snapped Tavia with unexpected hauteur, “and it’s against the law for one person to open the letters of another.”

“But Mrs. Pangborn takes the place of our mothers—she is really our guardian when we enter her school. We agree to the rules before we are taken in.”

“No, we were ‘taken in’ when we agreed to the rules,” persisted the other. “Now, as it’s your turn to do the post office this week, I think you might do me a little favor—I assure you the letter I expect is not from some boy. Other girls can smuggle boys’ letters in, and yet I can’t contrive to get a perfectly personal note from a perfectly sensible girl, without the missive being—passed upon by—google-eyed Higley!”

“Oh, Tavia! And she was so kind to you when you were sick.”

“Was she? Then she ought to keep it up, and leave my letters alone!”

“Well,” sighed Dorothy rising, “I must go for the mail at any rate.”

“And you won’t save my one little letter?”

“How could I?” Dorothy pleaded.

“Then if you do get it—see it among the others—couldn’t you leave it there? I will be able to walk down to the post office myself tomorrow.”

“But you couldn’t get the mail.”

“Oh, yes I could,” and Tavia tossed her head about defiantly.

Dorothy was certainly in a dilemma. But she was almost due at the post-office, and could not stay longer to argue, so, clapping on her hat, she bade Tavia good-bye for a short time.

“It palls on me,” Tavia told herself, as she again approached the glass and took up the cold cream jar. “Who would ever believe that I would stoop so low! To deceive my own darling Dorothy! And to make a fool of myself with this ‘mugging’ as Nat would say.”

She dropped heavily into a chair. The thought of Dorothy and Nat had a strange power over the girl—she seemed ashamed to look at her own face when the memory of her dearest friends brought her back again to the old time Tavia—the girl free from vanity and true as steel to Dorothy Dale.

“But the letter,” thought Tavia, recovering herself. “If 

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