Chapter Twenty.

Chapter Twenty.A Painter.The Marshalls were always at home to their friends on Friday afternoons, and there were already several guests in the beautiful, quaint old drawing-room when the quartette entered. Mrs Marshall, her white hair looking lovely under her soft lace cap, came forward to meet her visitors. Her kind eyes looked with appreciation and welcome at one and all. Blushing and shamefaced Prissie received a pleasant word of greeting, which seemed in some wonderful way to steady her nerves. Hammond and Maggie were received as special and very dear friends, and Helen Marshall, the old lady’s pretty grand-daughter, rushed forward to embrace her particular friend, Constance Field.Maggie felt sore; she scarcely knew why. Her voice was bright, her eyes shining, her cheeks radiant in their rich and lovely bloom. But there was a quality in her voice which Hammond recognised—a certain ring which meant defiance, and which prophesied to those who knew her well that one of her bad half-hours was not very far off.Maggie seated herself near a girl who was a comparative stranger and began to talk. Hammond drew near, and made a third in the conversation. Maggie talked in the brilliant, somewhat reckless fashion which she occasionally adopted. Hammond listened, now and then uttered a short sentence, now and then was silent, with disapproval in his eyes.Maggie read their expression like a book.“He shall be angry with me,” she said to herself. Her words became a little wilder. The sentiments she uttered were the reverse of those Hammond held.Soon a few old friends came up. They were jolly, merry, good-humoured girls, who were all prepared to look up to Maggie Oliphant, and to worship her beauty and cleverness if she would allow them. Maggie welcomed the girls with effusion, let them metaphorically sit at her feet, and proceeded to disenchant them as hard as she could.Some garbled accounts of the auction at St. Benet’s had reached them, and they were anxious to get a full report from Miss Oliphant. Did she not think it a scandalous sort of thing to have occurred?“Not at all,” answered Maggie in her sweetest tones; “it was capital fun, I assure you.”“Were you really there?” asked Miss Duncan, the eldest of the girls. “We heard it, of course, but could scarcely believe it possible.”“Of course I was there,” replied Maggie. “Whenever there is anything really amusing going on, I am always in the thick of it.”“Well!” Emily Duncan looked at her sister Susan. Susan raised her brows. Hammond took a photograph from a table which stood near, and pretended to examine it.“Shall I tell you about the auction?” asked Maggie.“Oh, please, if you would be so kind. I suppose, as you were present, such a thing could not really lower the standard of the college?” These words came from Susan Duncan, who looked at Hammond as she spoke. She was his cousin, and very fond of him.“Please tell us about the auction,” he said, looking full at Maggie.“I will,” she replied, answering his gaze with a flash of repressed irritation. “The auction was splendid fun! One of our girls was in debt, and she had to sell her things. Oh, it was capital! I wish you could have seen her acting as her own auctioneer. Some of us were greedy, and wanted her best things. I was one of those. She sold a sealskin jacket, an expensive one, quite new. There is a legend in the college that eighty guineas were expended on it. Well, I bid for the sealskin, and it was knocked down to me for ten. It is a little too big for me, of course, but when it is cut to my figure, it will make a superb winter garment.”Maggie was clothed now in velvet and sable; nothing could be richer than her attire; nothing more mocking than her words.“You were fortunate,” said Susan Duncan. “You got your sealskin a great bargain. Didn’t she, Geoffrey?”“I don’t think so,” replied Hammond.“Why not? Oh, do tell us why not,” cried the sisters, eagerly.He bowed to them, laughed as lightly as Maggie would have done, and said, in a careless tone: “My reasons are complex, and too many to mention. I will only say now that what is objectionable to possess can never be a bargain to obtain. In my opinion, sealskin jackets are detestable.”With these words he strode across the room, and seated himself with a sigh of relief by Priscilla’s side.“What are you doing all by yourself?” he said, cheerfully. “Is no one attending to you? Are you always to be left like a poor little forsaken mouse in the background?”“I am not at all lonely,” said Prissie.“I thought you hated to be alone.”“I did, the other day, in that drawing-room; but not in this. People are all kind in this.”“You are right. Our hostess is most genial and sympathetic.”“And the guests are nice, too,” said Prissie; “at least, they look nice.”“Ay, but you must not be taken in by appearances. Some of them only look nice.”“Do you mean?” began Prissie in her abrupt, anxious voice.Hammond took alarm. He remembered her peculiar outspokenness.“I don’t mean anything,” he said, hastily. “By the way, are you fond of pictures?”“I have scarcely ever seen any.”“That does not matter. I know by your face that you can appreciate some pictures.”“But, really, I know nothing of art.”“Never mind. If the painter who paints knowsyou—”“The painter knows me? I have never seen an artist in my life.”“Nevertheless, there are some artists in the world who have conceived of characters like yours. There are some good pictures in this house—shall I show you one or two?”Prissie sprang to her feet.“You are most kind,” she said, effusively. “I really don’t know how to thank you.”“You need not thank me at all; or, at any rate, not in such a loud voice, nor so impressively. Our neighbours will think I have bestowed half a kingdom upon you.”Prissie blushed, and looked down.“Don’t be shocked with me,” said Hammond; “I can read your grateful heart. Come this way.” They passed Maggie Oliphant and her two or three remaining satellites. Prissie looked at her with longing, and tripped awkwardly against her chair. Hammond walked past Maggie as if she did not exist to him. Maggie nodded affectionately to Priscilla, and followed the back of Hammond’s head and shoulders with a supercilious, amused smile.Hammond opened the outer drawing-room door. “Where are we going?” asked Priscilla. “Are not the pictures here?”“Some are here, but the best are in the picture gallery—here to the left, and down these steps. Now, I’m going to introduce to you a new world.”He pushed aside a heavy curtain, and Prissie found herself in a rather small room, lighted from the roof. It contained in all about six or eight pictures, each the work of a master.Hammond walked straight across the gallery to a picture which occupied a wall by itself at the further end. It represented a summer scene of deep repose. There was water in the foreground; in the back, tall forest trees in the fresh, rich foliage of June. Overhead was a sunset sky, its saffron and rosy tints reflected in the water below. The master who painted the picture was Corot.Hammond motioned Priscilla to sit down opposite to it.“There is summer,” he said; “peace, absolute repose. You have not to go to it; it comes to you.”He did not say any more, but walked away to look at another picture in a different part of the gallery.Prissie clasped her hands; all the agitation and eagerness went out of her face. She leant back in her chair. Her attitude partook of the quality of the picture, and became restful. Hammond did not disturb her for several moments.“I am going to show you something different now,” he said, coming up to her almost with reluctance. “There is one sort of rest; I will now show you a higher. Here, stand so. The light falls well from this angle. Now, what do you see?”“I don’t understand it,” said Prissie, after a long, deep gaze.“Never mind, you see something. Tell me what you see.”Priscilla looked again at the picture.“I see a woman,” she said at last, in a slow, pained kind of voice. “I can’t see her face very well, but I know by the way she lies back in that chair, that she is old, and dreadfully tired. Oh, yes, I know well that she is tired—see her hand stretched out there—her hand and her arm—how thin they are—how worn—and—”“Hard worked,” interrupted Hammond. “Anyone can see by the attitude of that hand, by the starting veins and the wrinkles, that the woman has gone through a life of labour. Well, she does not occupy the whole of the picture. You see before you a tired-out worker. Don’t be so unhappy about her. Look up a little higher in the picture. Observe for yourself that her toils are ended.”“Who is that other figure?” said Priscilla. “A woman too, but young and strong. How glad she looks, and how kind. She is carrying a little child in her arms. Who is she? What does she mean?”“That woman, so grand and strong, represents Death, but not under the old metaphor. She comes with renewed life—the child is the type of that—she comes as a deliverer. See, she is touching that poor worn-out creature, who is so tired that she can scarcely hold her head up again. Death, with a new aspect, and a new grand strength in her face, is saying to this woman, ‘Come with me now to your rest. It is all over,’ Death says: ‘all the trouble and perplexity and strife. Come away with me and rest.’ The name of that picture is ‘The Deliverer.’ It is the work of a painter who can preach a sermon, write a book, deliver an oration, and sing a song, all through the medium of his brush. I won’t trouble you with his name just now. You will hear plenty of him and his wonderful, great pictures by-and-by, if you love art as I do.”“Thank you,” said Prissie, simply. Some tears stole down her cheeks. She did not know she was crying; she did not attempt to wipe them away.

The Marshalls were always at home to their friends on Friday afternoons, and there were already several guests in the beautiful, quaint old drawing-room when the quartette entered. Mrs Marshall, her white hair looking lovely under her soft lace cap, came forward to meet her visitors. Her kind eyes looked with appreciation and welcome at one and all. Blushing and shamefaced Prissie received a pleasant word of greeting, which seemed in some wonderful way to steady her nerves. Hammond and Maggie were received as special and very dear friends, and Helen Marshall, the old lady’s pretty grand-daughter, rushed forward to embrace her particular friend, Constance Field.

Maggie felt sore; she scarcely knew why. Her voice was bright, her eyes shining, her cheeks radiant in their rich and lovely bloom. But there was a quality in her voice which Hammond recognised—a certain ring which meant defiance, and which prophesied to those who knew her well that one of her bad half-hours was not very far off.

Maggie seated herself near a girl who was a comparative stranger and began to talk. Hammond drew near, and made a third in the conversation. Maggie talked in the brilliant, somewhat reckless fashion which she occasionally adopted. Hammond listened, now and then uttered a short sentence, now and then was silent, with disapproval in his eyes.

Maggie read their expression like a book.

“He shall be angry with me,” she said to herself. Her words became a little wilder. The sentiments she uttered were the reverse of those Hammond held.

Soon a few old friends came up. They were jolly, merry, good-humoured girls, who were all prepared to look up to Maggie Oliphant, and to worship her beauty and cleverness if she would allow them. Maggie welcomed the girls with effusion, let them metaphorically sit at her feet, and proceeded to disenchant them as hard as she could.

Some garbled accounts of the auction at St. Benet’s had reached them, and they were anxious to get a full report from Miss Oliphant. Did she not think it a scandalous sort of thing to have occurred?

“Not at all,” answered Maggie in her sweetest tones; “it was capital fun, I assure you.”

“Were you really there?” asked Miss Duncan, the eldest of the girls. “We heard it, of course, but could scarcely believe it possible.”

“Of course I was there,” replied Maggie. “Whenever there is anything really amusing going on, I am always in the thick of it.”

“Well!” Emily Duncan looked at her sister Susan. Susan raised her brows. Hammond took a photograph from a table which stood near, and pretended to examine it.

“Shall I tell you about the auction?” asked Maggie.

“Oh, please, if you would be so kind. I suppose, as you were present, such a thing could not really lower the standard of the college?” These words came from Susan Duncan, who looked at Hammond as she spoke. She was his cousin, and very fond of him.

“Please tell us about the auction,” he said, looking full at Maggie.

“I will,” she replied, answering his gaze with a flash of repressed irritation. “The auction was splendid fun! One of our girls was in debt, and she had to sell her things. Oh, it was capital! I wish you could have seen her acting as her own auctioneer. Some of us were greedy, and wanted her best things. I was one of those. She sold a sealskin jacket, an expensive one, quite new. There is a legend in the college that eighty guineas were expended on it. Well, I bid for the sealskin, and it was knocked down to me for ten. It is a little too big for me, of course, but when it is cut to my figure, it will make a superb winter garment.”

Maggie was clothed now in velvet and sable; nothing could be richer than her attire; nothing more mocking than her words.

“You were fortunate,” said Susan Duncan. “You got your sealskin a great bargain. Didn’t she, Geoffrey?”

“I don’t think so,” replied Hammond.

“Why not? Oh, do tell us why not,” cried the sisters, eagerly.

He bowed to them, laughed as lightly as Maggie would have done, and said, in a careless tone: “My reasons are complex, and too many to mention. I will only say now that what is objectionable to possess can never be a bargain to obtain. In my opinion, sealskin jackets are detestable.”

