For an hour she roamed about the woods, finding evergreen to line her box for the flowers, and some cheery partridge vine, whose green leaves and red berries seemed quite untouched by the winter’s snow. It was quiet in among the trees. She was glad after all that she had come alone. At school one needed to be away from the girls once in a while just to get acquainted with oneself.
She climbed upon a great gray rock in the open pasture, and sat there thinking of the months at St. Helen’s—remembering it all from the day she had left her father. She was glad that she had come—glad that in her father’s last letter he had said she was to return after a summer at home. Priscilla was to return, too, a Senior—perhaps, she would be monitor like Mary—and they were to room together as they had this year. The Blackmore twins had petitioned for Mary and Anne’s room, promising upon their sacred honor to be models of behavior; and Miss King and Miss Wallace were considering their request. Virginia did hope it would be granted, for she loved Jess and Jean clearly. Dorothy would return. Would Imogene, too, she wondered? It might be mean to hope that she would not, but she did hope that.
From the rock where she sat a portion of the Hillcrest road was visible. She was still thinking of Imogene and Dorothy, when a red and a white sweater appeared on the distant road moving in the direction of St. Helen’s. “Dorothy and Imogene on the way home from Hillcrest,” she thought to herself. They were walking very close together, apparently reading something, for Virginia could see something white held between them. All at once they stopped, looked up and down the road, and then disappeared among the bushes that edged the roadside. Virginia was about to call them, thinking perhaps they had seen her, and were coming through the pastures to where she was; but before she had time even to call, they reappeared, and walked more hurriedly toward the school. This time they were not close together, and the paper had disappeared.
The founder of the Vigilantes, perplexed by this strange behavior, did not move until the two girls had turned into the driveway of St. Helen’s. Then she jumped from the rock. She would go back across the pastures to the gate which she had entered, then turn down the road and investigate. She felt like a true Vigilante, indeed! Something was in the air! She had felt it the moment she discovered Imogene and Dorothy in secret conference. Perhaps, in the roadside bushes she would find the solution. Had the girls been Mary and Anne, Virginia would never have questioned. Moreover, she would have felt like a spy in suspecting their behavior. But Imogene had long given good cause for righteous suspicion; and were not the Vigilantes pledged to guard against evil-doers?
She hurried across the pastures. The sun, which had been out of sight all day, now at time of setting shone out clear and bright and was reflected in every little pool. She reached the gate, closed it behind her, and was about to turn down the road, when she saw sitting on a rock by St. Helen’s gate a weary, worn-looking woman with a child. Something in the woman’s expression made Virginia forget the errand upon which she was bent. She looked more than discouraged—almost desperate. The little girl by her side sat upon a shabby satchel, and regarded her mother with sad, questioning eyes. There was something about them so lonely and pathetic that Virginia’s eyes filled with quick tears. She crossed the road and went up to them.
“Are—are you in any trouble?” she asked hesitatingly. “Can I help you?”
The woman in turn hesitated before she answered. But this young lady was apparently not like the two who had passed her but a moment before. She looked at her little girl, whose tired eyes were red from crying. Then she answered Virginia.
“I’m in a deal of trouble,” she said slowly. “I’ve been sick, and we’ve spent our money; and because we were three months back on the rent, we were turned out this morning. I’m looking for work—any kind will do—and I came to Hillcrest because I was hoping to get it at the school there. I’ve heard tell of how Miss King is very kind; but the two young ladies, who passed here just a few minutes ago, said there was no work there at all. I guess they didn’t have much time for the likes of me. Do you go there, too?”
“Yes,” said Virginia. “But they don’t know whether there’s any work or not at St. Helen’s. I don’t know either; but I know Miss King would like to find some for you if she could. Anyway, I want you to come to our cottage to supper with me. You are my guests—you and—what is the little girl’s name?”
“Mary. And I’m Mrs. Michael Murphy. But, miss, you don’t mean come to supper with you? You see, we ain’t fit.”
“Yes, you are perfectly fit. Saturday night no one dresses up. Please come, and then you can see Miss King after supper. You’d like to come, wouldn’t you, Mary?”
Poor little Mary cared not for etiquette. Besides, she was plainly hungry. She pulled her mother’s dress.
“Please go, mother. Please!”
Virginia smiled at her eagerness. “Of course you’ll come, Mrs. Murphy. My name’s Virginia—Virginia Hunter. Let me help with your satchel, please. Come on, Mary.”
With one hand she helped Mrs. Murphy with the satchel, while she gave the other to Mary, and they started up the hill—Virginia never once thinking that her new friends would not be as welcome guests as those who were often bidden to The Hermitage, Mary, untroubled by conventions and happy at the thought of supper, Mrs. Michael Murphy, secretly troubled, but compelled to snatch at any hope of work.
“You’re not from these parts, I take it from your talk,” Mrs. Murphy remarked as they neared the campus.
“No, I’m from Wyoming. It’s a long way from here.”
“You’re sure—I’m afraid—the ladies at your cottage mightn’t like Mary and me coming this way.”
“Please don’t think that, Mrs. Murphy,” Virginia reassured her. “We’re always allowed to invite guests to supper. It’s quite all right, truly.”
But Mrs. Murphy in her secret heart was not assured. She looked really frightened as they neared The Hermitage; but Virginia, talking with Mary, did not notice, nor did she heed the astonished and somewhat amused looks of the girls whom they passed.
The supper-bell was ringing just as they opened the door, and stepped into the living-room. Mary and Anne were at the piano, and Virginia beckoned to them, and introduced her new friends. The surprised Mary and Anne managed to bow and smile; and were frantically searching for topics of conversation, when the girls began to come down-stairs, just as Miss Wallace, with Miss King, who was staying to supper, opened the door of Miss Wallace’s room.
Poor Mrs. Michael Murphy was perhaps the most uncomfortable of them all, for the others were mainly surprised. The girls stared, Imogene and Dorothy giggled audibly, Miss King looked puzzled, Miss Wallace sympathetic. Virginia could not understand the manifest surprise, mingled with disapproval, on the faces around her. Could she have done anything wrong? They certainly would not think so, if they knew.
“Mary,” she said, “will you please introduce my friends to the girls, while I speak a moment with Miss King and Miss Wallace?”
Mary, who began to see through the situation, managed to introduce the painfully embarrassed Mrs. Murphy and shy little Mary to girls who, with the exception of Imogene, responded civilly enough. Cordiality certainly was lacking, but that was largely due to surprise. Meanwhile, Virginia had explained matters to Miss King and Miss Wallace, who, when they heard the story, lost their momentary astonishment in sympathy. Of course such a proceeding was slightly out of the course of ordinary events at The Hermitage; but Virginia’s thoughtfulness, though perhaps indiscreet, was not at the present to be criticised. They came forward and shook hands heartily with the guests, much to Virginia’s comfort. It must be all right after all, she concluded.
Mrs. Murphy laid off her hat and shawl, Virginia took Mary’s coat and hood, and the family and guests passed to the supper table. Conversation languished that evening. The girls talked among themselves, but only infrequently. Even Miss Wallace and Miss King apparently found it difficult to think of topics for general conversation. But Virginia, true to her duties as hostess, chatted with Mrs. Michael Murphy until the embarrassed, troubled little woman partially regained her composure. As for little Mary, she was fully occupied in devouring the first square meal she had had for days.
But Virginia was not unconscious of the atmosphere. Something was wrong. Perhaps, after all, Mrs. Murphy had been right when she said the ladies of The Hermitage mightn’t like to have her and Mary coming this way. She could not understand it. At home in Wyoming the stranger was always made a friend, and the unfortunate a guest. Hospitality was the unwritten law of the land.
She was rather glad when supper was over. The girls immediately went up-stairs, only Mary, Anne, and Priscilla lingering to say good-night to her guests. Virginia stayed upon Miss King’s invitation, for she and Miss Wallace were to talk with Mrs. Murphy concerning work at St. Helen’s. Little Mary, tired out but satisfied, fell asleep, her head in Virginia’s lap. To Virginia’s joy, and to the unspeakable gratitude of Mrs. Michael Murphy, whom the world had used none too kindly, Miss King decided that St. Helen’s needed just such a person to do repairing and mending; and Mrs. Murphy, her face bright with thankfulness, was installed that very evening in her new and comfortable quarters.
An hour later, Virginia, the supper table atmosphere almost forgotten in her glad relief over Mrs. Murphy’s immediate future, ran up-stairs and down the hall to her own room. The door opposite opened a little, and some one said in a biting voice:
“I suppose, Miss Hunter, we entertain Wyoming cow-boys before long?”
In Virginia’s eyes gleamed a dangerous light, but she answered quietly:
“I’m afraid not, Miss Meredith. The Wyoming cow-boys whom I know are accustomed to eat with ladies.”
Still, her delight over Mrs. Murphy’s freedom from care could not quite banish the feeling of puzzled sadness with which she wrote these words in her “Thought Book”:
“The world is a very strange place. God may be no respecter of persons, but people are. It is a very sad thing to be obliged to believe, but I am afraid it is true.”
The next morning the two Vigilantes, obtaining permission to walk to church a little earlier than the others, stopped by the roadside at the spot where yesterday Virginia had noted suspicious behavior, and thoroughly investigated. A rough path had apparently been recently broken through the alders. At the end of the path by the fence stood a big, white birch, and on the smooth side of the birch farthest from the road were many pin-pricks. One pin remained in the tree, and it still held a tiny scrap of white paper, apparently the corner of a sheet, the rest of which had been hurriedly torn away. The Vigilantes, thinking busily, went on to church. It is needless to say that they found it difficult to listen to the morning’s sermon.
CHAPTER XV—VESPER SERVICE
The Sunday following the Vigilantes’ mysterious discovery by the roadside, and immediately preceding the Easter holidays, was Palm Sunday. It dawned beautiful—warm and sunny as a late spring clay—and as the hours followed one another, each seemed more lovely than the last. Song sparrows sang from budding alder bushes, and robins flew hither and thither among the elms and maples, seeking suitable notches in which to begin their homes. As if by magic, purple and golden crocuses lifted their tiny faces on the southern sides of the cottage lawns; and the buds of the lilac trees, warmed and encouraged by yesterday’s showers, burst into leaf before one’s very eyes.
The world seemed especially joyous to the girls, as they roamed the woods in search of wild flowers, or sought about the campus for fresh evidences of spring. The long winter months had gone; Easter home-going was but five days away; and when they returned after two weeks at home, spring would have really come, bringing with it all the joys and festivities and sadnesses of the Commencement season.
At four o’clock, as the westward-moving sun gleamed through the pines, and fell in wavering lights and shadows on the brown needles beneath, they gathered for their vesper service, coming from all directions, their hands filled with pussy-willows, hepaticas, and mayflowers, their faces glowing with health and happiness, in their eyes the old miracle of the spring. To Virginia, as to many of the others, this Sunday afternoon hour was the dearest of the week. She loved the gray-stone, vine-covered Retreat, and its little chapel within; she loved the sound of its organ, and the voices of the girls singing; and most of all, she loved the little talks which Miss King gave on Sunday afternoons—dear, close, helpful talks of things which she had learned, and by which she hoped to make life sweeter for her girls.
To-day the chapel was especially lovely, for the altar rail was banked with palms, Easter lilies stood upon the white-covered altar, and the sun, shining through the high, narrow windows, flooded all with golden light. Virginia sat between Dorothy and Priscilla, holding a hand of each. It was so lovely to be there together! In her secret heart she was glad that Imogene’s mother had sent for her to come home the day before, for when Imogene was away Dorothy seemed to belong again to them.
Since St. Helen’s held no Easter service, as the girls were always at home, Miss King spoke to-day of Easter—how it had always seemed to her the real beginning of the New Year; how it signified the leaving off of the old and the putting on of the new; how it meant the awakening of new thoughts, and the renewed striving after better things.
“So, if we could only understand,” she said in closing, while the girls listened earnestly, “that Easter is far more than a commemoration, that it is a condition of our hearts, then we should, I think, reverence the day rightly. For as beautiful as is the story of the risen Christ, we do not keep Easter sacred merely by the remembrance of that story. The risen Christ is as nothing to us unless in our own hearts the Christ spirit rises—the spirit of love and service, of unselfishness and goodness. When that spirit awakens within us, then comes our Easter day. It may be many days throughout the year; it might be—if we could only rightly appreciate our lives—it might be every day. For every day is a fresh beginning, an Easter day, when we may decide to cast off the old and to put on the new, the old habits of selfishness and jealousy, of insincerity and thoughtlessness—all those petty, little things that mar our lives; and to put on our new and whiter robes of unselfishness and simple sincerity. If the thousands who next Sunday morning will sing of the risen Christ, might all experience within themselves their own Easter mornings, then this world of ours would have realized its resurrection.
“Let the hepaticas which you hold in your hands give you the only Easter lesson worth the learning—the lesson which your pagan forefathers in the forests of Germany taught their children centuries ago on their own Easter festival. You know how each spring the clusters beneath the pines are larger, if you are careful as you pick the blossoms not to disturb the roots. The long months of fall and winter are not months of sleep and rest for the hepaticas. Beneath the snow in the winter silence they are at work, sending out their rootlets through the brown earth, avoiding the rocks and sandy places, but taking firm hold upon that which will nourish them best. Thus do they grow year by year, at each Easter time showing themselves larger and more beautiful than the spring before.
“This is the Easter lesson which I wish you girls might all take to yourselves. As in the winter silence of the earth, the hepaticas send out their rootlets toward the best soil, so in the silence of your own inner lives are you here and now also sending out rootlets, either toward the soil which will give you a healthful, wholesome growth, or toward the barren places where you must cease to grow. Avoid the rocks of indolence and evil influence, the waste places of selfishness; but reach far out for the good, wholesome soil of good books, of a love and knowledge of the out-of-doors, of friends who make you better, of study which will enrich your lives. And as the flowers find themselves more firmly rooted year by year, so will you find yourselves growing in strength and self-control, in sincerity and firmness of purpose. Then, and only then, will you experience the real Easter—the awakening to the realization in your hearts that you, through your own seeking, have found that better part, which can never be taken away from you.”
In the silence that followed, while the organ played softly, Virginia touched with gentle fingers the tiny hepaticas in her lap. Was she sending out rootlets toward the right soil, she wondered? In the years to come would people seek her, as she sought the hepaticas in the spring, because she had found that “better part”? “That is why we go to Miss King and Miss Wallace,” she thought to herself, “because they have found the best soil, and have grown sweeter every year.” And, deep in her heart, she resolved to try harder than ever to avoid the rocks and the sand, and to send her rootlets deep down into the soil which Miss King had described.
Then she heard Dorothy by her side ask if they might sing the hymn of her choosing, and they rose to sing words which somehow held to-day a new and deeper meaning:
Silently they all passed out of the little chapel, and turned homeward. The sun, sinking lower, cast long shadows among the pines, and gilded with a farewell glow the chapel windows. Virginia, Priscilla, and Dorothy took the woodsy path that led to the campus. No one cared to talk very much. When they reached The Hermitage Dorothy went with them to their room; and as they filled bowls of water for the tired little hepaticas, and arranged them thoughtfully, for they some way seemed more like persons than ever before, she said all at once—looking out of the window to hide her embarrassment:
“I just thought I’d tell you that I know I haven’t been growing in very good soil this year; but I’m going to put out new roots now, and I’m not going to send them into sand either.”
The two Vigilantes dropped the hepaticas and hugged Dorothy hard without saying a word. Then, with their arms around one another’s shoulders, they stood by the western window, and watched the sun set behind the hills—happier than they had been for weeks.
CHAPTER XVI—A SPRING-TIME ROMANCE
“You don’t mean you’re going to back out now, Vivian, when we’ve made all arrangements, and you’ve promised to go?”
“I—I didn’t say I was going to back out, Imogene. I just said I wished I hadn’t promised. It doesn’t seem nearly so much fun as it did, and, besides, I know I’ll get caught!”
“Of course you will, if you lose your nerve like that. But if you do as we’ve planned, there isn’t a chance in a thousand. No one will wonder why you’re not at supper, because you’re absent so often; and it will be easy enough to slip out while we’re eating. Then by the time you’re driving off, we’ll all be at that Art lecture; and with the lights off and only the stereopticon, no one will miss you. And by the time we get home, you’ll be here in bed. Why, it’s as smooth as a whistle, and you ought to be everlastingly grateful to Dot and me for fixing it up for you. No other girl in St. Helen’s has ever gone out driving with a man, and you’ll have the story to tell your children.”
Poor Vivian looked for a moment as though she doubted her future children’s pride in their mother’s achievement; but she had long ago put her hand to the plow, and there seemed no turning back.
“Of course I’m going now that it’s gone so far, and I’ve promised,” she said desperately. “But I don’t believe Dorothy thinks it’s so much as she did. She said to-day she sort of wished we hadn’t done it.”
Imogene looked uncomfortable. Dorothy’s strange disloyalty during the weeks since the Easter holidays had greatly disturbed her.
“Dot needn’t act so righteous all of a sudden,” she said bitterly. “I’d like to know who planned this whole thing if she didn’t. I’d certainly never have thought of the birch tree post-office; and she’s been mail-carrier more than half the time. It’s a late day to back out now.”
“She isn’t backing out, Imogene. She only said she wished we hadn’t planned it in the first place; but since we had, of course we’d have to see it through. I don’t think you and she need worry anyway. It’s I that’s going to get the blame; and I shan’t tell on you even if I am caught.”
“Tell on us!” Imogene’s tone was more biting than ever. “Well, I should hope you wouldn’t! Who’s superintended this thing, I’d like to know? Who’s been bringing boxes of candy from him all the way up here to you, and running the risk of being caught? Who’s been posting your notes for you all winter long?”
After listening to this exoneration, Vivian was on the point of tears, and Imogene, feeling that her room-mate’s courage must be kept up at any cost, changed her tone.
“To-morrow you’ll be laughing up your sleeve, and saying what a splendid time you had. Besides, think what fun it’s been all along. We’ve fooled every one in school. No one has suspected a thing! And think of all the candy you’ve had. Of course, he’ll have another box to-night.”
The unhappy Vivian dried her tears, but her face did not brighten. In fact, she did not look at all like a person who was about to enjoy a long-anticipated evening drive.
“Imogene,” she said, and there was an unusual tone of self-assertion in her voice, which surprised her room-mate, “Imogene, I want you to know that a hundred boxes of candy don’t make one feel right inside.”
While this conversation was taking place behind a closed door in The Hermitage, there was another person in the woods by the Retreat, who likewise did not feel right inside. The other person was Dorothy. She had declined Virginia’s and Priscilla’s invitation to go after violets, much as she would have liked to accept, in the hope of easing her conscience; curtly refused to walk with Imogene; and studiously sought to evade the accusing eyes of Vivian. Seizing her opportunity, she had run away from them all, and now sat alone under the pines by the Retreat, trying to think of a way out of her difficulty—a way that would save Vivian from the consequences of an act for which she was really not to blame.
Ever since September Dorothy had sent her rootlets into the waste places of indolence and poor companionship; and now that she had truly resolved to change it seemed to her discouraged heart almost too late. She and Imogene were to blame for the situation which confronted her—not Vivian. Ever since the sallow, white-coated Leslie had entered the employ of the “Forget-me-not,” she and Imogene had directed susceptible Vivian’s attention toward his evident admiration. It was they who had all through the winter and early spring transported his gifts to Vivian; they, who, weary of the monotony which through idleness they made themselves, had seized upon Dorothy’s idea of a secret post-office; and finally, they who had proposed through the means of the post-office that the enamored Leslie take Vivian for an evening drive. Now the crisis was at hand, and what could she do to avert it?
She sat in a wretched little heap beneath the pines, and thoroughly despised Dorothy Richards. She had made a failure of the whole year—in grades, in conduct, in character. The first was bad enough, for she knew that Mary was right. It was she who was helping The Hermitage lose the cup—the scholarship cup which it had determined to win from Hathaway. The second was worse, for she had forfeited Miss Wallace’s confidence, and had aroused the righteous suspicion of the girls. But the last was worst of all! She had allowed herself to be weakly influenced by Imogene, had been disloyal to Priscilla and Virginia, had been very nearly dishonest, if not quite so, and had pitiably lost her own self-respect. And now, even though she was tired of it all, even though she desired deep in her heart to turn her rootlets into better soil, perhaps it was too late. Perhaps, after all, she was not strong enough.
