Part 21 (1/2)

”Wasn't it dreadful!” exclaimed Tavia. ”I was just scared stiff!”

”We do get into such awful predicaments,” mused Dorothy. ”But I suppose the others are almost as frightened as we are now,--I was dreadfully afraid when the woman shouted to us.”

”Wasn't she a scarecrow? Just like an old witch in a story book.

Listen! I thought I heard the girls!”

”Hark!” echoed Dorothy. ”I am sure that was Edna's yoddle. Answer it!”

At the top of her voice Tavia shouted the familiar call. Then she listened again.

”Yes,” declared Dorothy, ”that's surely Ned. Oh, do let's run! They might turn off on another road! This place seems to be all turns.”

When the welcome sounds of that call were heard by both parties little time was lost in reaching the lost ones. What had seemed to be nightfall was really only the blackness of the storm, and now, on the turnpike, a golden light shot through the trees, and wrapt its glory about the happy girls, who tried all at once to embrace the two who had gone through such a reign of terror.

”Hurry! Hurry!” called Miss Crane, skipping along like a schoolgirl herself.

To tell the story of their adventures, the Dalton girls marched in the center of the middle row--everyone wanted to hear, and everyone wanted to be just as near as possible to Tavia and Dorothy.

Taking refuge under the cliff seemed exciting enough, but when Dorothy told how they had lost the trail to the mountain top, and how all the footing slipped down as they tried to make the ascent, the girls were spell-bound. Then to hear Tavia describe, in her own inimitable way, the call of ”the witch”--made some shout, ad the entire party ran along as if the same ”witch” was at their heels.

When the report was made to Mrs. Pangborn, that dignified lady looked very seriously at Dorothy and Tavia. Miss Crane had explained the entire affair, making it clear that the girls became separated from the others by the merest accident, and that the storm did the rest.

”But you must remember, my dears,” said Mrs. Pangborn kindly, ”that, as boarding school girls, you should always keep near to the teacher in charge even when taking walks across the country. It is not at all safe to wander about as you would at home. Nor can a girl depend upon her own judgment in asking strangers to direct her. Sometimes thoughtless boys delight in sending the girls out of their way. I am glad the affair has ended without further trouble. You must have suffered when you found you really could not reach your companions.

Let it be a lesson to all of you.”

”Oh, if Miss Higley had been in charge,” whispered Edna, when the girls rehea.r.s.ed their interview with Mrs. Pangborn. ”You would not have gotten off so easily. She would have said you ran away from us.”

So the days at Glenwood gently lapped over the quiet nights, until week after week marked events of more or less importance in the lives of those who had given themselves to what learning may be obtained from books; what influence may be gained from close companions.h.i.+p with those who might serve as models; and what fun might be smuggled in between the lines, always against the rules, but never in actual defiance of a single principle of the old New England inst.i.tution.

”Just the by-laws,” the girls would declare. ”We can always suspend them, as long as we do not touch the const.i.tution.”

This meant, of course, that innocent, harmless fun was always permissible when no one suffered by the pranks, and no damage was done to property or character.

Rose-Mary Markin had become Dorothy's intimate friend. She was what is termed an all-round girl, both cultured and broad minded, a rare combination of character to find in a girl still in a preparatory school. She was as quick as a flash to detect deceit and yet gentle as one of the Babes in settling all matters where there was a question of actual intention. The benefit of the doubt was her maxim, and, as president of the Glenwood Club, the members.h.i.+p of which included girls from all the ranks, there was plenty of opportunity for Rose-Mary to exercise her benificence.

Viola Green had, as promised, resigned from office in the Nicks, and what was more she had organized a society in direct opposition to its principles. All the girls who had not done well in the old club readily fell in with the promises of the new order, and soon Viola had a distinct following--the girls with grievances against Rose-Mary, imagined or otherwise. Molly Richards kept her ”eye pealed for bombs,”

she told Dorothy, and declared the ”rebs” would be heard from sooner or later in the midst of smokeless powder.

”It's a conspiracy against someone,” announced Molly to Rose-Mary one evening. ”I heard them hatching the plot and--well I wouldn't like to be unfair, but that Viola does hate Dorothy.”

”She can never hurt Dorothy Dale,” answered the upright president of the Glenwood Club. ”She is beyond all that sort of thing.”

But little did she know how Viola Green could hurt Dorothy Dale. Less did she think how serious could be the ”hurt” inflicted.

The mid-year examinations had pa.s.sed off, and the Dalton girls held their own through the auspicious event. Dorothy showed a splendid fundamental education; that which fits a girl for clear study in subsequent undertakings, and that which is so often the result of the good solid training given in country schools where methods are not continually changing. Tavia surprised herself with getting through better than she had hoped, and credited her good luck to some plain facts picked up in the dear old Dalton schoolroom.

But a letter from home disturbed Tavia's pleasant Glenwood life--her father wrote of the illness of Mrs. Travers and said it was necessary that their daughter should come home. For a few weeks only, the missive read, just while the mother had time to rest up and recover her strength--the illness was nothing of a serious nature.