It did look strange. Dorothy had gone out before any of her companions were about, and now, after being away two hours she was found returning in the company of a young man.

It might have been different if Tavia, and the girls who had met Mr. Armstrong on the train, had chosen to go toward the depot instead of seeking Dorothy in the opposite direction; but when Jean Faval met her, there were with Jean three of the new girls, and of course, they neither knew Dorothy nor her companion.

Small things grow quickly when they have plenty of room, and Dorothy’s escapade, being the one thing worth talking of at Glenwood, soon amounted to a sensational story, fanned by the gossips and nurtured by her rival in the school.

What girl has gone through school without some such similar experience? And does it not always occur at the most unexpected times?

Are there always, and everywhere, “school rivals?”

63 Mr. Armstrong said good-bye to Dorothy at the tanbark path that led to Glenwood Hall. Excited over her strange experience, Dorothy had no thought of what others might wonder! Where had she been? Why did she leave the grounds so early? What was Dorothy worrying about?

“See here, Doro,” Tavia confronted her, as together they prepared for breakfast—late at that. “What ails you? You promised to tell me to-day.”

“What ailed me, Tavia, does not exactly ail me now. I have just learned how some girls have to make a living.”

Saying this Dorothy sank back, rather unlike herself, for the morning had been warm, and her duties anything but refreshing.

“Dorothy, tell me, what is it?” demanded Tavia.

“You look at me as if I were a criminal,” replied the blonde Dalton girl. “I can never be coerced,” she finished.

“Dorothy, you are so unlike yourself. And you have no idea how much trouble that Jean Faval can make,” insisted Tavia, with more spirit than she usually showed.

Dorothy stopped in her hair-fixing. “Tavia,” she said, emphatically, “I have friends enough here,” and she glanced at the school-girl picture-lined wall, “and I am not afraid of Jean Faval.”

64 Dorothy was always pretty, sometimes splendid, and again tragic—Tavia decided she was one in all at that moment.

“Good!” declared her champion. “Don’t worry, Dorothy, but if you could just tell me——”

Dorothy stopped and looked into the glass without seeing anything.

She was worried, but since she had tried to run a lunch room, and had discovered how hard some girls, as young as herself, had to work, the thought that some day she too, might have to do something to earn money, did not seem so appalling. Should she tell Tavia?

“I am waiting, Doro,” Tavia said. “Now confess.”

“It’s really nothing so very serious, dear,” she replied, “but you know father is getting old and—he has put all his money into the Marsall Investment Company, of New York. Just before I left home father heard—that the money may be—lost!”

“All your money?”

“Yes, isn’t that dreadful? Of course, if it is lost we could never live with Aunt Winnie. We would be too proud, although she and the boys have always been so lovely to us. Yet to have no home makes it different.”

“But, Dorothy, I can’t believe that will happen. Your father has always been so wise,” and Tavia65 smoothed the ribbon on Dorothy’s light hair. “If it should happen——”

“If it should, I would certainly go to work,” Dorothy declared, firmly. “I should never let Joe leave school, and stay on here myself. Besides, Joe could not do very much,” she sighed. “I am so afraid for father—afraid the crash would——”

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