A brown thrasher, who sat on her newly-made nest in a near-by thicket and watched the girl beneath the pines, wondered perhaps at the strange ways of mortals. For even though the sun was bright and the whole world filled with joy, this girl all at once burst into tears, and cried between her sobs:
“Oh, dear, what shall I do? I’ll never be any different—never! And Priscilla and Virginia will never like me again when they know about tonight!”
But remorse, though quite appropriate under the circumstances, and doubtless likely to bear fruit in the future, was useless just at present. Dorothy soon realized that, and sat up again, much to the relief of the brown thrasher, who felt safer now that this strange person sobbed no more. A situation confronted her and must be met. Was there any way to save Vivian, and at the same time not implicate Imogene? Were Dorothy alone to blame, she would go to Miss Wallace and tell the whole story; but she knew that Miss Wallace had previously suspected Imogene with good cause, and she did not wish to run the risk of getting Imogene into further trouble, even though she might richly deserve it. Of course, Vivian might be easily persuaded to stay at home and not meet her knight-errant of the soda-fountain, who was to find her at seven o’clock by the birch tree; but that meant anger and certain revenge on the part of Imogene, besides the probability of the disappointed Leslie communicating his disappointment in such a way as would eventually reach the ears of some member of St. Helen’s faculty.
The five-thirty warning bell found the question unsolved, and a sadly troubled Dorothy walked slowly homeward. She was purposely late to supper, for she did not wish to encounter Imogene or Vivian. As she left the wood-path and came out upon the campus, she saw hurrying down the hill a short, plump figure in a red sweater. Vivian, on the way to meet her knight!
At supper Dorothy tried in vain to eat the food upon her plate. Impossible schemes, each vetoed as soon as concocted, were born but to die. It was only when Priscilla and Virginia, excused early for tennis, left the table, that an inspiration seized her. Almost without waiting for Miss Wallace’s nod of permission, she ran from the dining-room, flew up the stairs, and burst into Priscilla’s and Virginia’s room, where they, surprised, paused in the act of lacing their tennis shoes.
“Oh, Virginia,” she cried, “go quick! Vivian will listen to you, and she won’t to me, because I’ve been so mean. Oh, lace your shoes quickly! She is down by the birch tree, just beyond the gates on the road to Hillcrest, waiting for—for that silly Leslie, who’s coming to take her to drive. And it’s not her fault, because we—I mean I—put her up to do it. And you can hate and despise and detest me, if you want to, only hurry, and make him go away!”
The founder of the Vigilantes needed no further explanation. So this was the meaning of her discovery a month ago! She sprang to her feet, raced through the hall, down the stairs, and across the campus toward the road, while the contrite Dorothy remained to confess the whole miserable story to Priscilla. It was Friday evening and there was no study hour after supper, so that Virginia could leave The Hermitage without exciting surprise. Moreover, the girls in the cottages were all at supper, and there was no one to note her hurried flight down the hill. Dorothy had not said at what hour Vivian’s cavalier would arrive, and there was no time to be lost. Even then they might be driving away. Almost out of breath she raced down the hill, through the pine woods, out the stone gates, and into the main road. A quarter of a mile away, coming from the direction of Hillcrest, she saw a runabout, in which sat a solitary figure, who seeing her at that distance waved his hand as a signal.
“It’s that silly thing!” breathed Virginia to herself. “He thinks I’m Vivian. Oh, I’m glad I’m not too late!”
She dashed down the road and into the rude path through the alders to the birch tree. There, at its base, hidden by the alders from the view of those who passed, crouched poor, trembling Vivian. She had half risen, as Virginia crashed through the bushes, thinking that her cavalier was approaching; but at the sight of the panting Virginia, she shrank back against the tree.
“Why—why, Virginia,” she stammered. “Why—why, what do you want?”
Virginia was almost too breathless to answer.
“I’ve—come—to meet—your friend, Vivian,” she managed to gasp. “He’s coming now. He’ll be here in a moment.”
“I—I think I’m scared,” gasped Vivian in her turn, shrinking farther back against the tree. “Aren’t you, Virginia?”
“No,” said her deliverer, gaining breath at every moment, “no, Vivian, I certainly am not scared. I feel as brave as Theseus, though Leslie isn’t much of a Minotaur, I must say!”
The sound of a horse’s feet-came nearer and nearer, then stopped. A carriage creaked as some one jumped from it; twigs snapped as some one came crashing through them. Vivian hugged the old tree for support, and turned her face toward the pasture. Virginia braced herself for the attack, her back against the tree, her arms folded Napoleon-wise, her head high, her eyes flashing. As the bushes parted and the soda-fountain clerk emerged and stepped into the trysting-place, a more surprised youth could not have been found in the State of Massachusetts.
Arrayed in a new and gallantly worn linen duster, his hat on the side of his head, a box of candy under one arm, he stood as though rooted to the spot, an amazed and sickly smile playing over his more sickly countenance. What had happened? Was he to escort two ladies instead of one? His eye-glasses, attached by a gold chain to his ear, trembled as his pale gaze, expressionless save for surprise, tried to encompass the figure who still embraced the tree. But all in vain, for ever he encountered a pair of flashing gray eyes, which, steady and disdainful, never once left his own.
“You may go now,” said the owner of the eyes, after what seemed long minutes to the faithful Leslie, “and don’t you ever come here again! This isn’t a post-office any longer. You’re too unspeakably silly for any use, and Vivian thinks so just the same as the rest of us. You belong to a soda-fountain, for you’re just as sickish as vanilla ice-cream, and as senseless as soda-water. Now go!”
The subdued Leslie needed no second bidding. He went. They heard his hurrying feet crash through the roadside thicket, the creaking of his carriage as with one bound he leaped into it, and the crack of the whip, as he warned his steed to do no tarrying in that locality. Then Virginia turned her attention to Vivian who by this time was in an hysterical little heap at the foot of the big old tree.
“It’s all right, Vivian,” she said, with her arms around Vivian’s shaking shoulders. “He’s gone and he won’t come back. He’ll be in New York by midnight, if he keeps on going. Please don’t cry any more.”
But Vivian could not stop just then. To be sure, the result of her foolishness had been checked before it was too late; but nothing could blot out the foolishness itself; and it was that which was breaking her heart.
“Oh, I’m not crying about him!” she said between her sobs. “I despise him! I’m crying because I’ve been so silly, and nobody’ll ever forget it. I don’t care what Dorothy and Imogene say. It’s what’s inside of me that hurts! And everybody’ll know how silly I’ve been! Oh, why can’t I be different than I am?”
“Everybody won’t know, Vivian. Oh, please don’t cry so! Nobody’ll know except Priscilla and me, and we’ll think all the more of you. And Dorothy feels worse than you, because she’s been even more to blame. ’Twas she that told me, and made me come to help you.”
Vivian stopped crying from sheer surprise. So Dorothy felt bad inside too, and had tried to help her. That was comforting.
