, we will surely miss that train if you do not make haste," declared Dorothy for she could not understand why Tavia should not be more alert and more interested.
"I forgot my muff," pleaded Tavia, "and had to go back for it. I suppose I would forget my head, as mother says, if it were not tied on."
Dorothy smiled and hurried on, with Tavia following.
Surely Christmas shopping was something any girl should love, Dorothy thought, as she wondered why Tavia appeared so indifferent.
Meanwhile, Tavia was struggling with her conscience. She had accepted Dorothy's money reluctantly, it might have been, but at the same time she had taken it. And she told Dorothy her own money was spent for——