“Well, get me the letter, dear. I shall do all I can, both to help you, and to help Major Dale. This is certainly a remarkable affair.”
Dorothy went to her room, and soon returned with the scrap of paper. She left it with Mrs. Pangborn without further conversation, except that the principal assured her that there was no need to worry, as Dorothy had been doing.
But that word “arrest” would neither leave the heart, head, nor eyes of the discouraged girl. Tavia did all she could to reassure her, but the facts were now too apparent to hide, and Dorothy was determined to be prepared for the worst.
It took some time for her to feel that she could enter the classroom. As she took her place, her eyes met those of Jean Faval, and in the latter’s was a glance so scornful, and so full of meaning that a shiver ran through Dorothy.
Little Zada tugged at Dorothy’s skirt, and, with eyes almost pleading, whispered:
“I want to see you at recess. Come out by the lake.”
Cologne and Molly Richards were late, and entered with flushed faces. They had evidently been running.
“Young ladies, you must be punctual,” warned the English teacher. “There is no excuse for this tardiness.”
Tavia pulled a wry face for the girls to see, but not intended for the teacher. Miss Cummings, however, noticed it, and asked Tavia to report to her at recess.
That almost settled Tavia’s work for the morning, as she, with a number of others, had planned how they were going to spend the hour of this beautiful day, when the frost was already in the air, and the leaves almost all off the trees.