Dorothy Dale's Great Secret

And as no one knew it but Dorothy, she would keep it to herself, unless some development in Tavia’s illness would make it necessary to give the entire history of the case.

With a head almost bursting, it seemed, from the stress of the complication of worry and anxiety, Dorothy finally settled down on Miss Higley’s cretonne couch, while the teacher tried to make herself comfortable in Dorothy’s place, and Tavia Travers lay still and heavy with a fever, all unconscious of the changes that were going on about her.

CHAPTER V

AN UNTIMELY LETTER

For three days after that eventful night Tavia was obliged to keep to her room. She had a fever – from a cold the doctor thought – nothing contagious he was positive – but, as a precautionary measure Dorothy was given another room, until the fever should be entirely broken.

But the two friends were not to be separated much longer, for Tavia had quite recovered now, and was up and about her room, receiving notes and flowers from the girls, and recuperating generally.

“The first good rest I’ve had in months,” Tavia told Dorothy, as they sat together again on the little window seat, looking out on the tennis court.

“I do really believe you look better than you did before you were taken ill,” agreed Dorothy, giving her friend a look of unmistakable admiration.

“That’s lucky for me,” Tavia replied with something that sounded like a sigh.

“Why?” asked Dorothy in some surprise.

“Oh, nothing,” was the answer, given rather evasively. “But a girl can’t afford to get scrawny. Fancy yourself slinking down like a cornstalk in the fall! Why, even the unapproachable Dorothy Dale could not well stand the slinking process, to say nothing of an ordinary gawk like me going through it,” and Tavia slyly looked into the mirror. She evidently had some particular reason for being so anxious about her good looks.

Dorothy had been noticing this peculiarity of Tavia’s for some time – she had been so extreme about her toilet articles – using cold cream to massage her face daily, then brushing her hair ardently every night, to say nothing of the steam baths she had been giving her face twice a week.

All this seemed very strange to Dorothy, but when she laughed at Tavia’s new-found pastimes the latter declared she was going to look nice for the summer; and that any girl who did not take care of herself externally was quite as blamable as she who neglected the hidden beauty of heart or brain.

And there was no denying that the “grooming” added much to the charms of Tavia’s personality. Her hair was now wonderfully glossy, her cheeks delicately pink, her arms round and her hands so shapely! All this, applied to a girl who formerly protested against giving so much as half an hour daily to her manicure needs!

Dorothy was anxious to have a serious talk with Tavia, but considered it too soon after her illness to bring about that conversation, so she only smiled now as Tavia set all her creams and stuffs in a row, then stretched herself out “perfectly flat to relax,” as the book directions called for. Fancy Tavia doing a thing like that!

“When I dare – that is as soon as that old Rip Van Winkle of a doctor lets me off,” said Tavia suddenly, “I’m going to get a set of exercisers for myself. I don’t believe we have half enough muscle work.”

“Why, my dear, one would imagine you were training for the circus ring,” said Dorothy laughing.

“Hardly,” replied the other. “I never was keen on bouncing, and circus turns all end with a bounce in the net. Those nets make me creepy – a mattress for mine when on the rebound. Have you been to the post-office?”

“No, but I’m going. Want any stamps?”

“No. But if – if you get a letter for me I wish you wouldn’t put it into Mrs. Pangborn’s box – I expect a little note from a girl, and I’m sure it need not be censored, as the rest of the letters are.”

“But the rule,” Dorothy reminded her gently.

“I believe the United States postal laws are of more importance than the silly, baby rules of Glenwood school,” snapped Tavia with unexpected hauteur, “and it’s against the law for one person to open the letters of another.”

“But Mrs. Pangborn takes the place of our mothers – she is really our guardian when we enter her school. We agree to the rules before we are taken in.”

