"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 companionship 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 membership 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.
It did not seem possible that Tavia was packed and gone and that Dorothy was left in the school. A sense of this loneliness almost overpowered Dorothy when she realized that her sister-friend was gone--and the little bed across her room all smooth and unruffled by the careless, jolly girl who tried to make life a joke and did her best to make others share the same opinion.
It was Rose-Mary who came to cheer Dorothy in the loss of Tavia. She sat with her evenings until the very last minute, and more than once was caught in the dark halls, the lights having been turned out before the girl could reach her own quarters.
Rose-Mary and Dorothy had similar fancies. Both naturally refined, they found many things to interest them--things that most of the girls would not have bothered their pretty heads about. So their friendship grew stronger and their hearts became attuned, each to the other"s rhythm, until Dorothy and Rose-Mary were the closest kind of friends.
Mrs. Pangborn had decided upon a play for mid-year. It would be a sort of trial for the big event which always marked the term"s close at Glenwood and the characters would embrace students from all departments. The play was called Lalia, and was the story of a pilgrim on her way, intercepted by a Queen of Virtue and again sought out by the Queen of Pleasure. The pilgrim is lost in the woods of doubt, and finally brought to the haven of happiness by the Virtuous Queen Celesta. This Pilgrim"s Progress required many characters for the queen"s retinues, besides the stars, of course, and the lesser parts.
Dorothy was chosen for Lalia--the best character.
The part had been a.s.signed by vote, and Dorothy"s splendid golden hair, coupled with that "angelic face," according to her admirers, won the part for her. Rose-Mary Markin was made Celesta, the Queen of Virtue: and Viola Green, because of her dark complexion, being opposite that of Celesta, was elected to be Frivolita, the Queen of Pleasure.
Each queen was allowed to select her own retinue--a delicious task, said the ones most interested.
Mrs. Pangborn made a neat little speech at the Glenwood meeting where these details were decided upon, and in it referred to the lesson of the story, incidentally hinting that some of the pupils had lately taken it upon themselves to do things not in strict accord with the history of her school--the forming of a society, for instance, without the consent or knowledge of any of the faculty. This secret doing, she said, could not continue. Either the girls should come to her and make known the object of their club, or this club could no longer hold meetings.
This came like a thunderbolt from a clear sky--and by some Dorothy was promptly accused of tale bearing.
But in spite of it all another secret meeting was held and at it the "Rebs," as they actually called themselves, declared open rebellion.
They would not submit to such tyranny, and, further, they would not take part in any play in which Dorothy Dale held an important part.
It was then the bomb was thrown by Viola, the bomb that she carried all the way from Dalton, and had kept waiting for a chance to set it off--until now--the hour of seeming triumph for Dorothy.
"I"ll tell you the positive truth, girls," Viola began, first being sure that no one but those in the "club" were within reach of her voice, "I saw, with my own eyes, that girl, who pretends to be so good and who goes around with a text on her simpering smile--I saw her get out of a police patrol wagon!"
"Oh!" gasped the girls. "You really didn"t."
"I most positively did. Indeed!" sneered the informer, "every one in Dalton knows it. Tavia Travers was in the same sc.r.a.pe, and in the same wagon. It was after that affair that they made up their minds, in a hurry, to get out of their home town and come to Glenwood!"
CHAPTER XVII
THE STRIKE OF THE REBS
One miserable day Dorothy found all her friends, at least those who had claimed to be her friends, suddenly lost to her. Those who were not openly rude enough to deliberately turn their backs upon the astonished girl, made some pretense of avoiding conversation with her.
It all came so unexpectedly, and without any apparent explanation, that Dorothy was stunned--even the effervescent Edna only gave her a measured smile and walked down the hall to the study room without breaking her silence.
The day wore on like a dream of awful fancies that try to choke but withhold even such a mercy as a final stroke.
What had she done? Where was Rose-Mary? And why would not someone come and accuse her outright, that she might at least know the charge against her--a charge serious enough to spread in one day throughout Glenwood school!
Evening fell, but even then Rose-Mary did not come to Dorothy"s room.
On the following day there was to be a rehearsal for the play, and how could Lalia repeat her lines? How could Dorothy pretend to be the happy little pilgrim who starts alone on the uncertain path of life?
Mrs. Pangborn was ready in the recreation hall, some of the others were there discussing their characters and other things. The hour for the rehearsal came, and with it appeared some twenty girls, among them, but not their leader (so it seemed) being Viola Green.
They approached Mrs. Pangborn and then Adele Thomas spoke.