“Aunt Winnie may not be home, but, of course, the boys will be, and we always have Christmas together,” replied Dorothy.
Tavia fell to thinking. It was rarely she ever looked quite so serious. “I will stay on here,” she said. “I can’t afford to go to Dalton. And besides, home is so changed——”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” exclaimed Dorothy. “You can depend upon it if I can afford to travel, something will turn up to give you the same privilege. And here I am talking—how do I know but that failure may come yet? Then I would have to go—and stay!”
“You are forgetting about David Armstrong,” Tavia said quickly, to dispel the little blot of gloom. “‘Dave’ will surely win out.”
There was not more time for talking, for, as Dorothy said some of the mid-year tests were to be prepared for that very day.
Tavia, never fond of study, but doing better than she had expected to do, worked uneasily over her geometry. Dorothy was making an outline for a thesis. The morning was dark, and it was plain that the upper world was burdened with snow.
One more week and Glenwood would be in an uproar, with girls leaving for home for the Christmas holidays. Everyone seemed happy that morning, when the classes were called—everyone except Jean. Dorothy pitied her in her heart, for, though she might have made some mistakes, still, thought Dorothy, “we all make mistakes in different ways.”
When the day’s work was done and the papers had been examined Dorothy’s thesis was pronounced the most perfect, and for it she would receive the usual holiday prize, a gold pin, the gift of the faculty. This was one of the most desirable tributes that could be bestowed upon a pupil of Glenwood. It was enamelled with the Glenwood flag and the school motto.
The next evening, with some pleasant exercises, it was presented, and every girl, even the “T’s” cheered, for no one could honestly dispute Dorothy’s right to popularity. Little Zada stole up to her, as they were leaving the assembly room, and reaching high, put her arms about Dorothy’s neck, and kissed her affectionately.
Then the Glens held a meeting, and gave her a “shower.” What was not in that shower could hardly be imagined. Cologne, of course, gave her a box of perfume, Edna, a silk flag, Tavia, a shoe bag with a little white dog “Ravelings” painted on. (Tavia did not paint it but that was of no account.) Other trifles and pretty trinkets came in a real shower, so that the evening, so close to the end of the mid-year term, ended most happily.