“Oh, Johnny!” gasped Tavia, capturing her own young brother.
“And Joe and Roger!” cried Dorothy. “How did you boys get here ahead of us? Aren’t you the dears?”
“School closed two days earlier than usual,” explained Joe Dale, who was now almost as tall as Dorothy and a very manly-looking fellow.
“Don’t kiss me so much on the street, sister,” begged Roger, under his breath. “Folks will see.”
“And what if?” demanded Dorothy, laughing.
“They’ll think I’m a _little_ boy yet,” said Roger. “And you know I’m _not_.
“No. You are no longer Dorothy’s baby,” sighed the girl. “She’s lost her two ‘childers’.”
“Never mind, Sis,” sympathized Joe. “You were awful good to us when we were small. We sha’n’t forget our ‘Little Mum’ right away; shall we, Rogue?”
“Is _that_ what the other boys call him at school?” demanded Dorothy, with her arm still around the little fellow.
“Yep,” laughed Joe. “And he _is_ a rogue. You ought to heard him in class the other day. Professor Brown was giving a nature lesson and he asked Rogue, ‘How does a bee sting?’ and Roger says, ‘Just awful!’ What do you think of that?”
“A graduate of the school of experience,” commented Tavia. “Come on, now, folks. Joe and Roger are staying at our house, too--for a while.”
She started off, arm in arm with her own brother, and Dorothy followed with Joe and Roger, the boys carrying all “the traps,” as Johnny called the baggage.
The present home of the Travers family was much different from that home as introduced to my readers in “Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-day”; for although Mrs. Travers would never be a model housekeeper, the influence of Tavia was felt in the home even when she was away at school.
Mr. Travers, too, had succeeded in business and was not only an officer in the town, and of political importance, but he was interested in a construction company, and the family was prospering.
Mrs. Travers realized the help and stimulation Dorothy had given to Tavia, and she welcomed her daughter’s friend very warmly. Tavia “took hold” immediately and straightened up the house and seized the reins of government. Tavia was proud and she did not wish Dorothy to see just how “slack” her mother still was in many ways.
Her own dainty room she shared with Dorothy; and while the latter was going about, calling on old friends, during the first two days, Tavia worked like a Trojan to make the whole house spick and span.