“As you say, miss, it’s better now,” put in the woman, “and like as not she’s gone back to the camp.”
“Oh, no, I’m positive she did not intend to go back there. She really meant to leave the gypsies, and I suppose she has carried out her plan. You see, she had some money, and she’s not afraid to travel. Well, I must go and tell Aunt Winnie. They will all be so disappointed!”
“I hope they won’t blame me,” said the woman, anxiously. “I didn’t suppose she had to be watched, Miss Dorothy.”
“You are not in the least to blame, Mary. No matter how we watched her, she could get away if she wanted to. Well, I hope she takes care of herself.”
“She spoke right smart to me last night,” went on Mary. “She talked of how good you had been to her, and she said she would make it right some day. It’s a pity she has no one to guide her.”
As Dorothy said, the folks were disappointed when they heard of the runaway, but Mrs. White made the best of the affair by declaring that it was better for the girl to go away as she had done, than to have made some trouble at the school--perhaps induced other girls to run off with her.
That afternoon Ned and Nat left for Cadet Hall, and early the next morning Dorothy and Tavia started off for Glenwood. Little did the girls dream of under what peculiar circumstances they were to meet Urania again.
“Oh, have you seen her!” exclaimed Rose-Mary Markin.
“Sweet Ever-lean-er!” chimed in Edna Black.
“What’s so interesting about her?” asked little Nita Brandt, in her most sarcastic tone.
“Why, don’t you know?” went on Edna, familiarly called Ned Ebony.
“Not at all, my dear,” interrupted Ned. “It’s because she’s a real little beauty. Here come Dorothy and Tavia, leave it to them.”
The girls were at Glenwood School--all over the place, as Tavia expressed it. But the particular group in question happened to be situated in the broad hall near the “coming in” door--these girls always formed the reception committee on opening day.
“Oh,” moaned Dorothy, as she sank into a cushioned seat, “I’m dead and buried--”
“And no insurance,” interrupted Tavia, following Dorothy’s move and getting into some cushions for her own comfort.
“Mean!” echoed Tavia, “we stopped at every telegraph pole and backed up between each pair. Doro made out all right--she had a book. But poor me! I just doubled up in a heap and now the heap is all doubled up in me,” and she went through a series of “squirms,” calculated to get “out of the heap.”