“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!”