The captain, explained the
nurse, was suffering more from neglect than any specific ailment, and he
had already responded remarkably to treatment.
"Isn't it a queer holiday?" Dorothy asked herself once more in the train,
getting back to The Cedars. "And now for Tavia's troubles."
Nat met her at the station, all smiles, but otherwise provokingly
uncommunicative.
He simply would not tell her a word of what might have occurred in her
absence, and she finally gave up asking him to do so.
"All right," she assured him. "If Tavia's gone I'll blame you, that's
all."
Roger met her at the door.
"Some one's waiting for you in the parlor, Doro," he said, without waiting
to "digest" his sister's greeting.
Dorothy opened the parlor door. There sat Miss Brooks and little Mary
Mahon.
"We came in to wish you a merry Christmas," said Miss Brooks, with her arm
about Mary. "This is my niece, my sister's only child. And I found her
through your hospital play."
In a few words Miss Brooks made it all clear to Dorothy, and repeated the
story told Tavia some time before.
"She is not very strong, and I am going to take her south at once," went
on Miss Brooks, while Mary fairly beamed with delight. She was so splendid
in her new fur coat; and to think she really had a relative!
"Aunt Stella," she ventured, "you never would have found me if Dorothy had
not given me that piece.
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