“No, we were ‘taken in’ when we agreed to the rules,” persisted the other. “Now, as it’s your turn to do the post office this week, I think you might do me a little favor – I assure you the letter I expect is not from some boy. Other girls can smuggle boys’ letters in, and yet I can’t contrive to get a perfectly personal note from a perfectly sensible girl, without the missive being – passed upon by – google-eyed Higley!”

“Oh, Tavia! And she was so kind to you when you were sick.”

“Was she? Then she ought to keep it up, and leave my letters alone!”

“Well,” sighed Dorothy rising, “I must go for the mail at any rate.”

“And you won’t save my one little letter?”

“How could I?” Dorothy pleaded.

“Then if you do get it – see it among the others – couldn’t you leave it there? I will be able to walk down to the post office myself tomorrow.”

“But you couldn’t get the mail.”

“Oh, yes I could,” and Tavia tossed her head about defiantly.

Dorothy was certainly in a dilemma. But she was almost due at the post-office, and could not stay longer to argue, so, clapping on her hat, she bade Tavia good-bye for a short time.

“It palls on me,” Tavia told herself, as she again approached the glass and took up the cold cream jar. “Who would ever believe that I would stoop so low! To deceive my own darling Dorothy! And to make a fool of myself with this ‘mugging’ as Nat would say.”

She dropped heavily into a chair. The thought of Dorothy and Nat had a strange power over the girl – she seemed ashamed to look at her own face when the memory of her dearest friends brought her back again to the old time Tavia – the girl free from vanity and true as steel to Dorothy Dale.

“But the letter,” thought Tavia, recovering herself. “If that letter gets into Mrs. Pangborn’s hands!”

Again she buried her face in her arms. Something seemed to sway her, first one way, then the other. What had caused her to change so in those last few short months? Why were her words so hollow now? Her own “copyrighted” slang no longer considered funny, even by those girls most devoted to her originality? And why, above all else, had she fallen ill after that queer dream about making-up with the cold cream and the red crayon?

“I’m afraid my mind was not built for secrets,” she concluded, “and if I keep on moping this way I can’t say what will happen next.”

Meanwhile Dorothy was making her way back from the village with the letters including one addressed to Octavia Travers. She had determined not to make any attempt at giving the note to Tavia without the school principal’s knowledge, for, somehow she feared Tavia’s honesty in such matters, and, although Dorothy felt certain that Tavia would do nothing she really believed to be wrong, she was afraid her chum might be misled by some outside influence.

With a heavy heart Dorothy laid the mail down on Mrs. Pangborn’s desk. That lady was just coming into the office as Dorothy was about to leave.

“Wait, dear,” said Mrs. Pangborn, “until I see if there is any mail for the girls in your corridor. How is Octavia to-day? I hope she will be able to go out by Sunday. Here, I guess this is a letter for her.” Dorothy almost turned pale as the principal took up the small blue envelope. “Just take it to her – perhaps it will cheer her up,” and she handed Dorothy the missive without attempting to open it or question the postmark. “There, I guess that is all I can give you,” and she put the others in her desk. “Tell Tavia I am anxious to see her out of doors again, and I hope her letter will have good news for her.”

Dorothy turned away with a smile of thanks, not venturing to say a word. She held the blue envelope in her hand, as if it was some tainted thing, for she well knew that the missive was not from home, the postmark “Rochester” standing out plainly on the stamped corner.

Tavia saw her coming, and quickly caught sight of the envelope in her hand.

“There, you old darling!” she exclaimed, giving Dorothy a vigorous hug. “I knew you would bring it to me. How you did ever manage it?”

“Mrs. Pangborn sent it with kind wishes that it might contain good news,” stammered Dorothy. “I made no attempt to get it to you without her knowledge.”

“She had it? And gave it back to you? Why, Dorothy, if she had – but of course it would not really have mattered,” and Tavia slipped the letter into her blouse. “I’m awfully obliged. Did you hear from home?”

