story.

“Oh, I might as well take it with me,” and Tavia’s words sounded rather a lame excuse. “It will be amusing to read on the train.”

“Oh, Tavia!” Dorothy burst into tears. “Won’t you give up—those stage notions? Do, please!” and she clasped her arms about her chum, weeping bitterly.

“Oh, don’t! Dorothy don’t cry so!” begged Tavia, stroking the yellow head. “I will give it up—all up! Yes, Dorothy, dear, listen! Look here!” and at that Dorothy raised her head.

With her hands free Tavia tore the little red book into shreds and tossed them into the waste basket.

“There!” she exclaimed. “I’m through with—through with all of it! I don’t want to know how to act! I’ll never try! Dorothy! Dorothy!” and the miserable girl threw herself upon the bed in a frenzy of grief and excitement. “Just forgive me for it all—for trying to deceive you. I have been wretched all through it—and I only want you—and all the others—just as you used to be. I don’t believe in ambition!” She stood upright. “I’ll go home to dear, old Dalton, and stay there until—until I come to you at North Birchland.”

When the other girls tapped on the door of room nineteen late that afternoon, to say good-bye, they found two very happy young maidens waiting for the particular carriage that was to take them to the depot. Dorothy and Tavia could not be separated. They clung to each other in spite of all the invitations to “do the rounds” and join in the last and noisiest fun of the season. Together, very demurely, they called at the office to say good-bye to the teachers.

When, at last, the carriage did come for them, Dorothy and Tavia rode off together—one bound for the train to North Birchland, and the other going home—home to Dalton, to try to be happy in the little country town where she and Dorothy Dale had spent such a happy childhood, and where Tavia would find plenty of time to dream of things scattered far out in another world, that seemed like the golden fingers of ambition beckoning her on. To leave Dalton and the common school life—to enter the walks of city uncertainties—to become part of the great, grinding machine of human hardships—that machine which is always willing to stop its terrific speed long enough to gather into its cogs and meshes the life of an innocent young girl.

CHAPTER XI A JOLLY HOME-COMING

A JOLLY HOME-COMING

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