e for, keeping
people nice. They don't have much trouble to make that clear to you,
Doro, dear."

"Well, of course, you are entitled to your own opinion, but I do wish you
would listen. She sent you a message."

"Sent me a message! It was to you she owed the apology. She has her cases
mixed."

"Tavia, she gave me this card to hand you with the request that you call
upon her on Thursday morning."

Tavia glanced at the card. Then she read the inscription aloud.

"Of all the--nerve!" she exclaimed, seemingly at a total loss to grasp any
other word. "To ask me to call on a handwriting expert! Does she think I
want her services?"

"I was, and am still, just as puzzled as you are, Tavia; but she seemed so
serious. Said you were young, and that perhaps she could help you--"

Tavia seemed to catch her breath. The next moment she had recovered
herself. "I might call--just for fun. Then, again--I might not," she said
indifferently.

"So many queer things contrived to happen," continued Dorothy, noting the
slight agitation her chum betrayed. "The clerk at the jewelry
counter--Miss Allen, the pleasant girl--told me the woman detective, Miss
Dearing, had been discharged."

"Nothing queer about that," exclaimed Tavia. "The wonder is they ever
employed such a person in that capacity. Why, I fancy she would arrest a
baby to fix her case. Too ambitious, I guess."

"Perhaps," acquiesced Dorothy. "But Miss Allen said she asked for my
address. Now, what could she want that for?"

"To apologize, likely. Surely she owes you some sort of apology."

"She was merely mistaken," corrected Dorothy, "and did what she considered
her duty."

"The sweetness of forgiving," soliloquized Tavia.

"Simply a matter of justice," added Dorothy. "But it does seem strange to
me. However, we will have to await developments. Meantime, we must get
ready for Christmas."

"I sent my things off to-day," said Tavia in a relieved tone.

"So early?"

"It is a little early, but they say express packages are always sure to be
delayed at this season, and I would simply not live through it if Johnnie
did not have his steam engine for Christmas morning. It was awfully sweet
of you, Doro, to lend me that money."

"Why shouldn't I when you had to spend yours for needed things? I only
wish it had been twice as much. You would have been welcome to it, Tavia.
I don't forget chewing-gum days in dear old Dalton."

Tavia's brow was clouded. What an opportuni