“Hurry a little,” urged Dorothy.  “I am sure they are all impatient to talk to you.  And the boys are just dying to hear about your adventure.”

“All right, Doro, I’m ready.  But say!” and Tavia stood still for a moment “You look—­like—­a picture in that princess.  I do wish I could wear a ‘clinger,’ but I’m too fat.  You have gotten—­ahem—­prettier in the short time since I saw you at school.  But 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: