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?”