“And as for Imogene,” Virginia continued, “if she once dares to tease you for trying not to be foolish any more,—if she dares,—well. I shouldn’t want to say what might happen!”
The distant sound of a bell rang through the still air.
“Now, Vivian, there’s the lecture bell, and if we don’t go, somebody will suspect. You’ll feel better inside, if you just make up your mind that you’re not going to be silly any longer. I’m your true friend, and so is Priscilla; and, if you’ll let us, we’ll try to help you to—to find better soil for your roots, just the way we’re trying to do.”
So the world looked a little brighter to Vivian as she left the hated post-office and walked back toward St. Helen’s with her “true friend’s” arm around her. Perhaps, after all, if she tried hard, she might, some day, be a little different. As they turned into St. Helen’s gateway, they met Dorothy and the Senior monitor, walking arm in arm. Dorothy’s eyes were red from crying, and the face of the Senior monitor was stern, though it grew kind again as she came up to Vivian and Virginia.
“It’s going to be all right, Vivian,” she said, “and we’re every one your friends. Don’t you feel bad any more.”
“And I’m going to begin all over again and be your friend, Vivian,” said Dorothy, tears very near the surface again, “if you’ll forgive me, and let me try. But if you won’t, I’ll never blame you, because I’ve been so frightfully miserable to you!”
But Vivian, feeling undeservedly rich, put her arm close around Dorothy, while Mary went to Virginia’s side, and the four of them climbed the hill toward St. Helen’s together. There were yet fifteen minutes before the lecture, and those fifteen minutes were spent, with the addition of Priscilla, in Imogene Meredith’s room. The Senior monitor spoke more plainly than they had ever heard her speak before during that secret and never-to-be-forgotten session, and Imogene, for at least once in her life, felt with the fabulous barnyard fowls in the old tale, quite as though her “sky were falling.” A week later, to the surprise of all St. Helen’s, except perhaps the faculty, Mrs. Meredith arrived. She had decided to take Imogene to the mountains, she said, for the remainder of the year. Her health seemed failing, and she feared a nervous breakdown.
As for the chivalrous Leslie, the “Forget-me-not” knew him no more; for on the very day after his sudden departure from the trysting-place, when the girls went to Hillcrest to indulge in the inevitable Saturday afternoon sundae, they were served by a gray-haired stranger, who wore Leslie’s coat with ease, but who looked unromantic in the extreme.
CHAPTER XVII—THE VIGILANTES INITIATE
“Ad, ante, con, de, in, inter,—” recited Virginia. “Priscilla, do you always remember the difference between gerunds and gerundives now you’re a Junior?”
“Always remember! Why, I never do! I think it’s a point of ignorance to be proud of. It’s depressing to remember so many unvital things. That’s one.”
Ten minutes’ silence, punctuated by Priscilla’s sighs over Cicero, and Virginia’s whispered prepositions.
“The person who recommended Friday afternoon study hour must have been very inhuman.”
“She was! ’Twas Greenie! We’re studying now in blessed memory of her!”
“I wonder where she is.”
“Oh, probably sitting on an Athenian rock-pile, and gazing at the Acropolis! I’m glad it’s the Acropolis instead of me! Virginia, I can’t study another second, and it isn’t three o’clock for fifteen minutes. You haven’t shown me how you’ve changed the Constitution yet, and we’re going to start at three. I don’t see but that we both have to stop studying anyway, whether we choose to or not. We’ve just about time to read it over.”
Virginia needed no urging. She closed the Latin Grammar, tore the afghan and pillows from her couch, and burrowed under the bed-clothes until she found what she sought—a somewhat rumpled piece of paper.
“This is the original, you know,” she said. “I’m keeping it for my Memory Book, and I’ll make a copy for yours. I made the new one different as we planned. I took out the ‘evil influence’ part, because there isn’t any more need for that, and, of course, the names of those we were especially guarding. I don’t think Dorothy and Vivian had best know about that, do you? It might make them feel a little queer to know we’d been watching them especially.”
“No, we won’t say anything about that part. They’re going to be one of us now, and trying for the same thing. We’ll keep the real reason for the founding of the order a secret, known to only the charter members. I’ll never cease to be glad you thought of it, now that things have come out the way they have. Isn’t it splendid about Dorothy’s grades? Mary said to-day that if Dorothy gets A’s in everything all the quarter, the way she has ever since Easter, and every one else keeps up as well, we’ll really have a chance of winning the cup from Hathaway.”
“Vivian’s doing splendidly, too. Miss Wallace read her theme in class to-day and complimented her, and Vivian looked so pleased. She’s so quiet lately, and seems sad. I think she feels bad about Imogene. Priscilla, do you really suppose that—?” Virginia’s voice was mysteriously lowered.
“Yes, I do,” answered Priscilla in a whisper. “Of course, no one will ever know; but I’m sure Imogene didn’t know her mother was coming, and we all know Imogene wasn’t sick. Maybe Mary felt she ought to tell; or maybe Miss Wallace knew more than we thought all along. St. Helen’s always does things quietly; but I’ll always think that Imogene was—expelled!”
“Maybe Vivian knows, and that’s why she feels so bad. And, besides, it’s lonesome rooming all alone. I’ll read you the new Constitution, and then we’ll go and get them both. Where shall we go?”
“Let’s choose the big rock just back of the Retreat, behind the pines. No one goes there very often, and we can have it for our meeting-place. Read on. It’s five minutes to three now.”
Virginia drew a less rumpled paper from her blouse pocket and read:
“We, the undersigned, on this 10th day of May, do hereby announce that we are the sole members of the Order of Vigilantes, a secret order founded on the 20th day of January last by Priscilla Alden Winthrop and Virginia Webster Hunter. We take our name from the Vigilantes of the West—those brave men, who in the early days of our Western States, bound themselves together in the endeavor to stand for fair play, and to preserve law and order. Like them, we hereby determine and promise to stand at all times for fair play and true friendship; and to help one another in every way we can to live up to the principles of our order. As stated above, we are the only real Vigilantes, though the existence of the order is known to Mary Williams, who is our adviser, when we need assistance.”
“Now, we’ll sign our names, Priscilla, and I’ll take my fountain pen so that they can sign on the rock. Come on. It’s after three now.”
They went into the hall where they met Dorothy, who had agreed to keep the mysterious appointment with them at three o’clock, and together they went to get Vivian. But no response came to their knocking.
“That’s queer. She can’t be asleep. She said she’d be ready.”
They knocked again—louder this time. Still there was no answer. Then they tried the door, and to their surprise found it locked.
“Why, where can she be? You don’t suppose she’s sick or something, do you?” asked Priscilla. “She wouldn’t lock the door if she went out. Let’s go around the porch and look in the windows.”
They went into their room, and through the French windows on to the porch, Dorothy following. When they reached Vivian’s room, they found the curtains lowered, though the windows were not locked. By dint of a good deal of prying, they raised the screens, windows and curtains, and stepped into the room. Then they stood and stared at one another in amazement. Vivian’s trunk stood, packed, tagged, and locked in the middle of the floor; her pictures, posters, pennants, and other wall decorations had disappeared, as had the toilet articles from the dresser; only the pillow-laden couch stood as before, though its afghan and pillows bore tags, on each of which was written, “For any one who wants it.”
