Dorothy Dales Queer Holidays | Page 7

I don't wonder. Oh, that abominable old school!"
"Aunt Winnie had this gown made for me last week," replied Dorothy, ignoring all of Tavia's criticism save that which referred to the blended gold and white princess. "Isn't it sweet?"
"Matches you as if you had been made for it," replied Tavia, in her way of saying things backwards. "Your hair seems all of a piece."
"Come on down," called Roger at the foot of the stairs, "It will soon be bedtime, and we want to hear all about it."
"All right, honey," replied Tavia. "We're coming."
Mrs. White had Tavia's dinner brought into the dining-room, so it was there, between mouthfuls, that the tardy one tried to tell of her mishap on the train, and the strange adventure that followed it.
CHAPTER III
A LIGHT IN THE WINDOW
"I was worried thinking something had happened to you," said Dorothy as she poured Tavia's tea.
"And that was the very time that your worry was properly placed," said Tavia, "for something did happen to me. In the first place, I knew I would have bad luck, for I dropped my comb while I was dressing."
"Break it?" asked Ned slyly.
"Yep," replied Tavia; "and it was a nice one, too--dark, didn't show--"
"Tavia!" exclaimed Dorothy warningly, for Tavia usually kept Dorothy busy correcting her possibly impolite speeches.
"All right, Doro. It simply was 'a nice one,' and when I dropped it I knew perfectly well that I would 'bust' something."
"Did you?" asked Roger, not noticing Tavia's slang.
"Well, I don't know about the cart, but certainly I nearly strangled yelling at the man with the reins."
Dorothy looked annoyed. She did not mind Tavia's usual queer sayings, but she knew perfectly well that her aunt would not like such vulgar expressions. The boys might smile, but even they knew a girl should not forget to be ladylike in an attempt to be funny.
Dorothy hastened to relieve the tension.
"But when you got out to Gransville, was it dark?" she asked.
"Almost," continued Tavia. "The blackness seemed to be coming down in chunks. Well, I finally reached the old shack and bribed the man into hitching up the cart. Of course, it was awfully cold, and he didn't relish the drive."
"Don't blame him," put in Nat.
"What?" asked Ned. "Not even with Tavia?"
A sofa cushion flew in Ned's direction at that, but Tavia continued:
"The strange part of it was we had to pass a haunted house."
"Haunted house!" repeated Joe, all eager for the sensational part of Tavia's recital.
"So the man declared. At least, I think he declared, or tried very hard to do so. You see, I could scarcely tell when he was guessing, declaring or swearing--"
"What a time you must have had," remarked Mrs. White, with some show of anxiety.
"Well, I suppose I am exaggerating," said Tavia apologetically, "but I am so accustomed to tell things as big as I can make them. Brother Johnnie won't listen to any tame stories."
"But the haunted house?" questioned Joe.
"We are almost there," said Tavia as the dinner things were cleared away. "Did you ever see an old castle off toward Ferndale?"
"The Mayberry mansion?" suggested Ned.
"Perhaps," replied Tavia. "It is set in a deep woods or some sort of jungle."
"Why, that's Tanglewood Park," declared Nat. "How in the world did you get over that way?"
"Took a short cut through a lane," replied Tavia, "and when we got right in the thick of it the old man meekly pointed out the haunted house."
"Did you see the 'haunt'?" asked Dorothy jokingly.
"Saw what my friend declared was the haunt," Tavia replied, "A light running all over the place as if it might have been tied to a cat's tail."
"A light in the house?" asked Ned and Nat in one breath.
"Certainly. Not on the roof, but behind the big old stone walls. I could see the place was made of stone, although it was almost dark."
"Why, that place has been deserted for years," declared Nat.
"Then the deserter has returned," answered Tavia, "and the old man told me folks around there are just scared to death to be out after dark."
"Folks around there? Why, there isn't a house within half a mile of the park," Ned corrected.
"But don't they ever go to sleep in trains and have to take short cuts through the lane?" Tavia asked. "They don't exactly have to live in the park to have occasion to go past it now and then."
The boys laughed at Tavia's defense, but Joe and Roger were impatient to hear all about the ghost, and they begged Tavia to go on with her story.
"What did the light do?" asked Roger, edging up so close to Tavia that his curly head brushed her elbow.
"Why, Roger, dear," said Dorothy kindly, "you must not believe in such nonsense. There are no such things as ghosts."
"But Tavia saw it," he insisted.
"No, she only saw