Dorothy Dales Queer Holidays | Page 4

screeching protest
from the sparking wheels and brakes, and when quite a number of
persons had alighted and gone their several ways, Dorothy and Nat,
who had peered hopefully and anxiously at each passenger, looked
rather ruefully at each other. Tavia had not come.
"Well?" asked Nat.
"Let's wait a little longer," suggested Dorothy.
Finally the train started up again, the private carriages and hired hacks
had been driven off with scores of passengers and their baggage. Then,
and not until she had looked up and down the deserted platforms, did
Dorothy admit to Nat:
"She hasn't come!"
"Looks like it," replied the lad, plainly very much disappointed.
Ned, who could see what had happened, clapped his gloved hands in
unholy glee.

"Didn't I tell you she'd duck?" he demanded triumphantly. "Didn't I tell
you so?"
"Aw shut up!" growled Nat in pardonable anger.
"Ha! ha!" laughed his brother.
"Well, you're enough to hoodoo the whole thing," retorted Nat.
But Ned simply had to laugh--he couldn't help it, and when Dorothy
and Nat took their places again in the machine Ned was chuckling and
gasping in a manner that threatened to do serious damage to his entire
vocal apparatus.
"It would have been a pity to have disappointed you in your fun,"
remarked Nat sarcastically after a particularly gleeful yelp from Ned.
"What you would have missed had she come!"
"But I can't understand it," said Dorothy. "There is no other train until
eight o'clock to-night."
"And that's a local that stops at every white-washed fence," added Nat.
"Oh, well, then she'll have plenty of time to think of the fine dinner she
has missed," went on his brother. "Of all mean traits, I count that of
being late the very meanest a nice girl can have."
"Oh, so then she is nice?" inquired Dorothy with a smile.
"Well, she can be--sometimes. But she was not to-day--eh, Nat?"
"For the land sake, say your prayers, or do--do something!" exclaimed
his irritated brother.
"I might," retorted Ned, "but, being good is such a lonesome job, as
some poet has remarked. Now, having fun is--"
"Look out there!" cautioned Nat suddenly. "You nearly ran over Mrs.
Brocade's pet pup."

A tiny dog, of the much-admired, white-silk variety, was barking
vigorously at the Fire Bird on account of the danger to which it had
been subjected by the fat tires. And the dog's mistress, Mrs. Broadbent,
nicknamed "Brocade" on account of her weakness for old-time silks
and satins, was saying things about the auto party in much the same
sort of aggrieved tones that the favorite dog was using.
"Wait until she meets you at the post-office," Nat reminded Ned.
"Maybe she won't rustle her silks and satins at you."
But Ned only laughed, and kept on laughing as his mother appeared in
the vestibule with a puzzled look at the empty seat in the tonneau of the
Fire Bird.
Dorothy was the first to reach the porch.
"She didn't come," was her wholly unnecessary remark as Mrs. White
opened the outer door.
"Isn't that strange!" replied the aunt. "Do you suppose anything could
have happened?"
"I don't know. I hope not. She promised so definitely that I can't
understand it," went on Dorothy.
Nat remained in the car as Ned drove it to the garage.
"I'm so sorry, after all the extra trouble to get up a good dinner,"
apologized Dorothy as she laid aside her wraps.
"Oh, well, we can all enjoy that," replied Mrs. White, "although, of
course, we had counted on Tavia's presence. She is so jolly that the
boys will be much disappointed."
"I'm just ashamed of her," went on Dorothy in a burst of indignation.
"She should have learned by this time to keep her word, or else send
some message."
"Yes, I am afraid Tavia does not care for the conventionalities of polite

society," remarked Mrs. White. "In fact, I almost suspect she enjoys
disregarding them. But never mind! we must not condemn her
unheard."
CHAPTER II
WHAT HAPPENED TO TAVIA
It must not be understood that Nat was a very silly boy. Not at all. He
did like Tavia, but he liked his own sweet cousin Dorothy, and would
have been just as disappointed, if not more so, had it been Dorothy who
had missed her train and not Tavia.
But the fact that all seemed to need Tavia to finish up the holiday plans,
and that now she had not come put Nat in a very restless mood, and
when the dinner, which was served immediately upon the return from
the depot, was over, Nat decided he would find something to do that
would occupy his time until the eight o'clock train, when, of course,
they would again go to the station.
Electricity was this young man's