Dorothy Dales Queer Holidays | Page 3

friends, whose acquaintance some
of you are forming for the first time, played their respective parts as
best they might, and now, as we find them on this wintry afternoon,

they are ready to take part in other scenes, no less interesting, I hope.
Dorothy, Ned and Nat, at the sound of Mrs. White's admonition as she
entered the library, turned to look at her in some surprise, for they were
taken unawares.
Ned and Nat were always going to "fight," but they never actually did
get at it. In fact, they were both blessed with a reasonable amount of
good nature, and this, coupled with correct training, was destined to
make them men of patience and common sense.
Of course, this time they were only joking, so the "boxing" their mother
had somewhat jestingly accused them of was all part of the game.
Dorothy smoothed the cushions of the divan as her aunt advanced into
the room. Ned and Nat both attempted to poke the same log in the open
grate with the same poker, and the blaze that most unexpectedly shot
up at this interference with a well-regulated fire, attending strictly to its
own affairs, caused both young men to leap quickly back out of reach
of a shower of sparks.
"Whew!" exclaimed Nat, falling over an ottoman that Dorothy had
been lately sitting on, and landing very ungracefully at his mother's feet.
"Mother, I adore you!" he suddenly exclaimed as he found himself in a
suppliant attitude. "Only," he went on ruefully, rubbing his shins, "I did
not intend to adore you quite so hard."
"A three-bagger," joked Ned, for indeed his brother's position over the
"bag" was not unlike that of a baseball player "hugging the base."
"But you were just saying, as I came in," spoke Mrs. White, "something
about Tavia's coming. She has not sent any word--any regrets, or
anything of that sort, has she?"
"Why, no," answered Dorothy, "We were just saying that she might be
here before we know it--"
"Who said that?" demanded Nat, promptly scrambling to his feet.

"Before we know it," repeated Ned, with special emphasis on the
"before."
"However do you bear with them, Doro dear?" asked Mrs. White.
"They seem to grow more unmanageable every day."
Then Dorothy, making herself heard above the argument, said:
"Boys, if we are going to meet Tavia--"
"If we are going to meet her!" exclaimed Nat, interrupting his pretty
cousin, and putting a great deal of emphasis on the first word. "There's
no 'if' in this deal. We are going," and he sprang up and continued
springing until he reached his own room, where he proceeded to "slick
up some," as he expressed it, while Ned, and Dorothy, too, prepared for
the run to the depot in the Fire Bird, as speedy an automobile as could
be found in all the country around North Birchland.
"Take plenty of robes," cautioned Mrs. White as the machine puffed
and throbbed up to the front door. "It's getting colder, I think, and may
snow at any moment."
"No such luck," grumbled Nat. "I never saw such fine, cold weather,
and not a flake of snow. What's that about a 'green Christmas, and a fat
graveyard'? Isn't there some proverb to that effect?"
"Oh, I surely think it will snow before Christmas," said Dorothy. "And
we have plenty of robes, auntie, if the storm should come up suddenly."
"Come down, you mean," teased Ned, who seemed to be in just the
proper mood for that sort of thing.
Dorothy laughed in retort. She enjoyed her cousins' good nature, and
was never offended at their way of making fun at her expense.
Presently all was in readiness, and the Fire Bird swung out on the
cedar-lined road and into the broad highway that led to the railroad
station.

"I would just like to bet," remarked the persistent Ned as the station
came into view at the end of the long road, "I would just like to bet
almost anything that she will not come."
"Take you up!" answered Nat quickly. "I know she'll come."
"Oh, you feel her presence near," joked Ned. "Well, if she comes on
time this trip there may be some hope for the poor wretch who may
expect her to make good when he has fixed it up with the parson, the
organist and--"
"Silly!" cried Dorothy gaily. "A man never pays the organist at--at an
affair of that kind," and she blushed prettily.
"No?" questioned Ned in surprise. "Glad to hear it. Here, Nat, take this
wheel while I make a note of it. A little thing like that is worth
remembering," and he pretended to take out a notebook and jot it down.
When the train glided into the station, with a shrill