With these words he strode across the room, and seated himself with a sigh of relief by Priscilla’s side.

“What are you doing all by yourself?” he said, cheerfully. “Is no one attending to you? Are you always to be left like a poor little forsaken mouse in the background?”

“I am not at all lonely,” said Prissie.

“I thought you hated to be alone.”

“I did, the other day, in that drawing-room; but not in this. People are all kind in this.”

“You are right. Our hostess is most genial and sympathetic.”

“And the guests are nice, too,” said Prissie; “at least, they look nice.”

“Ay, but you must not be taken in by appearances. Some of them only look nice.”

“Do you mean?” began Prissie in her abrupt, anxious voice.

Hammond took alarm. He remembered her peculiar outspokenness.

“I don’t mean anything,” he said, hastily. “By the way, are you fond of pictures?”

“I have scarcely ever seen any.”

“That does not matter. I know by your face that you can appreciate some pictures.”

“But, really, I know nothing of art.”

“Never mind. If the painter who paints knowsyou—”

“The painter knows me? I have never seen an artist in my life.”

“Nevertheless, there are some artists in the world who have conceived of characters like yours. There are some good pictures in this house—shall I show you one or two?”

Prissie sprang to her feet.

“You are most kind,” she said, effusively. “I really don’t know how to thank you.”

“You need not thank me at all; or, at any rate, not in such a loud voice, nor so impressively. Our neighbours will think I have bestowed half a kingdom upon you.”

Prissie blushed, and looked down.

“Don’t be shocked with me,” said Hammond; “I can read your grateful heart. Come this way.” They passed Maggie Oliphant and her two or three remaining satellites. Prissie looked at her with longing, and tripped awkwardly against her chair. Hammond walked past Maggie as if she did not exist to him. Maggie nodded affectionately to Priscilla, and followed the back of Hammond’s head and shoulders with a supercilious, amused smile.

Hammond opened the outer drawing-room door. “Where are we going?” asked Priscilla. “Are not the pictures here?”

“Some are here, but the best are in the picture gallery—here to the left, and down these steps. Now, I’m going to introduce to you a new world.”

He pushed aside a heavy curtain, and Prissie found herself in a rather small room, lighted from the roof. It contained in all about six or eight pictures, each the work of a master.

Hammond walked straight across the gallery to a picture which occupied a wall by itself at the further end. It represented a summer scene of deep repose. There was water in the foreground; in the back, tall forest trees in the fresh, rich foliage of June. Overhead was a sunset sky, its saffron and rosy tints reflected in the water below. The master who painted the picture was Corot.

Hammond motioned Priscilla to sit down opposite to it.

“There is summer,” he said; “peace, absolute repose. You have not to go to it; it comes to you.”

He did not say any more, but walked away to look at another picture in a different part of the gallery.

Prissie clasped her hands; all the agitation and eagerness went out of her face. She leant back in her chair. Her attitude partook of the quality of the picture, and became restful. Hammond did not disturb her for several moments.

“I am going to show you something different now,” he said, coming up to her almost with reluctance. “There is one sort of rest; I will now show you a higher. Here, stand so. The light falls well from this angle. Now, what do you see?”

“I don’t understand it,” said Prissie, after a long, deep gaze.

“Never mind, you see something. Tell me what you see.”

Priscilla looked again at the picture.

“I see a woman,” she said at last, in a slow, pained kind of voice. “I can’t see her face very well, but I know by the way she lies back in that chair, that she is old, and dreadfully tired. Oh, yes, I know well that she is tired—see her hand stretched out there—her hand and her arm—how thin they are—how worn—and—”

“Hard worked,” interrupted Hammond. “Anyone can see by the attitude of that hand, by the starting veins and the wrinkles, that the woman has gone through a life of labour. Well, she does not occupy the whole of the picture. You see before you a tired-out worker. Don’t be so unhappy about her. Look up a little higher in the picture. Observe for yourself that her toils are ended.”

“Who is that other figure?” said Priscilla. “A woman too, but young and strong. How glad she looks, and how kind. She is carrying a little child in her arms. Who is she? What does she mean?”

“That woman, so grand and strong, represents Death, but not under the old metaphor. She comes with renewed life—the child is the type of that—she comes as a deliverer. See, she is touching that poor worn-out creature, who is so tired that she can scarcely hold her head up again. Death, with a new aspect, and a new grand strength in her face, is saying to this woman, ‘Come with me now to your rest. It is all over,’ Death says: ‘all the trouble and perplexity and strife. Come away with me and rest.’ The name of that picture is ‘The Deliverer.’ It is the work of a painter who can preach a sermon, write a book, deliver an oration, and sing a song, all through the medium of his brush. I won’t trouble you with his name just now. You will hear plenty of him and his wonderful, great pictures by-and-by, if you love art as I do.”

“Thank you,” said Prissie, simply. Some tears stole down her cheeks. She did not know she was crying; she did not attempt to wipe them away.

Chapter Twenty One.“I Detest It.”Shortly after the girls got home that evening, they received letters in their rooms to inform them that Miss Heath and Miss Eccleston had come to the resolution not to report the affair of the auction to the college authorities. They would trust to the honour of the students at St. Benet’s not to allow such a proceeding to occur again, and would say nothing further on the matter.Prissie’s eyes filled again with tears as she read the carefully worded note. Holding it open in her hand she rushed to Maggie’s room and knocked. To her surprise, instead of the usual cheerful “Come in,” with which Miss Oliphant always assured her young friend of a welcome, Maggie said from the other side of the locked door—“I am very busy just now—I cannot see anyone.”Priscilla felt a curious sense of being chilled; her whole afternoon had been one of elation, and Maggie’s words came as a kind of colddouche. She went back to her room, tried not to mind, and occupied herself looking over her beloved Greek until the dinner-gong sounded.After dinner Priscilla again looked with anxious, loving eyes at Maggie. Maggie did not stop, as was her custom, to say a kind word or two as she passed. She was talking to another girl, and laughing gaily. Her dress was as picturesque as her face and figure were beautiful. But was Priscilla mistaken, or was her anxious observation too close? She felt sure as Miss Oliphant brushed past her that her eyelids were slightly reddened, as if she had been weeping.Prissie put out a timid hand and touched Maggie on the arm. She turned abruptly.“I forgot,” she said to her companion. “Please wait for me outside, Hester; I’ll join you in a moment, I have just a word to say to Miss Peel. What is it, Prissie?” said Maggie, then, when the other girl had walked out of hearing. “Why did you touch me?”“Oh, for nothing much,” replied Prissie, half frightened at her manner, which was sweet enough, but had an intangible hardness about it, which Priscilla felt, but could not fathom. “I thought you’d be so glad about the decision Miss Heath and Miss Eccleston have come to.”“No, I am not particularly glad. I can’t stay now to talk it over, however; Hester Stuart wants, me to practise a duet with her.”“May I come to your room later on, Maggie?”“Not to-night, I think; I shall be very busy.” Miss Oliphant nodded brightly, and disappeared out of the dining-hall.Two girls were standing not far off. They had watched this little scene, and they now observed that Prissie clasped her hands, and that a woe-begone expression crossed her face.“The spell is beginning to work,” whispered one to the other. “When the knight proves unfaithful the most gracious lady must suffer resentment.”Priscilla did not hear these words. She went slowly upstairs and back to her own room, where she wrote letters home, and made copious notes from her last lectures, and tried not to think of the little cloud which seemed to have come between her and Maggie.Late, on that same evening, Polly Singleton, who had just been entertaining a chosen bevy of friends in her own room, after the last had bidden her an affectionate “Good-night,” was startled at hearing a low knock at her door. She opened it at once. Miss Oliphant stood without.“May I come in?” she asked.“Why, of course. I’m delighted to see you. How kind of you to come. Where will you sit? I’m afraid you won’t find things very comfortable, for most of my furniture is gone. But there’s the bed; do you mind sitting on the bed?”“If I want to sit at all the bed is as snug a place as any,” replied Maggie. “But I’m not going to stay a moment, for it is very late. See, I have brought you this back.”Polly looked, and for the first time observed that her own sealskin jacket hung on Maggie’s arm.“What do you mean?” she said. “My sealskin jacket! Oh, my beauty! But it isn’t mine, it’s yours now. Why do you worry me—showing it to me again?”“I don’t want to worry you, Miss Singleton. I mean what I say. I have brought your jacket back.”“But it is yours—you bought it.”“I gave a nominal price for it, but that doesn’t make it mine. Anyhow, I have no use for it. Please take it back again.”Poor Polly blushed very red all over her face.“I wish I could,” she said. “If there has been anything I regretted in the auction, besides getting all you girls into a mess, it has been my sealskin jacket. Dad is almost certain to ask me about it, for he never made me such a handsome present before. Poor dad! he was so proud the night he brought it home. He said, ‘Look here, Poll, I paid a whole sheaf of fivers for this, and although it cost me a good round eighty guineas, I’m told it’s cheap at the price. Put it on, and let me see how you look in it,’ he said. And when I had it on he twisted me round, and chucked me under the chin, and said I was ‘a bouncer.’ Poor old dad! He was as proud as Punch of me in that jacket I never saw anything like it.”“Well, he can be as proud as Punch of you again. Here is the jacket for your very own once more. Good-night.”She walked to the door, but Miss Singleton ran after her.“I can’t take it back,” she said. “I’m not as mean as all that comes to. It’s yours now; you got it as fair as possible.”“Listen, Miss Singleton,” said Maggie. “If I keep that jacket I shall never wear it. I detest sealskin jackets. It won’t be the least scrap of use to me.”“You detest sealskin jackets? How can you? Oh, the lovely things they are. Let me stroke the beauty down.”“Stroke your beauty, and pet it as much as you like, only let me say ‘Good-night,’ now.”“But, please, Miss Oliphant, please, I’d do anything in the world to get the jacket back, of course. But I’ve ten guineas of yours, and honestly, I can’t pay them back.”“Allow me to lend them to you until next term. You can return me the money then, can you not?” Polly’s face became on the instant a show of shining eyes, gleaming white teeth, and glowing cheeks.“Of course I could pay you back, you—darling,” she said with enthusiasm. “Oh, what a relief this is to me; I’d have done anything in all the world to have my jacket back again.”“It’s a bargain, then. Good-night, Miss Singleton.”Maggie tossed the jacket on Polly’s bed, touched her hand lightly with one of her own, and left the room. She went quickly back to her own pretty sitting-room, locked her door, threw herself on her knees by her bureau, and sobbed long and passionately.During the few days which now remained before the end of the term no one quite knew what was wrong with Miss Oliphant. She worked hard in preparation for her lectures, and when seen in public was always very merry. But there was a certain hardness about her mirth which her best friends detected, and which caused Nancy Banister a good deal of puzzled pain.Priscilla was treated very kindly by Maggie; she still helped her willingly with her Greek, and even invited her into her room once or twice. But all the little half-beginnings of confidence which, now and then, used to burst from Maggie’s lips, the allusions to old times, the sentences which revealed deep thoughts and high aspirations, all these, which made the essence of true friendship, vanished out of her conversation.Priscilla said to herself over and over that there was really no difference—that Miss Oliphant was still as kind to her, as valued a friend as ever—but in her heart she knew that this was not the case.Maggie startled all her friends by making one request. Might they postpone the acting ofThe Princessuntil the middle of the following term?“I cannot do it justice now,” she said. “I cannot throw my heart and soul into my part. If you act the play now you must allow me to withdraw.”The other girls, Constance Field in particular, were astonished. They even felt resentful. All arrangements had been made for this especial play. Maggie was to be the Princess herself; no one could possibly take her place. It was most unreasonable of her to withdraw now.But it was one of the facts well-known at St. Benet’s that, fascinating as Miss Oliphant was, she was also unreasonable. On certain occasions she could even be disobliging. In short, when Maggie “took the bit between her teeth,” to employ an old metaphor, she could neither be led nor driven. After a great deal of heated discussion and indignant words, she had her will. The play was deferred till the following term, and one or two slight comedies, which had been acted before, were revived in a hurry to take its place.

