Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore Part 21

When Mrs. Marvin questioned Patricia, she said that Arabella had a headache, and that she had said that she was not hungry.

Mrs. Marvin sent a waitress up to their room with some toast and tea for Arabella. Arabella barely tasted it, and the girl returned to report that Miss Arabella looked sick, and really could not eat.

The next day found her much like her usual self, and Patricia proposed a walk.

"I'll go with you in a minute," said Arabella.

"What _are_ you waiting for?" snapped Patricia. She turned, and saw that Arabella was shaking some green pills from a bottle.

"It's hard work trying to mind two people who say different things,"

complained Arabella. "Aunt Matilda told me to take these green pills every hour, wherever I happen to be, and Mrs. Marvin says I must not be continually taking medicine in the cla.s.s-room. How can I do both?"

"Don't take it at all!" cried Patricia.

"But my health--"

"Oh, bother your health," said Patricia. "I should think you'd be sick of hearing about it."

"I am," confessed Arabella.

"Then pitch every one of those bottles out, and see what happens! No wonder the girls here call you the 'medicine-chest.' The doses you take make me sick just to see them."

Arabella looked sulky, and when Patricia started for a walk, Arabella refused to go. She was usually afraid of Patricia, and did as she directed, but when she became sulky, not even Patricia could move her, try as she might.

Arabella was standing near the window when Patricia returned, and what she saw was anything but pleasing.

At the end of a leash was a small, s.h.a.ggy, yellow dog, of no especial breed!

Arabella detested dogs, and was desperately afraid of them as well.

She told herself that the dog would also be in Judy's care, and was wondering how he would get on with the cat, when she heard a loud whisper outside the door.

"Let me in, quick!" it said, and when Arabella opened the door, Patricia stumbled over the dog who had run between her feet, and the two landed on the middle of the rug in a heap.

"There! Isn't he a beauty?" Patricia asked and without waiting for an answer continued, "A man told me he was a valuable dog that _ought_ to bring fifty dollars, but because he was going to leave town, he let me have him, for two dollars, and threw in the leash. Wasn't that a bargain?"

"What are you going to do with him?" Arabella asked. "Oh, take him away!

I don't want him sniffing at me!"

Patricia made an outrageous face, and tugged at the leash.

"Keep him in this room until I go home, and then take him with me," she said.

"I'll not sleep in this room if that dog is kept in here!" declared Arabella.

"Where will you sleep?" Patricia asked, coolly. "They wouldn't let you sleep out in the hall, and if I put the dog out there, 'The Fender'

will take him."

By extreme care, Patricia managed not to do anything that would make him bark.

CHAPTER XI

AN INNOCENT SNEAK-THIEF

The little dog had slept all night, but when morning came he wanted to go out for a romp. Patricia tied him to the leg of the bed, gave him some breakfast and sat on the floor beside him to stop him if he began to bark.

Thus far he had been very quiet, only softly growling, and stopping that when Patricia held up her finger and told him he must "keep still."

"Why do we have to review?" Patricia said as Arabella took up a book.

"The idea of looking into my history to see when Virginia was settled at Jamestown when any one _knows_ it was in fourteen ninety-two!"

"O my, Patricia! That's wrong," Arabella said, "That's when Columbus discovered America."

"Well, for goodness' sake! Couldn't he have landed in Virginia, and settled it at the same time?" demanded Patricia. She was desperately angry, but Arabella persisted.

"Don't you _know_, Patricia, it _couldn't_ have been settled in fourteen ninety-two?"

"Oh, don't bother me about that!" said Patricia, and Arabella, peering at her through her goggles decided that it would be wise to do no more correcting.

"I don't think Miss Fenler is fair," said Patricia, "for she marked my history paper only forty-two, and I just _know_ it ought to have been higher than that. And my spelling she marked only thirty-eight last month, and all because I put an r in water, spelling it 'warter,' and I'm sure that's not bad."

"You put two t's in it, too," said Arabella.

"I will again if I want to," snapped Patricia.

"There's the breakfast-bell. He's sure to bark while we're down-stairs,"

Arabella said. She hoped that he would, so that he might be given other quarters. He looked up as the door closed, and was about to bark when he saw one of Arabella's slippers, and grabbing it, retired under the bed to chew it.

It was a rule that the maids should make the beds, and put the rooms in order while the pupils were at breakfast, and on that morning it fell to Maggie's share of the work to care for the only room now occupied.

She was a good-natured Irish girl, and she entered the room singing:

"'Now, Rory, be aisy, don't tase me no more, 'Tis the--'"

"Och, murther! Murther! There's a man under the bed, an' he grabbed me by me shoe,--oh! oh!"

Down-stairs she ran, screaming all the way, declaring that there was a man up-stairs, and calling for some one brave enough to "dhrive him out."

Her terror was very real, and Marcus was called in to oust the intruder.

"It must be a sneak-thief," said Miss Fenler.

"It _am_ a sneak-thief," said Marcus, appearing with the small dog in his arms.