It was a few days later that the War Cry arrived in the mail, for Dorothy. The young girl knew that the paper was widely circulated, and likewise that it was circulated among people who might know Tom Moran. Men of his trade, traveling about the country, often drop into Salvation Army meetings for very loneliness, if nothing more.

“Oh, I just hope he’ll see it, and learn about how Celia wants him.” said Dorothy, clasping her hands. “The poor little thing——”

“What do you s’pose Miss Olaine would say if she saw this notice?” interposed Tavia, after reading the blue-penciled paragraph.

“Miss Olaine?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t imagine why you say that,” observed Dorothy, puzzled.

“Didn’t I tell you how startled she was when she read Tom Moran’s name on that postal card?”

142 “But nonsense, Tavia!” cried Dorothy. “That was because she was reminded of the awful fire in which she came so near to losing her life.”

“How do you know?” snapped Tavia.

“But—my dear——”

“I tell you I believe she knows Tom Moran. Of course she would remember him, when he played the hero in that fire.”

“It’s ridiculous for you to talk that way, Tavia,” declared Dorothy. “You always do go flying off on a tangent——”

“Then I get a free ride. Don’t worry. I am welcome to my own ‘idee’; am I not, Doro?”

“I suppose you are.”

“Then I stick to it,” said Tavia, with a toss of her head. “Olaine was startled because you were making inquiries about Tom Moran. Haven’t I been watching her—‘hout of me heagle heye,’ as the Cockney villain says in the play——”

“You and your plays!” sniffed Dorothy. “Your romantic nature is working overtime again. I do wish you would make it behave.”

But Tavia secretly held to her own belief. She, and not Dorothy, had observed Miss Olaine’s emotion when she came across the postal card in the mail. Pooh! merely the remainder of that Rector Street School fire would not make the teacher look like that. You couldn’t fool Tavia—at least, so she said in her heart.

143 She secured the copy of the Salvation Army paper when Dorothy was not near, and carried it into the recitation room in her blouse. Miss Olaine was more than usually severe that morning, and perhaps Tavia was thus encouraged to “spring” her little surprise, as she called it.

She made an excuse to go to the teacher’s desk. She was not the only one who went there while Miss Olaine was at the blackboard, so the plotter did not think she would be suspected more than any of several other members of the class.

She laid the paper, with the page uppermost on which was printed the paragraph asking for news of Tom Moran, among the teacher’s books. And surely Miss Olaine could not miss noticing that paragraph with the broad, blue pencil marks about it!

Tavia could not attend to the problem under discussion, her mind being centered upon what was going to happen when Miss Olaine got back to her desk. Therefore when the teacher shot a query at Tavia suddenly she made a woeful exhibition of herself.

“Inattention, Miss Travers. I will speak to you of that later,” snapped Miss Olaine, striding back to her desk.

“Now she’ll see it!” whispered Tavia to herself, scarcely minding the threatened black mark.

But Miss Olaine went on with her instructions144 to the class, and did not see the paper. She sat there, looking out over the class, and Tavia began to wonder if ever she would drop her gaze and see that blue-penciled paragraph in the War Cry staring up at her.

Tavia really became so nervous that she could not follow the trend of the lesson at all. Once more Miss Olaine asked her a question, and the girl floundered most desperately and could not answer.

She could only think just then of Dorothy. Suppose Miss Olaine should accuse Dorothy of putting the paper there? Dorothy’s name was on the label pasted upon the margin of the paper.

“You evidently have no interest in this recitation, Miss,” said the teacher, sneeringly, when Tavia had made another lamentable exhibition of incompetence.

“Oh, yes, I have, ma’am,” gasped Tavia.

“You may come to me after school this afternoon and explain, then, why you show so little interest now,” declared the teacher.

Then her gaze dropped to the desk. She saw the paper, and Tavia saw that her attention was almost immediately fixed by the marked paragra............