Shortly after the girls got home that evening, they received letters in their rooms to inform them that Miss Heath and Miss Eccleston had come to the resolution not to report the affair of the auction to the college authorities. They would trust to the honour of the students at St. Benet’s not to allow such a proceeding to occur again, and would say nothing further on the matter.

Prissie’s eyes filled again with tears as she read the carefully worded note. Holding it open in her hand she rushed to Maggie’s room and knocked. To her surprise, instead of the usual cheerful “Come in,” with which Miss Oliphant always assured her young friend of a welcome, Maggie said from the other side of the locked door—

“I am very busy just now—I cannot see anyone.”

Priscilla felt a curious sense of being chilled; her whole afternoon had been one of elation, and Maggie’s words came as a kind of colddouche. She went back to her room, tried not to mind, and occupied herself looking over her beloved Greek until the dinner-gong sounded.

After dinner Priscilla again looked with anxious, loving eyes at Maggie. Maggie did not stop, as was her custom, to say a kind word or two as she passed. She was talking to another girl, and laughing gaily. Her dress was as picturesque as her face and figure were beautiful. But was Priscilla mistaken, or was her anxious observation too close? She felt sure as Miss Oliphant brushed past her that her eyelids were slightly reddened, as if she had been weeping.

Prissie put out a timid hand and touched Maggie on the arm. She turned abruptly.

“I forgot,” she said to her companion. “Please wait for me outside, Hester; I’ll join you in a moment, I have just a word to say to Miss Peel. What is it, Prissie?” said Maggie, then, when the other girl had walked out of hearing. “Why did you touch me?”

“Oh, for nothing much,” replied Prissie, half frightened at her manner, which was sweet enough, but had an intangible hardness about it, which Priscilla felt, but could not fathom. “I thought you’d be so glad about the decision Miss Heath and Miss Eccleston have come to.”

“No, I am not particularly glad. I can’t stay now to talk it over, however; Hester Stuart wants, me to practise a duet with her.”

“May I come to your room later on, Maggie?”

“Not to-night, I think; I shall be very busy.” Miss Oliphant nodded brightly, and disappeared out of the dining-hall.

Two girls were standing not far off. They had watched this little scene, and they now observed that Prissie clasped her hands, and that a woe-begone expression crossed her face.

“The spell is beginning to work,” whispered one to the other. “When the knight proves unfaithful the most gracious lady must suffer resentment.”

Priscilla did not hear these words. She went slowly upstairs and back to her own room, where she wrote letters home, and made copious notes from her last lectures, and tried not to think of the little cloud which seemed to have come between her and Maggie.

Late, on that same evening, Polly Singleton, who had just been entertaining a chosen bevy of friends in her own room, after the last had bidden her an affectionate “Good-night,” was startled at hearing a low knock at her door. She opened it at once. Miss Oliphant stood without.

“May I come in?” she asked.

“Why, of course. I’m delighted to see you. How kind of you to come. Where will you sit? I’m afraid you won’t find things very comfortable, for most of my furniture is gone. But there’s the bed; do you mind sitting on the bed?”

“If I want to sit at all the bed is as snug a place as any,” replied Maggie. “But I’m not going to stay a moment, for it is very late. See, I have brought you this back.”

Polly looked, and for the first time observed that her own sealskin jacket hung on Maggie’s arm.

“What do you mean?” she said. “My sealskin jacket! Oh, my beauty! But it isn’t mine, it’s yours now. Why do you worry me—showing it to me again?”

“I don’t want to worry you, Miss Singleton. I mean what I say. I have brought your jacket back.”

“But it is yours—you bought it.”

“I gave a nominal price for it, but that doesn’t make it mine. Anyhow, I have no use for it. Please take it back again.”

Poor Polly blushed very red all over her face.

“I wish I could,” she said. “If there has been anything I regretted in the auction, besides getting all you girls into a mess, it has been my sealskin jacket. Dad is almost certain to ask me about it, for he never made me such a handsome present before. Poor dad! he was so proud the night he brought it home. He said, ‘Look here, Poll, I paid a whole sheaf of fivers for this, and although it cost me a good round eighty guineas, I’m told it’s cheap at the price. Put it on, and let me see how you look in it,’ he said. And when I had it on he twisted me round, and chucked me under the chin, and said I was ‘a bouncer.’ Poor old dad! He was as proud as Punch of me in that jacket I never saw anything like it.”

“Well, he can be as proud as Punch of you again. Here is the jacket for your very own once more. Good-night.”

She walked to the door, but Miss Singleton ran after her.

“I can’t take it back,” she said. “I’m not as mean as all that comes to. It’s yours now; you got it as fair as possible.”

“Listen, Miss Singleton,” said Maggie. “If I keep that jacket I shall never wear it. I detest sealskin jackets. It won’t be the least scrap of use to me.”

“You detest sealskin jackets? How can you? Oh, the lovely things they are. Let me stroke the beauty down.”

“Stroke your beauty, and pet it as much as you like, only let me say ‘Good-night,’ now.”

“But, please, Miss Oliphant, please, I’d do anything in the world to get the jacket back, of course. But I’ve ten guineas of yours, and honestly, I can’t pay them back.”

“Allow me to lend them to you until next term. You can return me the money then, can you not?” Polly’s face became on the instant a show of shining eyes, gleaming white teeth, and glowing cheeks.

“Of course I could pay you back, you—darling,” she said with enthusiasm. “Oh, what a relief this is to me; I’d have done anything in all the world to have my jacket back again.”

“It’s a bargain, then. Good-night, Miss Singleton.”

Maggie tossed the jacket on Polly’s bed, touched her hand lightly with one of her own, and left the room. She went quickly back to her own pretty sitting-room, locked her door, threw herself on her knees by her bureau, and sobbed long and passionately.

During the few days which now remained before the end of the term no one quite knew what was wrong with Miss Oliphant. She worked hard in preparation for her lectures, and when seen in public was always very merry. But there was a certain hardness about her mirth which her best friends detected, and which caused Nancy Banister a good deal of puzzled pain.

Priscilla was treated very kindly by Maggie; she still helped her willingly with her Greek, and even invited her into her room once or twice. But all the little half-beginnings of confidence which, now and then, used to burst from Maggie’s lips, the allusions to old times, the sentences which revealed deep thoughts and high aspirations, all these, which made the essence of true friendship, vanished out of her conversation.

Priscilla said to herself over and over that there was really no difference—that Miss Oliphant was still as kind to her, as valued a friend as ever—but in her heart she knew that this was not the case.

Maggie startled all her friends by making one request. Might they postpone the acting ofThe Princessuntil the middle of the following term?

“I cannot do it justice now,” she said. “I cannot throw my heart and soul into my part. If you act the play now you must allow me to withdraw.”

The other girls, Constance Field in particular, were astonished. They even felt resentful. All arrangements had been made for this especial play. Maggie was to be the Princess herself; no one could possibly take her place. It was most unreasonable of her to withdraw now.

But it was one of the facts well-known at St. Benet’s that, fascinating as Miss Oliphant was, she was also unreasonable. On certain occasions she could even be disobliging. In short, when Maggie “took the bit between her teeth,” to employ an old metaphor, she could neither be led nor driven. After a great deal of heated discussion and indignant words, she had her will. The play was deferred till the following term, and one or two slight comedies, which had been acted before, were revived in a hurry to take its place.

