Then she went. Virginia heard her padded footsteps stealing down the stairs. Priscilla had, fortunately, not awakened. Virginia was too surprised to be angry. Had it really happened, or was it just a dream? She tried the French windows to make sure. They were securely locked. Then she laughed as she remembered Miss Green’s curlpapers and spectacles and horrified expression.
She felt better after she had laughed. Perhaps now she could go to sleep. But not yet! She suddenly remembered her “Thought Book.” This evening had been rich in new experiences. She did not venture to turn on the light. That might be indecorous at midnight. But, kneeling by the window, she traced these words by the dim light:
“Experience II. One need hardly be reminded that it is highly indecorous for a young lady to stand on a porch at midnight in a kimono. Moreover, let us ever avoid all appearance of evil!”
Then she crawled into bed and fell asleep.
CHAPTER VIII—THE LAST STRAW
No really human girl, especially with the memory of Miss Green, clothed in curl-papers and horror, fresh in her mind, could resist relating such an experience as that of the night before to her roommate at least. Virginia was really human, and so she told Priscilla, who was wondering over the lost porch key, first vowing her to eternal secrecy, or, at all events, until it should be revealed whether or not Miss Green would feel it her duty to report the affair. They might have spared themselves a great deal of wonder and a little worry had they known that Miss Green, after due deliberation in the small hours of the morning, had decided that this was not a case for report. However, she had not decided at the same time that implicit trust might be placed in this somewhat unusual girl from Wyoming. She was still disturbed, and somewhat suspicious, as she recalled the events of the evening before, and felt that Virginia would “bear watching.”
Breakfast that Saturday morning was a painfully lugubrious meal. To begin with, every one was late; and Miss Green’s frigid manner really did not need the added coolness which she invariably bestowed upon late comers. Imogene did not appear, sending a headache as an excuse, and Vivian arrived, red-eyed from weeping, and minus a neck-tie. Mary and Anne were unusually silent, Lucile audibly wished for the “Continental Breakfast,” and Dorothy openly snubbed Virginia, who hoped, perhaps not tactfully, but certainly genuinely, that Imogene was not ill. Priscilla and Virginia had come in late, but in good spirits, having just finished laughing over Miss Green’s curl-papers. However, their good spirits waned in this atmosphere, only enlivened by Miss Wallace’s futile attempt at conversation. Moreover, Miss Green felt Virginia’s gayety very inappropriate under the circumstances, and apparently considered it her duty to extend toward her a cool reserve.
Poor Virginia, who upon awaking had decided to try to forget all the discomfort of the evening before and be happy again, felt her resolution impossible of fulfillment in this atmosphere; and by the time breakfast was over (be assured it was a short repast) was as discouraged and homesick as the night before. She declined Mary’s and Anne’s invitation to walk with them and the sad-eyed Vivian to the village after Saturday morning’s house-cleaning; refused to play tennis with Priscilla and the Blackmore twins (two jolly girls from Hathaway); quite enraged Dorothy by discovering her and Imogene in secret conversation, when she went to find her sweater which Lucile had borrowed; and at last, completely discouraged, and sick of everything, wandered off down the hill by herself, pretending not to hear some girls from King Cottage, who called to her to wait.
On the way she met the postman, who handed her three letters. She stuffed them in her pocket; and then, for fear of being followed by the King girls, hurried into the woods by a short cut she had already discovered, and found her way to the little gray stone chapel. She opened the door and went in, but it seemed cold and damp inside, and she came out again into the sunshine.
Here she was practically sure of being undisturbed, for the girls did not often visit St. Helen’s Retreat on Saturday morning. She sat down on the stone steps and listened to the wind in the pine trees, which completely surrounded the little chapel. Shafts of sunlight fell through the branches upon the brown needles beneath. In among the tangled thickets beyond the trees, the birds were gathering to go southward. They seemed in a great bustle of preparation. Virginia spied thrushes and tow-hees, brown thrashers and robins in great numbers; also many bluebirds, whose color was not so brilliant as that of their mountain bluebird at home. The English sparrows, however, were undisturbed by thoughts of moving, and chattered about the eaves of the Retreat, quite lazy and content.