"Thank you," replied Tavia as she hurried to secure an envelope that had flurried to the floor from the depths of her muff.
"What was it?" asked Dorothy innocently, as Tavia hid the envelope again.
"Oh, just a letter," replied the other, avoiding Dorothy's glance. "I thought I had destroyed it."
Attaching no significance to the remark, although Tavia turned about uneasily, Dorothy put away her shopping notes, and as the train slacked up under the great iron sheds of the city depot the girls made their way through the crowds, out into the wintry day, along the broad pavements, where the shop windows beamed in all their splendor of holiday goods and Christmas finery.
"Be careful of your purse," cautioned Dorothy, making her own secure within her squirrel muff.
"Oh, yes," replied Tavia with some impatience. It did seem as if Dorothy thought of nothing but purses and money.
"We will have to be careful, too, where we buy," persisted Dorothy, "else our money will scarcely go around."
Again Tavia felt annoyed. Was it because Dorothy had shared her money with her that she made such a fuss about it?
"We must get the boys' things first," went on Dorothy. "The little fellows must have their steam engines."
Then the face of her little brother Johnnie seemed to come before Tavia's bewildered eyes. How he beamed when she promised him that engine! And how fondly he kissed her when she declared it would make real steam! But she had her own five dollars at that time. That was before she had made—the mistake.