Chapter Twenty Two.A Black Satin Jacket.Very active preparations were being made in a certain rather humble little cottage in the country for the heroine’s return. Three small girls were making themselves busy with holly and ivy, with badly-cut paper flowers, with enormous texts coarsely illustrated, to render the home gay and festive in its greeting. A little worn old woman lay on a sofa, and superintended these active measures.“How soon will she be here now?” said Hattie the vigorous.“Do stay still, Hattie, and don’t fidget. Don’t you see how tired Aunt Raby looks?” exclaimed Rose. “Prissie can’t be here yet, and you are such a worry when you jump up and down like that, Hattie.”Rose’s words were quite severe, and Hattie planted herself on the edge of a chair, folded her plump hands, managed to get a demure look into her laughing eyes and dimpled mouth, and sat motionless for about half a minute. At the end of that time she tumbled on the floor with a loud crash, and Aunt Raby sprang to her feet with some alarm.“Good gracious, child! are you hurt? What’s the matter?”Hattie was sitting on the floor in convulsions of mirth.“I’m not hurt,” she exclaimed. “I slipped off the chair. I didn’t mean to; I couldn’t help it, really. I’m sorry I woke you, Aunt Raby.”“I wasn’t asleep, child.” Miss Peel walked across the room, and vanished into the kitchen, from which very savoury smells issued.Hattie and Rose began to quarrel and argue, and Katie, who was more or less of a little peacemaker, suggested that they should draw up the blind, and all three get into the window to watch for Prissie.“I wonder how she will look?” said Rose, when they were all comfortably established.“I hope she won’t talk in Latin,” exclaimed Hattie.“Oh, it is nice to think of seeing Prissie so soon,” murmured Katie in an ecstasy.“I wonder,” began Rose in her practical voice, “how soon Prissie will begin to earn money. We want money even more than when she went away. Aunt Raby isn’t as well as she was then, and since the cows were sold—”“Hush!” said Hattie. “You know we promised we wouldn’t tell Prissie about the cows.”Just then a distant sound of wheels was heard. The little girls began to jump and shout; a moment later and Priscilla stood in the midst of her family. A great excitement followed her arrival. There were kisses and hugs, and wild, rapturous words from the affectionate little sisters. Aunt Raby put her arms round Priscilla, and gave her a solemn sort of kiss, and then the whole party adjourned into the supper-room.The feast which was spread was so dainty and abundant that Katie asked in a puzzled sort of way if Aunt Raby considered Prissie like the Prodigal Son.“What fancies you have, child!” said Aunt Raby. “The Prodigal Son, indeed! Thank Heaven, I’ve never had to do with that sort! As to Priscilla here, she’s as steady as Old Time. Well, child, and are you getting up your learning very fast?”“Pretty well, Aunt Raby.”“And you like your grand college, and all those fine young-lady friends of yours?”“I haven’t any fine young-lady friends.”“H’m! I daresay they are like other girls; a little bit of learning, and a great deal of dress, eh?” Priscilla coloured.“There are all sorts of girls at St. Benet’s,” she said after a pause. “Some are real students, earnest, devoted to their work.”“Have you earned any money yet, Prissie?” exclaimed Hattie. “For if you have, I do want— look—” She thrust a small foot, encased in a broken shoe, prominently into view.“Hattie, go to bed this minute!” exclaimed Aunt Raby. “Go up to your room all three of you little girls. No more words—off at once, all of you. Prissie, you and I will go into the drawing-room, and I’ll lie on the sofa, while you tell me a little bit about your college life.”“Aunt Raby always lies oh the sofa in the evenings now,” burst from Hattie the irrepressible.Miss Peel rushed after the plump little girl, and pushed her out of the room.“To bed, all of you!” she exclaimed. “To bed, and to sleep! Now, Prissie, you are not to mind a word that child says. Come into the drawing-room, and let us have a few words quietly. Oh, yes, I’ll lie on the sofa, my dear, if you wish it. But Hattie is wrong; I don’t do it every night. I suffer no pain either, Prissie. Many a woman of my age is racked with rheumatics.”The last words were said with a little gasp. The elder woman lay back on the sofa, with a sigh of relief. She turned her face so that the light from the lamp should not reveal the deathly tired lines round it.Aunt Raby was dressed in a rough homespun garment. Her feet were clad in unbleached cotton stockings, also made at home; her little, iron-grey curls lay flat at each side of her hollow cheeks. She wore list slippers, very coarse and common in texture. Her whole appearance was the essence of the homely, the old-fashioned, even the ungainly.Priscilla had seen elegance and beauty since she went away; she had entered into the life of the cultivated, the intellectually great. In spite of her deep affection for Aunt Raby, she came back to the ugliness and the sordid surroundings of home with a pang which she hated herself for feeling. She forgot Aunt Raby’s sufferings for a moment in her uncouthness. She longed to shower riches, refinement, beauty upon her.“How has your dress worn, Prissie?” said the elder woman, after a pause. “My sakes, child, you have got your best brown cashmere on! A beautiful fine bit of cashmere it was, too. I bought it out of the money I got for the lambs’ wool.”Aunt Raby stretched out her hand, and, taking up a fold of the cashmere, she rubbed it softly between her finger and thumb.“It’s as fine as velvet,” she said, “and I put strong work into it, too. It isn’t a bit worn, is it, Prissie?”“No, Aunt Raby, except just round the tail. I got it very wet one day, and the colour went a trifle; but nothing to signify.”A vivid picture rose up before Priscilla’s eyes as she spoke of Mrs Elliot-Smith’s drawing-room, and the dainty, disdainful ladies in their gay attire, and her own poor, little, forlorn figure in her muddy cashmere dress—the same dress Aunt Raby considered soft and beautiful as velvet.“Oh, Aunt Raby,” she said with sudden impulse, “a great many things have happened to me since I went away. On the whole I have had a very good time.”Aunt Raby opened her mouth to emit a prodigious yawn.“I don’t know how it is,” she said, “but I’m a bit drowsy to-night. I suppose it’s the weather. The day was quite a muggy one. I’ll hear your news another time, Priscilla; but don’t you be turned with the vanities of the world, Priscilla. Life’s but a passing day: you mind that when you’re young, and it won’t come on you as a shock when you are old. I’m glad the cashmere has worn well—ay, that I am, Prissie. But don’t put it on in the morning, my love, for it’s a sin to wear through beautiful fine stuff like that. And, even if the colour is gone a bit round the hem, the stuff itself isn’t worn, and looks don’t signify. You’ll have to make up your mind to wear the cashmere for best again next term, Prissie, for, though I’m not pinched in any way, I’m not overflush either, my love.”Priscilla, who had been sitting in a low chair near her aunt, now rose to her feet.“Ought we not to come to bed?” she said. “If you don’t feel tired, you look it, Aunt Raby. Come upstairs, do, and let me help you to take your things off, and put you into bed. Come, Aunt Raby, it will be like old times to help you, you know.”The girl knelt by the old woman, took one of her withered hands, raised it suddenly to her lips, and kissed it. Aunt Raby’s face was still turned from the light.“Don’t you keep kneeling on your cashmere,” she said. “You’ll crease it awfully, and I don’t see my way to another best dress this term.”“You needn’t, Aunt Raby,” said Priscilla, in a steady voice. “The cashmere is quite neat still. I can manage well with it.”Aunt Raby rose slowly and feebly from the sofa.“You may help me to get into bed if you like,” she said. “The muggy day has made me wonderfully drowsy, and I’ll be glad to lie down. It’s only that: I’ll be as pert as a cricket in the morning.”The old woman leant on the girl’s strong, young arm, and stumbled a bit as she went up the narrow stairs.When they entered the tiny bedroom Aunt Raby spoke again—“Your dress will do, but I have been fretting about your winter jacket, Prissie. There’s my best one, though—you know, the quilted satin which my mother left me; its loose and full, and you shall have it.”“But you want it to go to church in yourself, Aunt Raby.”“I don’t often go to church lately, child. I take a power of comfort lying on the sofa, reading my Bible, and Mr Hayes doesn’t see anything contrary to Scripture in it, for I asked him. Yes, you shall have my quilted satin jacket to take back to college with you, Prissie, and then you’ll be set up fine.”Priscilla bent forward and kissed Aunt Raby. She made no other response, but that night before she went to sleep she saw distinctly a vision of herself. Prissie was as little vain as a girl could be, but the vision of her own figure in Aunt Raby’s black satin quilted jacket was not a particularly inspiriting one. That jacket, full in the skirts, long in the shoulders, wide in the sleeves, and enormous round the neck, would scarcely bear comparison with the neat, tight-fitting garments which the other girl graduates of St. Benet’s were wont to patronise. Prissie felt glad she was not attired in it that unfortunate day when she sat in Mrs Elliot-Smith’s drawing-room; and yet—and yet—she knew that the poor, quaint, old-world jacket meant love and self-renunciation.“Dear Aunt Raby!” whispered the girl.Tears lay heavily on her eyelashes as she dropped asleep, with one arm thrown protectingly round her little sister Katie.

Very active preparations were being made in a certain rather humble little cottage in the country for the heroine’s return. Three small girls were making themselves busy with holly and ivy, with badly-cut paper flowers, with enormous texts coarsely illustrated, to render the home gay and festive in its greeting. A little worn old woman lay on a sofa, and superintended these active measures.

“How soon will she be here now?” said Hattie the vigorous.

“Do stay still, Hattie, and don’t fidget. Don’t you see how tired Aunt Raby looks?” exclaimed Rose. “Prissie can’t be here yet, and you are such a worry when you jump up and down like that, Hattie.”

Rose’s words were quite severe, and Hattie planted herself on the edge of a chair, folded her plump hands, managed to get a demure look into her laughing eyes and dimpled mouth, and sat motionless for about half a minute. At the end of that time she tumbled on the floor with a loud crash, and Aunt Raby sprang to her feet with some alarm.

“Good gracious, child! are you hurt? What’s the matter?”

Hattie was sitting on the floor in convulsions of mirth.

“I’m not hurt,” she exclaimed. “I slipped off the chair. I didn’t mean to; I couldn’t help it, really. I’m sorry I woke you, Aunt Raby.”

“I wasn’t asleep, child.” Miss Peel walked across the room, and vanished into the kitchen, from which very savoury smells issued.

Hattie and Rose began to quarrel and argue, and Katie, who was more or less of a little peacemaker, suggested that they should draw up the blind, and all three get into the window to watch for Prissie.

“I wonder how she will look?” said Rose, when they were all comfortably established.

“I hope she won’t talk in Latin,” exclaimed Hattie.

“Oh, it is nice to think of seeing Prissie so soon,” murmured Katie in an ecstasy.

“I wonder,” began Rose in her practical voice, “how soon Prissie will begin to earn money. We want money even more than when she went away. Aunt Raby isn’t as well as she was then, and since the cows were sold—”

“Hush!” said Hattie. “You know we promised we wouldn’t tell Prissie about the cows.”

Just then a distant sound of wheels was heard. The little girls began to jump and shout; a moment later and Priscilla stood in the midst of her family. A great excitement followed her arrival. There were kisses and hugs, and wild, rapturous words from the affectionate little sisters. Aunt Raby put her arms round Priscilla, and gave her a solemn sort of kiss, and then the whole party adjourned into the supper-room.

The feast which was spread was so dainty and abundant that Katie asked in a puzzled sort of way if Aunt Raby considered Prissie like the Prodigal Son.

“What fancies you have, child!” said Aunt Raby. “The Prodigal Son, indeed! Thank Heaven, I’ve never had to do with that sort! As to Priscilla here, she’s as steady as Old Time. Well, child, and are you getting up your learning very fast?”

“Pretty well, Aunt Raby.”

“And you like your grand college, and all those fine young-lady friends of yours?”

“I haven’t any fine young-lady friends.”

“H’m! I daresay they are like other girls; a little bit of learning, and a great deal of dress, eh?” Priscilla coloured.

“There are all sorts of girls at St. Benet’s,” she said after a pause. “Some are real students, earnest, devoted to their work.”

“Have you earned any money yet, Prissie?” exclaimed Hattie. “For if you have, I do want— look—” She thrust a small foot, encased in a broken shoe, prominently into view.

“Hattie, go to bed this minute!” exclaimed Aunt Raby. “Go up to your room all three of you little girls. No more words—off at once, all of you. Prissie, you and I will go into the drawing-room, and I’ll lie on the sofa, while you tell me a little bit about your college life.”

“Aunt Raby always lies oh the sofa in the evenings now,” burst from Hattie the irrepressible.

Miss Peel rushed after the plump little girl, and pushed her out of the room.

“To bed, all of you!” she exclaimed. “To bed, and to sleep! Now, Prissie, you are not to mind a word that child says. Come into the drawing-room, and let us have a few words quietly. Oh, yes, I’ll lie on the sofa, my dear, if you wish it. But Hattie is wrong; I don’t do it every night. I suffer no pain either, Prissie. Many a woman of my age is racked with rheumatics.”

The last words were said with a little gasp. The elder woman lay back on the sofa, with a sigh of relief. She turned her face so that the light from the lamp should not reveal the deathly tired lines round it.

Aunt Raby was dressed in a rough homespun garment. Her feet were clad in unbleached cotton stockings, also made at home; her little, iron-grey curls lay flat at each side of her hollow cheeks. She wore list slippers, very coarse and common in texture. Her whole appearance was the essence of the homely, the old-fashioned, even the ungainly.

Priscilla had seen elegance and beauty since she went away; she had entered into the life of the cultivated, the intellectually great. In spite of her deep affection for Aunt Raby, she came back to the ugliness and the sordid surroundings of home with a pang which she hated herself for feeling. She forgot Aunt Raby’s sufferings for a moment in her uncouthness. She longed to shower riches, refinement, beauty upon her.

“How has your dress worn, Prissie?” said the elder woman, after a pause. “My sakes, child, you have got your best brown cashmere on! A beautiful fine bit of cashmere it was, too. I bought it out of the money I got for the lambs’ wool.”

Aunt Raby stretched out her hand, and, taking up a fold of the cashmere, she rubbed it softly between her finger and thumb.

“It’s as fine as velvet,” she said, “and I put strong work into it, too. It isn’t a bit worn, is it, Prissie?”

“No, Aunt Raby, except just round the tail. I got it very wet one day, and the colour went a trifle; but nothing to signify.”

A vivid picture rose up before Priscilla’s eyes as she spoke of Mrs Elliot-Smith’s drawing-room, and the dainty, disdainful ladies in their gay attire, and her own poor, little, forlorn figure in her muddy cashmere dress—the same dress Aunt Raby considered soft and beautiful as velvet.

“Oh, Aunt Raby,” she said with sudden impulse, “a great many things have happened to me since I went away. On the whole I have had a very good time.”

Aunt Raby opened her mouth to emit a prodigious yawn.

“I don’t know how it is,” she said, “but I’m a bit drowsy to-night. I suppose it’s the weather. The day was quite a muggy one. I’ll hear your news another time, Priscilla; but don’t you be turned with the vanities of the world, Priscilla. Life’s but a passing day: you mind that when you’re young, and it won’t come on you as a shock when you are old. I’m glad the cashmere has worn well—ay, that I am, Prissie. But don’t put it on in the morning, my love, for it’s a sin to wear through beautiful fine stuff like that. And, even if the colour is gone a bit round the hem, the stuff itself isn’t worn, and looks don’t signify. You’ll have to make up your mind to wear the cashmere for best again next term, Prissie, for, though I’m not pinched in any way, I’m not overflush either, my love.”

Priscilla, who had been sitting in a low chair near her aunt, now rose to her feet.

“Ought we not to come to bed?” she said. “If you don’t feel tired, you look it, Aunt Raby. Come upstairs, do, and let me help you to take your things off, and put you into bed. Come, Aunt Raby, it will be like old times to help you, you know.”

The girl knelt by the old woman, took one of her withered hands, raised it suddenly to her lips, and kissed it. Aunt Raby’s face was still turned from the light.

“Don’t you keep kneeling on your cashmere,” she said. “You’ll crease it awfully, and I don’t see my way to another best dress this term.”

“You needn’t, Aunt Raby,” said Priscilla, in a steady voice. “The cashmere is quite neat still. I can manage well with it.”