“Why, why, she’s gone!” gasped Virginia, the first to speak. “Oh, we must stop her! What shall we do? Somebody think—quick!”
But in their sudden and complete surprise, thinking quickly was an utter impossibility. They probably would have remained staring at one another while precious time was hastening on, had not Priscilla’s eyes, roving distractedly about the dismantled room, fallen upon an envelope on the top of the closed and locked desk.
“It’s for you, Virginia,” she cried, passing the envelope to her room-mate. “Oh, read it, quick!”
Virginia lost no time in tearing open the envelope and unfolding the paper within.
‘Dear Virginia,’ she read in a trembling voice to those who listened, ‘I know you’ll all think I’m sillier than ever, but I can’t stand being miserable any longer. You’ve all been good to me, especially you, and I’ll never, never, never forget it, so long as I live! You’re the best friend I ever had. (A sob from Dorothy.) But it is very hard to hate yourself every minute; and, besides, I can’t forget what Imogene said to me when she went away. So I’m going home, and maybe next year when people have forgotten my silliness, Miss King will let me come back. Perhaps, I’ll be different then, but I can’t promise; and maybe, after all, she won’t let me come back, when she knows I’ve run away.
“Vivian.
“‘P. S. Please tell Miss Wallace I’m sorry I deceived her by telling her I had a headache, and asking if I could study in the woods. I did have a headache; and there wasn’t any other way I could get the train without somebody finding out.’—V. E. W.’”
Still they stood in poor, discouraged Vivian’s deserted room, and looked at one another. Virginia’s face was sad from sympathy, Priscilla looked puzzled and thoughtful, Dorothy was crying.
“Oh, it’s my fault,” she sobbed. “I ought to have gone away along with Imogene! I haven’t been a friend to Vivian, and now I’ll never have a chance!”
“Yes, you will, too,” cried Priscilla, coming out of her reverie, “because she can’t take the train after all. There isn’t any three o’clock. It’s been taken off. Miss Wallace told me so yesterday, when she was thinking of going away for over Sunday. The next one doesn’t go till five, and if Vivian’s anywhere around, we’ll find her and bring her back. Let’s not say a word to any one, but just hunt till we find her. The door’s locked and we can draw the curtains, and no one will ever know.”
Without wasting any precious moments they hurried out the way they had entered, drawing the curtains before closing the windows and screens, ran down-stairs and across the campus to the road, running the gauntlet of all who called to them by maintaining a discreet and somewhat exclusive silence. At the top of the hill, Priscilla reviewed her forces.
“Let’s each take a different direction. She’s around the woods somewhere, because she wouldn’t dare stay around Hillcrest for fear of meeting the girls, and there aren’t any woods the other side of the village. I’ll go north of the campus, and Dorothy, you take the Retreat woods, and Virginia, you cross the road by the gates, and go through those pastures there, and you might look by the birch tree, though she’s not likely to be there. And let’s all remember that if any girl tries to join us, we’re to treat her abominably, so she’ll know she isn’t wanted. It’s mean, but there’s no other way to do, because Vivian’ll never come back if she thinks any one else knows. Whoever finds her first, will give three loud calls in quick succession; and if by any chance we don’t any of us find her, we’re all to meet at the station for the five o’clock. But I know we’ll be successful.”
They started, each in the direction signified; and while they hurried through the woods, thinking only of Vivian, and of how if they ever found her, they would make her so happy she would forget all that had passed, the object of their thought and search crouched on the top of the big rock back of the Retreat, and hoped that the surrounding trees hid her quite from sight.
When the station agent half an hour ago had told her there was no train before five o’clock, her heart had sunk. What should she do? She could not linger around Hillcrest, for she was sure of meeting some of the girls. There was no place in which to hide near the village; and to walk to the nearest town ten miles away and take the train from there was out of the question. There seemed nothing to do but to retrace her steps toward St. Helen’s, and hide in the woods until time for the next train. Then she must trust to luck, and run the risk of meeting the girls. Meanwhile, there was no time to lose. It was fifteen minutes to three already, and in half an hour the girls would be through with study hour and out-of-doors.
She hurried, up the village street, and out upon the country road, still in her sweater and little school hat. Her mother would doubtless be surprised to see her dressed that way, she thought to herself as she ran. She would wire her from Springfield. Yes, she would be surprised, but when she had heard the whole story, she would pity Vivian and welcome her home. And her father would probably laugh at her, call her a silly little girl, and then engage a tutor for her. It would not be easy to tell them, and might be very hard to make them understand; but she could bear that more easily than to stay at St. Helen’s with the remembrance of Imogene’s words in her ears.
Out of breath, she sat down by the roadside to rest for a few minutes. No, she could never forget Imogene’s words! She saw her dressed ready to go, remembered how she had risen to kiss her, and how, instead of kissing her, Imogene had said, “Of course, you realize, Vivian, if you hadn’t been such a little fool, and Dorothy such a coward, I wouldn’t be going away like this!”
So they had really sent Imogene away—expelled her! And Imogene had said that she was to blame, had gone without kissing her, had never written her in all that long week! No, it was all too much to be borne! Besides, it did not matter how good the girls had been to her since the evening when Virginia had rescued her from the carrying out of her foolish plan, she felt sure that in their hearts they despised her for having been so weak and so easily influenced. And now she could never show them that she meant to be different! Even Virginia and Priscilla whom she so dearly loved would never know! But she saw no other way.
Rising, she hurried on. The school clock struck three. She dashed through the gates and into the woods by the Retreat. In a few minutes the girls would be passing along the road, and she was in danger of being seen. Looking around for a hiding-place, she espied the big rock back of the Retreat, the very rock which the Vigilantes had chosen for their initiation ceremonies. A great pine which grew close by overhung it with wide-spreading, feathery branches. Vivian hastily climbed upon the rock, and, crawling in among the pine branches, was quite concealed from the sight of all except the most careful observer.
It was but a few moments before she heard voices—on the meadow, in the road, even in the very woods about her. Study hour was over, and the girls were free. Well, if by any chance they drew near her place of concealment, she could take her Caesar from her pocket and begin to study. That would tend to dispel suspicion. How jolly and merry they sounded! She could hear Bess Shepard’s laugh, and some lusty shouts, which, of course, came from the Blackmore twins. She had had lovely times at St. Helen’s. Of course even now, she might—but no, it was too late! Without doubt, by now some one had discovered her room, and everybody would know!
A loud crackling of twigs sounded to the right. Some one was coming in her direction—yes, some one in a red sweater, for she could distinguish that color through the thicket. She crouched lower under the pine branches. Then, seeing that it was of no use to hide, for the sweater was unmistakably coming through the bushes, she sat up-right with a beating heart and drew Caesar from her pocket—just as Dorothy broke through the last blackberry bush and saw her on the rock. And though she tried her utmost to gaze at Caesar, she just couldn’t help seeing the joy and gladness that swept over Dorothy’s anxious face.