“No,” answered Dorothy simply, a flush covering her fair face as she saw Tavia hide the letter. “I’m going out for a few minutes – so you may read that very important note, Tavia.”

CHAPTER VI

ON THE LAWN

“When I was a very small girl,” exclaimed Mollie Richards, otherwise known as Dick, “I used to hope I would die young so I could escape the tooth-filling process, but here I am, doing these dreadful exams, and I haven’t died yet.”

“Never despair,” quoted Rose-Mary. “The worst is yet to come.”

“Cheer up, fellows,” lisped little Nita Brandt, “We’ve been promised a clam-bake when it’s all over.”

“Yes, I fancy it will be all over with me when that clam-bake arrives,” sighed Edna Black. “Since Tavia has ‘turned turtle’ I don’t even have the fun of sneezing for exercise.”

“It’s an ill wind – and so on,” ventured Dick. “That was a most abominable habit of yours – sneezing when you were too lazy to open your mouth to laugh.”

“But I never would have believed that Tavia would get so – so – ”

“Batty,” finished Amy Brooks. “It’s slang, but I know of no English word into which the explicit ‘batty’ may be translated.”

“And Tavia of all girls,” added Ned, ponderingly.

“But it seems to agree with her,” declared Cologne. “Haven’t you noticed her petal complexion?”

“Too much like the drug store variety,” objected Nita. “I like something more substantial.”

“Sour grapes,” fired back Ned, who could always be depended on to take Tavia’s part. “Yours is so perfect – ”

“Oh, I know – freckles,” admitted the confused Nita with a pout. “Fair skins always freckle.”

“Then why don’t you close the ‘fair’ and raffle off,” suggested Dick. “Much easier than sleeping in lemon juice every night.”

“Molly Richards, you’re too smart!” snapped the abused one.

“Not altogether so,” replied Dick. “At least this abominable French can’t prove it. I have always believed that the only way to acquire a good French accent would be to get acute tonsilitis. Then one might choke out the gutterals beautifully.”

The girls of Glenwood school were supposed to be busy preparing for examinations. They had congregated in little knots, out of doors, scattering under the leafing oaks, and the temptation to gossip was evidently more than mere girls could withstand amid such surroundings.

“There’s Dorothy now,” announced Cologne, as the latter turned into the path.

“Yes, and there’s Tavia,” followed Ned, showing keen pleasure as the late absent one made her appearance on the lawn.

“Now we will have a chance to study her complex – ” lisped Nita with rather a malicious tone.

“Suit you better to study your complex – verbs,” snapped Ned, while Tavia and Dorothy came up at that moment.

Profuse greetings were showered upon Tavia, for the girls were well pleased to have her back with them, and it must be admitted that every eye which turned toward her came back in an unanimous vote “beautiful.” Even Nita did not dare cast a dissenting glance – she could not, for indeed Tavia had improved wonderfully, as we have seen, under the “grooming.”

Her hazel eyes shown brighter than ever in her clear peach-blow skin, her hair was not now “too near red” as Nita had been in the habit of declaring, but a true chestnut brown, and as “glossy as her new tan shoes,” whispered Ned to Cologne.

Tavia wore her brown gingham dress, and much to the surprise of her companions, had “her neck turned in.”

“What happened to your collar?” asked Dick, with a merry twinkle in her eyes.

“I happened to it,” answered Tavia promptly. “No sense in having one’s neck all marked up from collars – going about advertising capital punishment.”

“Behold the new woman! We will make her president of our peace conference. But of course we would not expect her to settle her own ‘squabs’ with Nita. We will have a committee of subs, for that department of the work,” said Cologne as she made room for Dorothy at her side, being anxious to get a private word with her. Tavia found a place between Ned and Dick, and soon the others were at least pretending to be at their books, realizing that too much time had already been wasted on outside matters.

The morning typified one of those rare days in June, and the girls on the lawn were like human spring blossoms – indeed what is more beautiful than a wholesome, happy young girl?

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