Aunt Raby rose slowly and feebly from the sofa.

“You may help me to get into bed if you like,” she said. “The muggy day has made me wonderfully drowsy, and I’ll be glad to lie down. It’s only that: I’ll be as pert as a cricket in the morning.”

The old woman leant on the girl’s strong, young arm, and stumbled a bit as she went up the narrow stairs.

When they entered the tiny bedroom Aunt Raby spoke again—

“Your dress will do, but I have been fretting about your winter jacket, Prissie. There’s my best one, though—you know, the quilted satin which my mother left me; its loose and full, and you shall have it.”

“But you want it to go to church in yourself, Aunt Raby.”

“I don’t often go to church lately, child. I take a power of comfort lying on the sofa, reading my Bible, and Mr Hayes doesn’t see anything contrary to Scripture in it, for I asked him. Yes, you shall have my quilted satin jacket to take back to college with you, Prissie, and then you’ll be set up fine.”

Priscilla bent forward and kissed Aunt Raby. She made no other response, but that night before she went to sleep she saw distinctly a vision of herself. Prissie was as little vain as a girl could be, but the vision of her own figure in Aunt Raby’s black satin quilted jacket was not a particularly inspiriting one. That jacket, full in the skirts, long in the shoulders, wide in the sleeves, and enormous round the neck, would scarcely bear comparison with the neat, tight-fitting garments which the other girl graduates of St. Benet’s were wont to patronise. Prissie felt glad she was not attired in it that unfortunate day when she sat in Mrs Elliot-Smith’s drawing-room; and yet—and yet—she knew that the poor, quaint, old-world jacket meant love and self-renunciation.

“Dear Aunt Raby!” whispered the girl.

Tears lay heavily on her eyelashes as she dropped asleep, with one arm thrown protectingly round her little sister Katie.

Chapter Twenty Three.The Fashion of the Day.A thick mist lay over everything. Christmas had come and gone, and Priscilla’s trunk was packed once more—Aunt Raby’s old-world jacket between folds of tissue-paper, lying on the top of other homely garments.The little sisters were in bed and asleep, and Aunt Raby lay on the sofa. Prissie was accustomed to her face now, so she did not turn it away from the light. The white lips, the chalky grey tint under the eyes, the deep furrows round the sunken temples, were all familiar to the younger “Miss Peel.” She had fitted once more into the old sordid life. She saw Hattie in her slipshod feet, and Katie and Rose in their thin winter jackets, which did not half keep out the cold. She saw and partook of the scanty meals, and tried to keep warm by the wretched fires. Once more she was part and parcel of the household. The children were so accustomed to her that they forgot she was going away again.To-night, however, the fact was brought back to her. Katie cried when she saw the packed trunk, Hattie pouted, and flopped herself about and became unmanageable. Rose put on her most discontented manner and voice, and finding that Prissie had earned no money during the past term, gave utterance to sceptical thoughts.“Prissie just went away to have a good time, and she never meant to earn money, and she forgot all about them,” grumbled the naughty little girl.Hattie came up and pummelled Rose for her bad words. Katie cried afresh, and altogether the scene was most dismal.Now, however, it was over. The children were in the land of happy dreams. They were eating their Christmas dinner over again, and looking with ecstasy at their tiny, tiny Christmas gifts, and listening once more to Prissie, who had a low, sweet voice, and who was singing to them the old and beloved words—“Peace and goodwill to men.”The children were happy in their dreams, and Prissie was standing by Aunt Raby’s side.“Why don’t you sit down, child? You have done nothing but fidget, fidget, for the last half-hour.”“I want to go out, Aunt Raby.”“To go out? Sakes! what for? And on such a night, too!”“I want to see Mr Hayes.”“Prissie, I think you have got a bee in your bonnet. You’ll be lost in this mist.”“No, I won’t. I missed Mr Hayes to-day when he called, and I must see him before I go back to St. Benet’s. I have a question or two to ask him, and I know every step of the way. Let me go, auntie, please, do!”“You always were a wilful girl, Priscilla, and I think that college has made you more obstinate than ever. I suppose the half-mannish ways of all those girls tell upon you. There, if you must go—do. I’m in no mood for arguing. I’ll have a bit of a sleep while you are out: the muggy weather always makes me so drowsy.”Aunt Raby uttered a very weary yawn, and turned her face from the light. Priscilla stepped into the hall, put on her waterproof and oldest hat, and went out. She knew her way well to the little vicarage, built of grey stone, and lying something like a small, daring fly against the brow of the hill. The little house looked as if any storm must detach it from its resting-place; but to-night there was no wind, only clinging mist, and damp and thick fog.Priscilla mounted the rough road which led to the vicarage, opened the white gate, walked up the gravel path, and entered the little porch. Her knock was answered by the vicar himself. He drew her into the house with an affectionate word of welcome, and soon she was sitting by his study fire, with hat and jacket removed.In the vicar’s eyes Priscilla was not at all a plain girl. He liked the rugged power which her face displayed; he admired the sensible lines of her mouth, and he prophesied great things from that brow, so calm, so broad, so full. Mr Hayes had but a small respect for the roses and lilies of mere beauty. Mind was always more to him than matter. Some of the girls at St. Benet’s, who thought very little of poor Priscilla, would have felt no small surprise had they known the high regard and even admiration this good man felt for her.“I am glad you have called, Prissie,” he said. “I was disappointed in not seeing you to-day. Well, my dear, do as well in the coming term as you did in the past. You have my best wishes.”“Thank you,” said Prissie.“You are happy in your new life, are you not, my dear child?”“I am interested,” said Priscilla, in a low voice. Her eyes rested on her shabby dress as she spoke. She laid one hand over the other. She seemed to be weighing her words. “I am interested; sometimes I am absorbed. My new life fills my heart; it crowds into all my thoughts. I have no room for Aunt Raby—no room for my little sisters. Everything is new to me—everything fresh and broad. There are some trials, of course, and some unpleasantness; but, oh, the difference between here and there! Here it is so narrow; there, one cannot help getting enlightenment, daily and hourly.”“Yes,” said Mr Hayes, when Priscilla paused, “I expected you to say something of this kind. I knew you could not but feel the immense, the immeasurable change. But why do you speak in that complaining voice, Priscilla?”Prissie’s eyes were raised to his.“Because Aunt Raby is ill, and it is wicked of me to forget her. It is mean and cowardly. I hate myself for it!”Mr Hayes looked puzzled for a moment; then his face cleared.“My dear Prissie,” he said, “I always knew there were depths of morbidness in you, but I did not suppose that you would sound them so quickly. If you are to grow up to be a wise and useful and helpful woman by-and-by, you must check this intense self-examination. Your feelings are the natural feelings of a girl who has entered upon a very charming life. You are meant to lead that life for the present; you are meant to do your duty in it. Don’t worry, my dear. Go back to St. Benet’s, and study well, and learn much, and gather plenty of experience for the future. If you fret about what cannot be helped, you will weaken your intellect and tire your heart. After all, Prissie, though you give much thought to St. Benet’s, and though its ways are delightful to you, your love is still with the old friends, is it not?”“Even there I have failed,” said Priscilla, sadly. “There is a girl at St. Benet’s who has a strange power over me. I love her—I have a very great love for her. She is not a happy girl, she is not a perfect girl, but I would do anything—anything in the wide world for her.”“And you would do anything for us, too?”“Oh, yes, yes.”“And, though you don’t think it, your love for us is stronger than your love for her. There is a freshness about the new love which fascinates you, but the old is the stronger. Keep both loves, my dear: both are of value. Now I must go out to visit poor Peters, who is ill, so I can see you home. Is there anything more you want to say to me?”“Oh, yes, Mr Hayes, Aunt Raby is very ill.”“She is, Prissie.”“Does she know it?”“Yes.”“Ought I to be away from her now?—is it right?”“My dear, do you want to break her heart? She worked so hard to get this time at college for you. No, Prissie, don’t get that idea into your head. Aunt Raby is most anxious that you should have every advantage. She knows—she and I both know—that she cannot live more than a year or two longer, and her greatest hope is that you may be able to support your little sisters when she is gone. No, Prissie, whatever happens, you must on no account give up your life at St. Benet’s.”“Then please let me say something else. I must not go on with my classics.”“My dear child, you are managing to crush me with all kinds of queer, disappointing sayings to-night.”“Am I? But I mean what I say now. I love Greek better than anything almost in the world. But I know enough of it already for the mere purposes of rudimentary teaching. My German is faulty—my French not what it might be.”“Come, come, my dear, Peters is waiting to settle for the night. Can we not talk on our way down to the cottage?”Aunt Raby was fast asleep when Priscilla reentered the little sitting-room. The girl knelt down by the slight, old figure, and, stooping, pressed a light kiss on the forehead. Light as it was it awoke the sleeper.“You are there still, child?” said Aunt Raby. “I dreamt you were away.”“Would you like me to stay with you, auntie?”“No, my dear; you help me upstairs, and I’ll get into bed. You ought to be in your own bed, too, Prissie. Young creatures ought never to sit up late, and you have a journey before you to-morrow.”“Yes; but would you like me not to take the journey? I am strong, and could do all the work, and you might rest not only at night, but in the day. You might rest always, if I stayed here.”Aunt Raby was wide-awake now, and her eyes were very bright.“Do you mean what you say, Priscilla?” she asked.“Yes, I do. You have the first right to me. If you want me, I’ll stay.”“You’ll give up that outlandish Greek, and all that babel of foreign tongues, and your fine friends, and your grand college, and your hopes of being a famous woman by-and-by? Do you mean this, Prissie, seriously?”“Yes, if you want me.”“And you say I have the first claim on you?”“I do.”“Then you’re wrong; I haven’t the first claim on you.” Aunt Raby tumbled off the sofa, and managed to stand on her trembling old legs.“Give me your arm, child,” she said; “and—and give me a kiss, Prissie. You’re a good girl, and worthy of your poor father. He was a bookworm, and you are another. But he was an excellent man, and you resemble him. I’m glad I took you home, and did my best for you. I’ll tell him about you when I get to heaven. He’ll be right pleased, I know. My sakes, child! I don’t want the little bit of earth’s rest. I’m going to have a better sort than that. And you think I’ve the first claim on you? A poor old body like me. There, help me up to bed, my dear.”Aunt Raby did not say any more as the two scrambled up the narrow stairs in silence. When they got into the little bedroom, however, she put her arms round Priscilla’s neck, and gave her quite a hug.“Thank you for offering yourself to me, my love,” she said, “but I wouldn’t have you on any terms whatever. Go and learn all you can at your fine college, Prissie. It’s the fashion of the day for the young folk to learn a lot, and there’s no going against the times. In my young life sewing was the great thing. Now it’s Latin and Greek. Don’t you forget that I taught you to sew, Prissie, and always put a back stitch when you’re running a seam; it keeps the stuff together wonderfully. Now go to bed.”

A thick mist lay over everything. Christmas had come and gone, and Priscilla’s trunk was packed once more—Aunt Raby’s old-world jacket between folds of tissue-paper, lying on the top of other homely garments.

The little sisters were in bed and asleep, and Aunt Raby lay on the sofa. Prissie was accustomed to her face now, so she did not turn it away from the light. The white lips, the chalky grey tint under the eyes, the deep furrows round the sunken temples, were all familiar to the younger “Miss Peel.” She had fitted once more into the old sordid life. She saw Hattie in her slipshod feet, and Katie and Rose in their thin winter jackets, which did not half keep out the cold. She saw and partook of the scanty meals, and tried to keep warm by the wretched fires. Once more she was part and parcel of the household. The children were so accustomed to her that they forgot she was going away again.

To-night, however, the fact was brought back to her. Katie cried when she saw the packed trunk, Hattie pouted, and flopped herself about and became unmanageable. Rose put on her most discontented manner and voice, and finding that Prissie had earned no money during the past term, gave utterance to sceptical thoughts.