“Oh, Vivian!” she cried. “Oh, Vivian! I’ve found you, and I’m so glad! And you’re going to forgive me, and give me another chance to be your friend, aren’t you? Oh, say you’re not going away!”
In another moment Dorothy was on the rock beside her, and poor Caesar had fallen into a rose-bush, where he lay forgotten. The five o’clock train was forgotten, too; for as Vivian sat there with Dorothy’s arms around her, she knew she wouldn’t do anything else in the world but go back and begin all over again.
“My!” said Dorothy, after they had talked everything over for the third time at least. “My! I forgot to give the signal, and Priscilla and Virginia are very likely half-dead from fright by now!”
She gave the three short calls agreed upon, which were immediately answered; and in less than five minutes the two Vigilantes, very much alive and very, very happy, were also sitting on the very rock chosen but two hours before. Then, after all the crooked things had been made straight, after the world seemed beautiful again, and friendship sweeter than before—then, with the ceremony befitting its importance, the Vigilante Order was explained in full to the chosen initiates, and its purpose made plain. With serious faces they signed their names,
Vivian Evelyn Winters
Dorothy Richards
below the signatures of the charter members.
“Everything’s over now,” said the real originator of the order with a happy little sigh, as she folded the Constitution and placed it in her pocket. “Everything’s over, and in another way, everything nicest is just beginning. There’s certainly strength in numbers, and we’ll all help one another to be real Vigilantes.”
“We ought to have a watchword,” proposed Priscilla. “I was thinking of one when I heard Dorothy call. Do you think ‘Ever Vigilant’ is any good?”
They all thought it just the thing.
“And I’ve been, wondering just this minute,” said Dorothy, “about something else; but I’m a new member, and if you don’t like my plan, I hope you’ll say so. I was thinking about having an emblem. Most orders do, you know. Don’t you think it-would be rather nice to have the hepatica, and have it stand for what Miss King said—sending our rootlets into good soil? You see, I thought of it because—well, because I’ve felt so ashamed of—of the way my rootlets have been growing, and lately I’ve—I’ve been trying—” She hesitated, embarrassed.
Virginia had listened, her eyes growing brighter every moment.
“I think it’s a perfectly lovely idea, Dorothy,” she said, while Priscilla and Vivian nodded their approval. “And I’ve a secret just born—a lovely, lovely one—and it’s going to happen before very long! It just came with your thought of the hepatica!”
The others were properly mystified, but the owner of the secret would divulge nothing; and half an hour later, Caesar, having been rescued from the rose-bush, the four Vigilantes went home to help Vivian unpack.
CHAPTER XVIII—THE HEART-BROKEN MISS WALLACE
“Lucile, are you sure?”
“Virginia, if you ask me that again, I’ll believe you think I fib. Of course I’m sure!”
“Did you see him more than once, Lucile?”
“Priscilla, I’ve told you a dozen times that I saw him one whole afternoon long at Versailles. Isn’t that long enough to remember him, I’d like to know?”
“And Miss Wallace said when she introduced him—just what did she say, anyhow?”
“Vivian Winters, you make me sick! You really do! She said—and this is the twentieth time I’ve told you—she said, ‘Lucile, I want you to meet my dear friend, Mr. Taylor.’”
“And what did he say?”
“Will you please listen this time, Dorothy, for it’s positively the last time I shall tell you. He said, ‘Any friend of Miss Wallace’s is my friend, too.’ And he gazed at her with his very soul. You forgot he had eyes at all!”
The exasperated Lucile leaned back among her pillows, and munched the candy with which she had generously supplied herself.
“You really all do make me tired,” she said between her bites. “I’ve told you over and over again that any one could see that he loved her from the way he gazed at her; that the picture she’s had all the year up to six weeks ago on her dresser was his; and that I know her heart is broken. Now, what more can I say?”
“It isn’t that we don’t believe you, Lucile,” Virginia hastened to explain. “It’s just—well, you see you do have a very romantic tendency, and—”
“Of course, I do. It’s my temperament. I’ve heard father say so a dozen times. Besides, I’ve lived in Paris, and the very stones of Paris breathe romance!”
“Well, I really think Lucile is right, sad as it seems. Miss Wallace hasn’t been herself since Easter; and it was just then that the picture disappeared from her dresser. Of course Lucile couldn’t have been with him a whole afternoon and not know his face; and, naturally, she would know how he treated her.” This announcement from Priscilla was not without effect.
“Of course I would,” reiterated the encouraged Lucile. “Didn’t I see him gaze at her, and call her ‘Margaret,’ and her, when she called him ‘Bob’?”
“Did you see him do anything but gaze?” asked Dorothy, still a little incredulous. “He seems to have gazed all the time.”
“Why, of course, right at Versailles, he wouldn’t have taken her hand, or anything like that. A gaze can speak volumes, I’ll have you to know. But when we sailed from Havre, and he stayed to study at the Sorbonne, he put his arms around her and kissed her. It was thrilling!”
This new piece of information was indisputable proof, which, placed by the side of the strange disappearance of the said Mr. Taylor’s picture, and the strange and unwonted sadness of Miss Wallace, formed a bulk of evidence, to disbelieve which was folly.
“Oh, I’m afraid it’s true,” said Virginia, echoing the misgivings of her room-mate. “She looks so quiet and sad, it just breaks my heart. I actually know she’d been crying the other day when I saw her coming out of the Retreat. Probably she went there for comfort. Poor thing! How could he have been so cruel?”
“Why, maybe it wasn’t he. Maybe he’s suffering, and pacing the streets of Paris this moment, preferring death to life.” Lucile’s imagination, so fruitless in the channels of academic thought, was certainly prolific in the flowery paths of Romance. “Perhaps Miss Wallace felt the call to service, broke her engagement, and has decided to give her very life to help others.”
“I don’t think Miss Wallace would do that,” Virginia said thoughtfully. “Not that it isn’t a wonderful thing to do; but I feel some way as though she’d rather be a mother. One evening last Thanksgiving I was in her room, and we were talking about the things girls could do in the world. I asked her what she thought was the noblest thing; and she said in the sweetest voice, ‘A real mother, Virginia.’”
“And she is just a born mother,” added Priscilla. “Mother said so at Thanksgiving. Oh, dear! Why did it have to happen?”
No one pretended to know. Lucile was inclined to attribute it to Fate; while Dorothy advanced the thought that it might be a trial sent to prove Miss Wallace’s strength.
“And it’s wonderful how strong she is,” she said. “She’s usually so jolly at table; and last night she was the very life of the party. One would never have known.”
“Yes, and she probably went home to a sleepless night,” suggested Lucile, “and tossed about till morning.”
“It seems to me she’s been happier lately.”
“She’s probably learning to bear it better—that’s all.”
