“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