“Prissie just went away to have a good time, and she never meant to earn money, and she forgot all about them,” grumbled the naughty little girl.

Hattie came up and pummelled Rose for her bad words. Katie cried afresh, and altogether the scene was most dismal.

Now, however, it was over. The children were in the land of happy dreams. They were eating their Christmas dinner over again, and looking with ecstasy at their tiny, tiny Christmas gifts, and listening once more to Prissie, who had a low, sweet voice, and who was singing to them the old and beloved words—

“Peace and goodwill to men.”

The children were happy in their dreams, and Prissie was standing by Aunt Raby’s side.

“Why don’t you sit down, child? You have done nothing but fidget, fidget, for the last half-hour.”

“I want to go out, Aunt Raby.”

“To go out? Sakes! what for? And on such a night, too!”

“I want to see Mr Hayes.”

“Prissie, I think you have got a bee in your bonnet. You’ll be lost in this mist.”

“No, I won’t. I missed Mr Hayes to-day when he called, and I must see him before I go back to St. Benet’s. I have a question or two to ask him, and I know every step of the way. Let me go, auntie, please, do!”

“You always were a wilful girl, Priscilla, and I think that college has made you more obstinate than ever. I suppose the half-mannish ways of all those girls tell upon you. There, if you must go—do. I’m in no mood for arguing. I’ll have a bit of a sleep while you are out: the muggy weather always makes me so drowsy.”

Aunt Raby uttered a very weary yawn, and turned her face from the light. Priscilla stepped into the hall, put on her waterproof and oldest hat, and went out. She knew her way well to the little vicarage, built of grey stone, and lying something like a small, daring fly against the brow of the hill. The little house looked as if any storm must detach it from its resting-place; but to-night there was no wind, only clinging mist, and damp and thick fog.

Priscilla mounted the rough road which led to the vicarage, opened the white gate, walked up the gravel path, and entered the little porch. Her knock was answered by the vicar himself. He drew her into the house with an affectionate word of welcome, and soon she was sitting by his study fire, with hat and jacket removed.

In the vicar’s eyes Priscilla was not at all a plain girl. He liked the rugged power which her face displayed; he admired the sensible lines of her mouth, and he prophesied great things from that brow, so calm, so broad, so full. Mr Hayes had but a small respect for the roses and lilies of mere beauty. Mind was always more to him than matter. Some of the girls at St. Benet’s, who thought very little of poor Priscilla, would have felt no small surprise had they known the high regard and even admiration this good man felt for her.

“I am glad you have called, Prissie,” he said. “I was disappointed in not seeing you to-day. Well, my dear, do as well in the coming term as you did in the past. You have my best wishes.”

“Thank you,” said Prissie.

“You are happy in your new life, are you not, my dear child?”

“I am interested,” said Priscilla, in a low voice. Her eyes rested on her shabby dress as she spoke. She laid one hand over the other. She seemed to be weighing her words. “I am interested; sometimes I am absorbed. My new life fills my heart; it crowds into all my thoughts. I have no room for Aunt Raby—no room for my little sisters. Everything is new to me—everything fresh and broad. There are some trials, of course, and some unpleasantness; but, oh, the difference between here and there! Here it is so narrow; there, one cannot help getting enlightenment, daily and hourly.”

“Yes,” said Mr Hayes, when Priscilla paused, “I expected you to say something of this kind. I knew you could not but feel the immense, the immeasurable change. But why do you speak in that complaining voice, Priscilla?”

Prissie’s eyes were raised to his.

“Because Aunt Raby is ill, and it is wicked of me to forget her. It is mean and cowardly. I hate myself for it!”

Mr Hayes looked puzzled for a moment; then his face cleared.

“My dear Prissie,” he said, “I always knew there were depths of morbidness in you, but I did not suppose that you would sound them so quickly. If you are to grow up to be a wise and useful and helpful woman by-and-by, you must check this intense self-examination. Your feelings are the natural feelings of a girl who has entered upon a very charming life. You are meant to lead that life for the present; you are meant to do your duty in it. Don’t worry, my dear. Go back to St. Benet’s, and study well, and learn much, and gather plenty of experience for the future. If you fret about what cannot be helped, you will weaken your intellect and tire your heart. After all, Prissie, though you give much thought to St. Benet’s, and though its ways are delightful to you, your love is still with the old friends, is it not?”

“Even there I have failed,” said Priscilla, sadly. “There is a girl at St. Benet’s who has a strange power over me. I love her—I have a very great love for her. She is not a happy girl, she is not a perfect girl, but I would do anything—anything in the wide world for her.”

“And you would do anything for us, too?”

“Oh, yes, yes.”

“And, though you don’t think it, your love for us is stronger than your love for her. There is a freshness about the new love which fascinates you, but the old is the stronger. Keep both loves, my dear: both are of value. Now I must go out to visit poor Peters, who is ill, so I can see you home. Is there anything more you want to say to me?”

“Oh, yes, Mr Hayes, Aunt Raby is very ill.”

“She is, Prissie.”

“Does she know it?”

“Yes.”

“Ought I to be away from her now?—is it right?”

“My dear, do you want to break her heart? She worked so hard to get this time at college for you. No, Prissie, don’t get that idea into your head. Aunt Raby is most anxious that you should have every advantage. She knows—she and I both know—that she cannot live more than a year or two longer, and her greatest hope is that you may be able to support your little sisters when she is gone. No, Prissie, whatever happens, you must on no account give up your life at St. Benet’s.”

“Then please let me say something else. I must not go on with my classics.”

“My dear child, you are managing to crush me with all kinds of queer, disappointing sayings to-night.”

“Am I? But I mean what I say now. I love Greek better than anything almost in the world. But I know enough of it already for the mere purposes of rudimentary teaching. My German is faulty—my French not what it might be.”

“Come, come, my dear, Peters is waiting to settle for the night. Can we not talk on our way down to the cottage?”

Aunt Raby was fast asleep when Priscilla reentered the little sitting-room. The girl knelt down by the slight, old figure, and, stooping, pressed a light kiss on the forehead. Light as it was it awoke the sleeper.

“You are there still, child?” said Aunt Raby. “I dreamt you were away.”

“Would you like me to stay with you, auntie?”

“No, my dear; you help me upstairs, and I’ll get into bed. You ought to be in your own bed, too, Prissie. Young creatures ought never to sit up late, and you have a journey before you to-morrow.”

“Yes; but would you like me not to take the journey? I am strong, and could do all the work, and you might rest not only at night, but in the day. You might rest always, if I stayed here.”

Aunt Raby was wide-awake now, and her eyes were very bright.

“Do you mean what you say, Priscilla?” she asked.

“Yes, I do. You have the first right to me. If you want me, I’ll stay.”

“You’ll give up that outlandish Greek, and all that babel of foreign tongues, and your fine friends, and your grand college, and your hopes of being a famous woman by-and-by? Do you mean this, Prissie, seriously?”

“Yes, if you want me.”

“And you say I have the first claim on you?”

“I do.”

“Then you’re wrong; I haven’t the first claim on you.” Aunt Raby tumbled off the sofa, and managed to stand on her trembling old legs.

“Give me your arm, child,” she said; “and—and give me a kiss, Prissie. You’re a good girl, and worthy of your poor father. He was a bookworm, and you are another. But he was an excellent man, and you resemble him. I’m glad I took you home, and did my best for you. I’ll tell him about you when I get to heaven. He’ll be right pleased, I know. My sakes, child! I don’t want the little bit of earth’s rest. I’m going to have a better sort than that. And you think I’ve the first claim on you? A poor old body like me. There, help me up to bed, my dear.”

Aunt Raby did not say any more as the two scrambled up the narrow stairs in silence. When they got into the little bedroom, however, she put her arms round Priscilla’s neck, and gave her quite a hug.

“Thank you for offering yourself to me, my love,” she said, “but I wouldn’t have you on any terms whatever. Go and learn all you can at your fine college, Prissie. It’s the fashion of the day for the young folk to learn a lot, and there’s no going against the times. In my young life sewing was the great thing. Now it’s Latin and Greek. Don’t you forget that I taught you to sew, Prissie, and always put a back stitch when you’re running a seam; it keeps the stuff together wonderfully. Now go to bed.”