“She’s never worn an engagement ring, has she?” asked the practical Vivian.
“No, but of course she wouldn’t wear it here. It would excite too much comment,” Priscilla explained.
“Without doubt she had one, and wore it around her neck, before it happened,” Lucile again suggested.
“Oh, if we could only show her in some way that we’re sorry for her! That would, perhaps, help a little,” said Virginia. “Do you suppose she’d feel we were interfering if we sent her some flowers? We needn’t say a thing, but just write ‘With sympathy’ or ‘With love’ on a card, and she’d understand. Do you think she’d like it, Priscilla?”
“Why, yes, I think she would. And ’twould relieve our minds. We’d know we’d done all we could. I suppose time will make it easier for her to bear.”
“Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding, and they’ll come together again, when they see they can’t live without each other,” said Vivian hopefully.
“Maybe, but I feel that it’s the end! And oh, if you girls could only have seen them together and known that they were made for each other! Fate is cruel!” wailed Lucile tragically.
“Well, are we going to send the flowers?” asked Virginia. She was aching for Miss Wallace, but Lucile’s romantic ravings were a little tiring. “If we do, let’s not say a word to any one. Miss Wallace, being in The Hermitage, belongs to us more anyway; and I think we ought to love her enough to guard her secret. I know she wouldn’t wish it known. Of course, as things have happened, we can’t help knowing, but we can help talking about it to others. You haven’t told any one else, have you, Lucile?”
“Of course not. Don’t you suppose I know better than all of you that life would be simply impossible to her if she thought the world knew. Remember, I’ve seen them together!”
“What kind of flowers do you think we’d better send?”
“Pink carnations.”
“Oh, no, carnations are too common!”
“Violets then.”
“Oh, spare her that! He gave her violets that afternoon at Versailles!”
“Roses, why not?”
“Anything but red roses. They mean undying love, and hers is dead.”
“Why not send her daffodils?” proposed Virginia. “They’re so cheery and hopeful, and look like spring.”
Every one seemed agreed that, under the circumstances, Virginia’s choice was the most appropriate. It was thereupon decided that daffodils be sent to Miss Wallace; but that, to save her possible embarrassment, the names of the donors be kept secret. Dorothy and Vivian were delegated to go to Hillcrest and make the purchase, while the others tried to enliven their sympathetic hearts by tennis.
Meanwhile, during this session of sympathy in her behalf, Miss Wallace sat in her school-room, correcting an avalanche of themes, which seemed to have no end. “Dear me!” she sighed to herself, “no girl in this whole school will be so glad of vacation as I. I’ve never taught through such a year.”
It certainly had been a hard and trying year. In the fall Miss Green’s tactlessness had required an extra amount of discretion on the part of Miss Wallace; in the winter the German Measles had broken into the regularity necessary for good work; and all through the year she had been required to watch, which occupation she found harder than any other—watch a girl, to whom she had never been able to come close, and whom she had failed to influence toward better things. She could not really blame herself for her failure in helping Imogene, but she felt sorry, because, knowing Imogene, she feared that life would never hold what it might for her. Altogether, it had been a hard year; and she would not have been human had she not at times looked tired, thoughtful, and even sad.
“You need a rest, my dear,” said the old Hillcrest doctor, meeting her one day in the village. “You’re quite tired out, working for those nice girls up there.” But that pile of themes did not look like immediate rest; and, sharpening her red pencil, she went to work again.
She left the school-room just as the warning-bell was ringing and crossed the campus to The Hermitage, longing for letters. On her desk she found a package and a telegram, which, when she had read it, made her tired face glow with happiness. “Dear Bob!” she said to herself. “He deserves it all. I’m so glad!”
“His picture has come back, too,” she added, untying the package, “just in time for the good news. You dear old fellow! You deserve a silver frame, and the nicest girl in the world.”
There came a knock at her door just then, and the maid passed her a long box from the florist’s. Surprised, she opened it to find dozens of yellow daffodils, and a card, which said in carefully disguised handwriting, “With deepest love, and tenderest sympathy.”
“Why, what can it mean?” she thought mystified. “I always need the love, but I certainly don’t need sympathy. I never was so happy in my life!”
The supper-bell rang just then, and put a stop to her wonderings. She dressed hurriedly, placed some daffodils at her waist, and descended to the dining-room, a trifle late, but wholly radiant.
“She surely doesn’t look sad to-night,” mused more than one at the table. “Could the flowers have made her happier so soon, or what is it?”
Half an hour before study hour, Miss Wallace called Virginia to her room.
“I know you love daffodils, Virginia,” she said, “and I want you to see this gorgeous quantity which some mysterious person has sent me. And the strangest part about it is that they come with ‘tenderest sympathy.’ It’s especially funny to-night, because I’m so happy. I think I really must tell you about it.”
Virginia’s heart beat fast with excitement. Was this beloved teacher of hers really going to confide in her? Her eyes followed Miss Wallace’s to the dresser, and there, reclothed in a shining silver frame, was Mr. Taylor—Miss Wallace’s own Mr. Taylor! So it had been only a misunderstanding after all! The dream of Miss Wallace’s life was not dead, but living, and she was happy! One glance at her face was proof of that! Virginia was so happy herself that she longed to tell her so; but perhaps she had best not just now. Besides, what was Miss Wallace saying?
“I don’t know that I’ve ever told you about my cousin, Robert Taylor, Virginia. You’ve seen his picture of course—that is till recently when I sent it away to have it framed. To-night I had a cable from him, telling me that he’s actually engaged to the dearest girl I know. We’ve both been hoping for it for months—I almost as much as he—and Mary’s just decided that she can’t get along without him. I’m so delighted!”
It seemed impossible that Virginia’s heart could have undergone such a metamorphosis as it had in the last minute.
“Is—? is—he your cousin?” she asked in a queer, strained little voice. But Miss Wallace was so happy that she did not notice it.
“Why, yes, he’s really my cousin, but he seems like my brother, for his mother died when he was a baby, and my mother brought him up. So we’ve always lived together, just like brother and sister, and I never think of any difference. Why, my dear, where are you going? The bell hasn’t rung.” For Virginia was half way out of the door.
“I—must go,” she stammered. “The girls are waiting for me up-stairs.”
Four more crestfallen and unromantic girls never existed than those which looked at one another at the conclusion of Virginia’s story.
“I never felt so silly in my life!” she added, after the last rainbow-colored bubble had been burst.
“Nor I!” cried Priscilla.
“Let’s be everlastingly grateful we didn’t sign our names,” said Dorothy.
“And he was just away being framed!” moaned Vivian.
“Where’s Lucile?”
“Oh, she’s probably moaning in her room over Fate!”
“She needs a tonic!” said Priscilla. “Let’s go and tell her so.”
“It won’t do a bit of good,” Virginia observed, as they started down the hall to employ the remaining five minutes in disciplining Lucile. “It’s her temperament, you know; and, besides, the very stones of Paris breathe Romance!”