“Of course I know. I told you then ’twas just like her. And Dorothy knew about that, too. I’m sure she did! She’s so quiet whenever it’s mentioned, and looks ashamed. And lately Dorothy’s even been teasing Vivian, just as Imogene does, about that silly Leslie, who always gives Vivian extra large cakes at the ‘Forget-me-not.’ Oh, dear! I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do, but it worries me. Dorothy’s my best friend along with you, and I don’t want her to grow like Imogene. Can you keep a secret if I tell you one?”
“Of course, I can.”
“Well, Dorothy visited Imogene at Christmas time. Not the whole vacation, because she spent most of it with her aunt in New York. You know, her mother is dead, and her father is in California most of the time, so she spends vacations with her aunt. She was there for a week and a half, and then she went to Albany and visited Imogene, and that is why they came back together. They were late, too, because they stayed for a party Imogene gave. And the thing I mind most is that Dorothy never told she’d been there at all, just as though it were a secret. Only Vivian was at the party, and she mentioned it just as though I knew. Mother asked Dorothy to come home with me—mother feels sorry that she hasn’t really any family like ours—but Dorothy said her aunt wasn’t going to let her go anywhere this vacation. It isn’t that I minded her not coming to us, you know, but I don’t like to have her so much with Imogene, and, besides, I can’t see why they keep it so secret.”
Priscilla finished, troubled. Virginia was troubled, too, for she loved Dorothy, even though of late Dorothy had not seemed to care so much for her. She remembered the day she had first seen Priscilla and Dorothy at the station, and Dorothy’s resolutions in regard to grades.
“Dorothy hasn’t gotten all A’s the way she planned in September, has she?”
“I think she had B’s on her fall card, because she was ashamed of it, and wouldn’t show it to mother at Thanksgiving. I know she hasn’t done so well in class as she did last year. Miss Wallace and Miss Allan have reproved her more than once. And you know the house-meeting we had when Mary said The Hermitage couldn’t win the scholarship cup away from Hathaway unless some of us who were getting B’s, got A’s for a change? Well, Dorothy just cut Mary for two days after that, and she isn’t nice to her now. It does seem too bad when we’ve decided to try extra hard for the cup that Imogene and Dorothy pull us down. Even Vivian’s been getting A’s, and Lucile’s doing better all the time, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is. Even in English she’s really trying; and she’s fine in French and Latin and geometry. Do you think Dorothy likes Miss Wallace as much as she used?”
“That’s Imogene again. She called Miss Wallace Dorothy’s ‘idol’ all the fall in that sneering way she has, and now Dorothy acts ashamed to show she loves Miss Wallace. She doesn’t go to see her the way she did last year. Last year, if she were troubled about anything, she went right to Miss Wallace. Oh, dear, what shall we do?”
Virginia did not answer for a moment. She was thinking.
“Isn’t life queer?” she said at last thoughtfully. “It all goes crooked when you most want it to go straight. But I have an idea, Priscilla. Let’s be Vigilantes!”