Chapter Twenty Four.Two Extremes.“Have you heard the news?” said Rosalind Merton. She skipped into Miss Day’s room as she spoke.“No; what?” asked that untidy person, turning round and dropping a lot of ribbon which she was converting into bows. “What’s your news, Rose? Out with it. I expect it’s a case of ‘great cry and little wool.’ However, if you want a plain opinion from me—”“I don’t ask for your opinion, Annie. I’m quite accustomed to the scornful way in which you have received all my words lately. I need not tell you what I have heard at all, unless you wish to hear it.”“But, of course, I wish to hear it, Rosie; you know that as well as I do. Now sit down and make yourself at home, there’s a dear.”Rose allowed herself to be mollified.“Well,” she said, sinking back into Miss Day’s most comfortable chair, “the feud between a certain small person and a certain great person grows apace.” Miss Day’s small eyes began to dance.“You know I am interested in that subject,” she said. She flopped down on the floor by Rosalind Merton’s side. “Go on, my love,” she murmured; “describe the development of the enmity.”“Little things show the way the wind is blowing,” pursued Rose. “I was coming along the corridor just now, and I met the angelic and unworldly Priscilla. Her eyelids were red as if she had been crying. She passed me without a word.”“Well?”“That’s all.”“Rose, you really are too provoking. I thought you had something very fine to tell.”“The feud grows,” pursued Rose. “I know it by many signs. Prissie is not half so often with Maggie as she used to be. Maggie means to get out of this friendship, but she is too proud not to do it gradually. There is not a more jealous girl in this college than Maggie, but neither is there a prouder. Do you suppose that anything under the sun would allow her to show her feelings because that little upstart dared to raise her eyes to Maggie’s adorable beau, Mr Hammond? But oh, she feels it; she feels it down in her secret soul. She hates Prissie; she hates this beautiful handsome lover of hers for being civil to so commonplace a person. She is only waiting for a decent pretext to drop Prissie altogether. I wish with all my heart I could give her one.”As she spoke, Rosalind shaded her eyes with her hand; her face looked full of sweet and thoughtful contemplation.“Get your charming Prissie to flirt a little bit more,” said Miss Day, with her harsh laugh.“I don’t know that I can. I must not carry that brilliant idea to extremities, or I shall be found out.”“Well, what are you going to do?”“I don’t know. Bide my time.”Miss Day gave a listless sort of yawn.“Let’s talk of something else,” she said, impatiently. “What are you going to wear at the Elliot-Smiths’ party next week, Rose?”“I have got a new white dress,” said Rose, in that voice of strong animation and interest which the mere mention of dress always arouses in certain people.“Have you? What a lot of dresses you get!”“Indeed, you are mistaken, Annie. I have the greatest difficulty in managing my wardrobe at all.”“Why is that? I thought your people not only belonged to the county, but were as rich as Jews.”“We are county people, of course,” said Rose, in her most affected manner, “but county people need not invariably be rich. The fact is my father has had some losses lately, and mother says she must be careful. I wanted a great many things, and she said she simply could not give them. Oh, if only that spiteful Miss Oliphant had not prevented my getting the sealskin jacket, and if she had not raised the price of Polly’s pink coral!”“Don’t begin that old story again, Rose. When all is said and done, you have got the lovely coral. By the way, it will come in beautifully for the Elliot-Smiths’ party. You’ll wear it, of course?”“Oh, I don’t know.”“What do you mean? Of course you’ll wear it.”“I don’t know. The fact is I have not paid the whole price for it yet.”“Haven’t you, really? You said you’d bring the money when you returned this term.”“Of course I thought I could, but I was absolutely afraid to tell mother what a lot the coral cost; and as she was so woefully short of funds, I had just to come away without the money. I never for a moment supposed I should have such ill luck.”“It is awkward. What are you going to say to Polly Singleton?”“I don’t know. I suppose you could not help me, Annie?”“I certainly couldn’t. I never have a penny to bless myself with. I don’t know how I scrape along.” Rosalind sighed. Her pretty face looked absolutely careworn.“Don’t fret, Rose,” said Miss Day, after a pause; “whether you have paid for the coral or not, you can wear it at the Elliot-Smiths’.”“No, alas! that’s just what I can’t do. The fact is Polly is turning out awfully mean. She has come back this time with apparently an unlimited supply of pocket-money, and she has been doing her best to induce me to sell her the coral back again.”“Well, why don’t you? I’m sure I would, rather than be worried about it.”Miss Merton’s face flushed angrily.“Nothing will induce me to give up the coral,” she said. “I bought my new white dress to wear with it. I have looked forward all during the holidays to showing it to Meta Elliot-Smith. It’s the sort of thing to subdue Meta, and I want to subdue her; no, nothing will induce me to part with my lovely coral now.”“Well, my dear, keep it, of course, and pay for it how you can. It’s your own affair. You have not yet explained to me, however, why, when it is in your possession, you can’t wear it with your new dress at the Elliot-Smiths’ next week?”“Because that wretched Polly has been invited also; and she is quite mean enough and underbred enough to walk up to me before everyone and ask me to give her back her property.”“What fun if she did?” laughed Miss Day.“Annie, you are unkind!”“My dear, of course I don’t mean what I say, but I can’t help seeing the whole picture: you, so fine and so self-conscious, and so—soperfectin all your appointments—and looking—for all you are a little thing, Rose—a good inch above everyone else—and then our poor, good-natured, downright Polly catching sight of her unpaid-for ornaments round your sweet baby throat—all the John Bull in her instantly coming to the fore, and she demanding her rights in no measured terms. Oh, your face, Rosie! your face! and Meta Elliot-Smith’s enjoyment—oh, how delicious the picture is! Dear Rosalind, do wear the coral, and please—please get me an invitation to the Elliot-Smiths’. I’ll love you all my life if you give me leave to witness so lovely a spectacle!”Miss Merton’s face changed colour several times while Annie Day was speaking. She clenched her small hands, and tried hard to keep back such a torrent of angry words as would have severed this so-called friendship once and for all; but Rose’s sense of prudence was greater even now than her angry passions. Miss Day was a useful ally—a dangerous foe.With a forced laugh, which concealed none of her real feelings, she stood up and prepared to leave the room.“You are very witty at my expense, Annie,” she said. Her lips trembled. She found herself the next moment alone in the brightly lighted corridor.It was over a week now since the beginning of the term; lectures were once more in full swing, and all the inmates of St. Benet’s were trying, each after her kind, for the several prizes which the life they were leading held out to them. Girls of all kinds were living under these roofs—the idle as well as the busy. Both the clever and the stupid were here, both the good and the bad. Rosalind Merton was a fairly clever girl. She had that smart sort of cleverness which often passes for wide knowledge. She was liked by many of her girl-friends; she had the character of being rather good-natured; her pretty face and innocent manner, too, helped to win her golden opinions among the lecturers and dons.Those who knew her well soon detected her want of sincerity; but then it was Rose’s endeavour to prevent many people becoming intimately acquainted with her. She had all the caution which accompanies a deceitful character, and had little doubt that she could pursue those pettinesses in which her soul delighted, and yet retain a position as a good, innocent, and fairly clever girl before the heads of the college.Rose generally kept her angry passions in check, but, although she had managed not to betray herself while in Miss Day’s room, now as she stood alone in the brilliantly lighted corridor, she simply danced with rage. Her small hands were clenched until the nails pierced the flesh, and her delicately coloured face became livid with passion.At that moment she hated Annie Day—she hated Polly Singleton—she hated, perhaps, most of all Maggie Oliphant.She walked down the corridor, her heart beating fast. Her own room was on another floor; to reach it she had to pass Miss Peel’s and Miss Oliphant’s rooms. As Rose was walking slowly down the corridor, she saw a girl come out of Miss Oliphant’s room, turn quickly in the opposite direction to the one from which she was coming, and, quickening her pace to a run, disappear from view. Rose recognised this girl: she was Priscilla Peel. Rose hastened her own steps, and peeped into Maggie’s room. To her surprise, it was empty; the door had swung wide open, and the excited, perturbed girl could see into every corner. Scarcely knowing why she did it, she entered the room. Maggie’s room was acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful in the college, and Rose said to herself that she was glad to have an opportunity to examine it unobserved.She went and stood on the hearthrug and gazed around her; then she walked over to the bureau. Some Greek books were lying open here—also a pile of manuscript, several note-books, a few envelopes, and sheets of letter-paper. Still scarcely knowing why, Rose lifted the note-paper, and looked under it. The heap of paper concealed a purse.A sealskin purse with gold clasps. Rose snatched her hands away, flung down the note-paper as if she had been stung, and walked back again to the hearthrug. Once more the colour rushed into her cheeks; once more it retreated, leaving her small, young, pretty face white as marble.She was assailed by a frightful temptation, and she was scarcely the girl to resist it long. In cold blood she might have shrunk from the siren voice, which bade her release herself from all her present troubles by theft, but at this moment she was excited, worried, scarcely capable of calm thought. Here was her unexpected opportunity. It lay in her power now to revenge herself on Miss Oliphant, on Prissie, on Polly Singleton, and also to get out of her own difficulties.How tempting was Maggie’s purse! how rich its contents were likely to prove! Maggie was so rich and so careless, that, it was quite possible she might never miss the small sum which Rose meant to take. If she did, it would be absolutely impossible for her to trace the theft to innocent baby Rose Merton. No; if Maggie missed her money and suspected anyone, she would be almost forced to lay the crime to the door of the girl she no longer, in her heart, eared about—Priscilla Peel.A very rich flood of crimson covered Rose’s cheeks as this consequence of her sin flashed before her vision. Less even than before was she capable of seeing right from wrong. The opportunity was far too good to lose; by one small act she would not only free herself, but accomplish the object on which she had set her mean little heart: she would effectually destroy the friendship of Maggie and Priscilla.Stealthily, with her cheeks burning and her eyes bright with agitation, she once more approached the bureau, took from under the pile of papers the little sealskin purse, opened it, removed a five-pound note, clasped the purse again, and restored it to its hiding-place, then flew on the wings of the wind from the room.A moment or two later Priscilla came back, sat calmly down in one of Maggie’s comfortable chairs, and, taking up her Greek edition of Euripides, began to read and translate with eagerness.As Prissie read she made notes with a pencil in a small book which lay in her lap. The splendid thoughts appealed to her powerfully; her face glowed with pleasure. She lived in the noble past; she was a Greek with the old Greeks; she forgot the nineteenth century, with its smallness, its money worries—above all, she forgot her own cares.At last in her reading she came to a difficult sentence, which, try as she would, she could not render into English to her own satisfaction. She was a very careful student, and always disliked shirking difficulties; the pleasure of her reading would be lost if she did not do full justice to the lines which puzzled her. She resolved to read no further until Maggie appeared: Maggie Oliphant, with her superior information, would soon cut the knot for her. She closed the copy of Euripides with reluctance, and, putting her hand into her pocket, took out a note she had just received, to mark the place.A moment or two later Maggie came in.“Still here, Prissie!” she exclaimed, in her somewhat indifferent but good-natured voice. “What a bookworm you are turning into!”“I have been waiting for you to help me, if you will, Maggie,” said Priscilla. “I have lost the right clue to the full sense of this passage—see! Can you give it to me?”Maggie sat down at once, took up the book, glanced her eyes over the difficult words, and translated them with ease.“How lovely!” said Prissie, clasping her hands, and giving herself up to a feeling of enjoyment. “Don’t stop, Maggie, please; do read some more!” Miss Oliphant smiled.“Enthusiast!” she murmured.She translated with brilliancy to the end of the page; then, throwing the book on her knee, repeated the whole passage aloud in Greek.The note that Prissie put in as a mark fell on the floor. She was so lost in delighted listening that she did not notice it, but, when Maggie at last stopped for want of breath, Priscilla saw the little note, stooped forward to pick it up, glanced at the handwriting, and a shadow swept over her expressive face.“Oh! thank you, Maggie, thank you,” she exclaimed; “it is beautiful, entrancing! It made me forget everything for a short time, but I must not listen to any more; it is, indeed, most beautiful; but not for me.”“What do you mean, you little goose? You will soon read Euripides as well as I do. What is more, you will surpass me, Priscilla; your talent is greater than mine.”“Don’t say that, Maggie; I can scarcely bear it when you do.”“Why do you say you can scarcely bear it? Do you love me so well that you hate to excel me? Silly child, as if I cared!”“Maggie, I know you are really too great to be possessed by petty weaknesses. If I ever did excel you, which is most unlikely, I know you would be glad both for me and yourself. No, it is not that; I am unhappy because of no fancy.”“What worries you then?”“Maggie, do you see this note?”“Yes; it is from Miss Heath, is it not?”“It is. I am to see her to-night.”“Well, Prissie, you must be quick with your revelation, for I have some notes to look over.”“I won’t keep you a moment. I am to see Miss Heath to tell her—” Prissie paused. Her face grew deadly white. “I am to see Miss Heath to tell her—to tell her—that I.—Oh, Maggie! I must give up my classics. I must; it’s all settled. Don’t say anything. Don’t tempt me to reconsider the question. It can’t be reconsidered, and my mind is made up. That’s it; it’s a trouble, but I must go through with it. Good-night, Maggie.”Prissie held out her long, unformed hand; Miss Oliphant clasped it between both her own.“You are trembling,” she said, standing up and drawing the girl towards her. “I don’t want to argue the point if you so firmly forbid me. I think you quite mad, of course. It is absolutely impossible for me to sympathise with such wild folly. Still, if your mind is made up, I won’t interfere. But, seeing that at one time we were very firm friends, you might give me your reasons, Priscilla.”Priscilla slowly and stiffly withdrew her hands; her lips moved. She was repeating Miss Oliphant’s words under her breath—“At one time we were friends.”“Won’t you speak?” said Maggie, impatiently.“Oh, yes, I’ll speak; I’ll tell you the reason. You won’t understand, but you had better know—” Prissie paused again; she seemed to swallow something; her next words came out slowly with great difficulty: “When I went home for the Christmas recess I found Aunt Raby worse. You don’t know what my home is like, Miss Oliphant; it is small and poor. At home we are often cold, and often hungry. I have three little sisters, and they want clothes and education; they want training, they want love, they want care. Aunt Raby is too weak to do much for them now; she is very, very ill. You have not an idea—not an idea—Miss Oliphant, in your wealth and your luxury what the poverty of Penywern Cottage is like. What does such poverty mean? How shall I describe it to you? we are sometimes glad of a piece of bread; butter is a luxury; meat we scarcely taste.” Prissie again broke off to think and consider her next words. Maggie, whose sympathies were always keenly aroused by any real emotion, tried once again to take her hands; Prissie put them behind her. “Aunt Raby is a good woman,” continued Priscilla; “she is brave, she is a heroine. Although she is just a commonplace old woman, no one has ever led a grander life in its way. She wears poor clothes—oh, the poorest; she has an uncouth appearance, worse even than I have, but I am quite sure that God—Godrespects her—God thinks her worthy. When my father and mother died (I was fourteen when my dear mother died) Aunt Raby came and took me home and my three little sisters. She gave us bread to eat. Oh, yes, we never quite wanted food, but before we came Aunt Raby had enough money to feed herself, and no more. She took us all in and supported us, because she worked so very, very hard. Ever since I was fourteen—I am eighteen now—Aunt Raby has done this. Well,” continued Priscilla, slow tears coming to her eyes and making themselves felt in her voice, “this hard work is killing her; Aunt Raby is dying because she has worked so hard for us. Before my three years have come to an end here, she will be far, far away: she will be at rest for ever—God will be making up to her for all she has done here. Her hard life which God will have thought beautiful will be having its reward. Afterwards I have to support and educate the three little girls. I spoke to Mr Hayes—my dear clergyman, about whom I have told you, and who taught me all I know—and he agrees with me that I know enough of Greek and Latin now for rudimentary teaching, and that I shall be better qualified to take a good paying situation if I devote the whole of my time while at St. Benet’s to learning and perfecting myself in modern languages. It’s the end of a lovely dream, of course, but there is no doubt—no doubt whatever—what is right for me to do.”Prissie stopped speaking; Maggie went up again and tried to take her hand; she drew back a step or two, pretending not to see.“It has been very kind of you to listed,” she said; “I am very grateful to you, for now, whatever we may be to each other in future, you will understand that I don’t give up what I love lightly. Thank you, you have helped me much. Now I must go and tell Miss Heath what I have said to you. I have had a happy reading of Euripides and have enjoyed listening to you. I meant to give myself that one last treat—now it is over. Good-night.”Priscilla left the room—she did not even kiss Maggie as she generally did at parting for the night.

