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.