“Have you heard the news?” said Rosalind Merton. She skipped into Miss Day’s room as she spoke.

“No; what?” asked that untidy person, turning round and dropping a lot of ribbon which she was converting into bows. “What’s your news, Rose? Out with it. I expect it’s a case of ‘great cry and little wool.’ However, if you want a plain opinion from me—”

“I don’t ask for your opinion, Annie. I’m quite accustomed to the scornful way in which you have received all my words lately. I need not tell you what I have heard at all, unless you wish to hear it.”

“But, of course, I wish to hear it, Rosie; you know that as well as I do. Now sit down and make yourself at home, there’s a dear.”

Rose allowed herself to be mollified.

“Well,” she said, sinking back into Miss Day’s most comfortable chair, “the feud between a certain small person and a certain great person grows apace.” Miss Day’s small eyes began to dance.

“You know I am interested in that subject,” she said. She flopped down on the floor by Rosalind Merton’s side. “Go on, my love,” she murmured; “describe the development of the enmity.”

“Little things show the way the wind is blowing,” pursued Rose. “I was coming along the corridor just now, and I met the angelic and unworldly Priscilla. Her eyelids were red as if she had been crying. She passed me without a word.”

“Well?”

“That’s all.”

“Rose, you really are too provoking. I thought you had something very fine to tell.”

“The feud grows,” pursued Rose. “I know it by many signs. Prissie is not half so often with Maggie as she used to be. Maggie means to get out of this friendship, but she is too proud not to do it gradually. There is not a more jealous girl in this college than Maggie, but neither is there a prouder. Do you suppose that anything under the sun would allow her to show her feelings because that little upstart dared to raise her eyes to Maggie’s adorable beau, Mr Hammond? But oh, she feels it; she feels it down in her secret soul. She hates Prissie; she hates this beautiful handsome lover of hers for being civil to so commonplace a person. She is only waiting for a decent pretext to drop Prissie altogether. I wish with all my heart I could give her one.”

As she spoke, Rosalind shaded her eyes with her hand; her face looked full of sweet and thoughtful contemplation.

“Get your charming Prissie to flirt a little bit more,” said Miss Day, with her harsh laugh.

“I don’t know that I can. I must not carry that brilliant idea to extremities, or I shall be found out.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Bide my time.”

Miss Day gave a listless sort of yawn.

“Let’s talk of something else,” she said, impatiently. “What are you going to wear at the Elliot-Smiths’ party next week, Rose?”

“I have got a new white dress,” said Rose, in that voice of strong animation and interest which the mere mention of dress always arouses in certain people.

“Have you? What a lot of dresses you get!”

“Indeed, you are mistaken, Annie. I have the greatest difficulty in managing my wardrobe at all.”

“Why is that? I thought your people not only belonged to the county, but were as rich as Jews.”

“We are county people, of course,” said Rose, in her most affected manner, “but county people need not invariably be rich. The fact is my father has had some losses lately, and mother says she must be careful. I wanted a great many things, and she said she simply could not give them. Oh, if only that spiteful Miss Oliphant had not prevented my getting the sealskin jacket, and if she had not raised the price of Polly’s pink coral!”

“Don’t begin that old story again, Rose. When all is said and done, you have got the lovely coral. By the way, it will come in beautifully for the Elliot-Smiths’ party. You’ll wear it, of course?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean? Of course you’ll wear it.”

“I don’t know. The fact is I have not paid the whole price for it yet.”

“Haven’t you, really? You said you’d bring the money when you returned this term.”

“Of course I thought I could, but I was absolutely afraid to tell mother what a lot the coral cost; and as she was so woefully short of funds, I had just to come away without the money. I never for a moment supposed I should have such ill luck.”

“It is awkward. What are you going to say to Polly Singleton?”

“I don’t know. I suppose you could not help me, Annie?”

“I certainly couldn’t. I never have a penny to bless myself with. I don’t know how I scrape along.” Rosalind sighed. Her pretty face looked absolutely careworn.

“Don’t fret, Rose,” said Miss Day, after a pause; “whether you have paid for the coral or not, you can wear it at the Elliot-Smiths’.”

“No, alas! that’s just what I can’t do. The fact is Polly is turning out awfully mean. She has come back this time with apparently an unlimited supply of pocket-money, and she has been doing her best to induce me to sell her the coral back again.”

“Well, why don’t you? I’m sure I would, rather than be worried about it.”

Miss Merton’s face flushed angrily.

“Nothing will induce me to give up the coral,” she said. “I bought my new white dress to wear with it. I have looked forward all during the holidays to showing it to Meta Elliot-Smith. It’s the sort of thing to subdue Meta, and I want to subdue her; no, nothing will induce me to part with my lovely coral now.”

“Well, my dear, keep it, of course, and pay for it how you can. It’s your own affair. You have not yet explained to me, however, why, when it is in your possession, you can’t wear it with your new dress at the Elliot-Smiths’ next week?”

“Because that wretched Polly has been invited also; and she is quite mean enough and underbred enough to walk up to me before everyone and ask me to give her back her property.”

“What fun if she did?” laughed Miss Day.

“Annie, you are unkind!”

“My dear, of course I don’t mean what I say, but I can’t help seeing the whole picture: you, so fine and so self-conscious, and so—soperfectin all your appointments—and looking—for all you are a little thing, Rose—a good inch above everyone else—and then our poor, good-natured, downright Polly catching sight of her unpaid-for ornaments round your sweet baby throat—all the John Bull in her instantly coming to the fore, and she demanding her rights in no measured terms. Oh, your face, Rosie! your face! and Meta Elliot-Smith’s enjoyment—oh, how delicious the picture is! Dear Rosalind, do wear the coral, and please—please get me an invitation to the Elliot-Smiths’. I’ll love you all my life if you give me leave to witness so lovely a spectacle!”

Miss Merton’s face changed colour several times while Annie Day was speaking. She clenched her small hands, and tried hard to keep back such a torrent of angry words as would have severed this so-called friendship once and for all; but Rose’s sense of prudence was greater even now than her angry passions. Miss Day was a useful ally—a dangerous foe.

With a forced laugh, which concealed none of her real feelings, she stood up and prepared to leave the room.

“You are very witty at my expense, Annie,” she said. Her lips trembled. She found herself the next moment alone in the brightly lighted corridor.

It was over a week now since the beginning of the term; lectures were once more in full swing, and all the inmates of St. Benet’s were trying, each after her kind, for the several prizes which the life they were leading held out to them. Girls of all kinds were living under these roofs—the idle as well as the busy. Both the clever and the stupid were here, both the good and the bad. Rosalind Merton was a fairly clever girl. She had that smart sort of cleverness which often passes for wide knowledge. She was liked by many of her girl-friends; she had the character of being rather good-natured; her pretty face and innocent manner, too, helped to win her golden opinions among the lecturers and dons.

Those who knew her well soon detected her want of sincerity; but then it was Rose’s endeavour to prevent many people becoming intimately acquainted with her. She had all the caution which accompanies a deceitful character, and had little doubt that she could pursue those pettinesses in which her soul delighted, and yet retain a position as a good, innocent, and fairly clever girl before the heads of the college.

Rose generally kept her angry passions in check, but, although she had managed not to betray herself while in Miss Day’s room, now as she stood alone in the brilliantly lighted corridor, she simply danced with rage. Her small hands were clenched until the nails pierced the flesh, and her delicately coloured face became livid with passion.

At that moment she hated Annie Day—she hated Polly Singleton—she hated, perhaps, most of all Maggie Oliphant.

She walked down the corridor, her heart beating fast. Her own room was on another floor; to reach it she had to pass Miss Peel’s and Miss Oliphant’s rooms. As Rose was walking slowly down the corridor, she saw a girl come out of Miss Oliphant’s room, turn quickly in the opposite direction to the one from which she was coming, and, quickening her pace to a run, disappear from view. Rose recognised this girl: she was Priscilla Peel. Rose hastened her own steps, and peeped into Maggie’s room. To her surprise, it was empty; the door had swung wide open, and the excited, perturbed girl could see into every corner. Scarcely knowing why she did it, she entered the room. Maggie’s room was acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful in the college, and Rose said to herself that she was glad to have an opportunity to examine it unobserved.

She went and stood on the hearthrug and gazed around her; then she walked over to the bureau. Some Greek books were lying open here—also a pile of manuscript, several note-books, a few envelopes, and sheets of letter-paper. Still scarcely knowing why, Rose lifted the note-paper, and looked under it. The heap of paper concealed a purse.

A sealskin purse with gold clasps. Rose snatched her hands away, flung down the note-paper as if she had been stung, and walked back again to the hearthrug. Once more the colour rushed into her cheeks; once more it retreated, leaving her small, young, pretty face white as marble.

She was assailed by a frightful temptation, and she was scarcely the girl to resist it long. In cold blood she might have shrunk from the siren voice, which bade her release herself from all her present troubles by theft, but at this moment she was excited, worried, scarcely capable of calm thought. Here was her unexpected opportunity. It lay in her power now to revenge herself on Miss Oliphant, on Prissie, on Polly Singleton, and also to get out of her own difficulties.

How tempting was Maggie’s purse! how rich its contents were likely to prove! Maggie was so rich and so careless, that, it was quite possible she might never miss the small sum which Rose meant to take. If she did, it would be absolutely impossible for her to trace the theft to innocent baby Rose Merton. No; if Maggie missed her money and suspected anyone, she would be almost forced to lay the crime to the door of the girl she no longer, in her heart, eared about—Priscilla Peel.

A very rich flood of crimson covered Rose’s cheeks as this consequence of her sin flashed before her vision. Less even than before was she capable of seeing right from wrong. The opportunity was far too good to lose; by one small act she would not only free herself, but accomplish the object on which she had set her mean little heart: she would effectually destroy the friendship of Maggie and Priscilla.

Stealthily, with her cheeks burning and her eyes bright with agitation, she once more approached the bureau, took from under the pile of papers the little sealskin purse, opened it, removed a five-pound note, clasped the purse again, and restored it to its hiding-place, then flew on the wings of the wind from the room.

A moment or two later Priscilla came back, sat calmly down in one of Maggie’s comfortable chairs, and, taking up her Greek edition of Euripides, began to read and translate with eagerness.

As Prissie read she made notes with a pencil in a small book which lay in her lap. The splendid thoughts appealed to her powerfully; her face glowed with pleasure. She lived in the noble past; she was a Greek with the old Greeks; she forgot the nineteenth century, with its smallness, its money worries—above all, she forgot her own cares.

At last in her reading she came to a difficult sentence, which, try as she would, she could not render into English to her own satisfaction. She was a very careful student, and always disliked shirking difficulties; the pleasure of her reading would be lost if she did not do full justice to the lines which puzzled her. She resolved to read no further until Maggie appeared: Maggie Oliphant, with her superior information, would soon cut the knot for her. She closed the copy of Euripides with reluctance, and, putting her hand into her pocket, took out a note she had just received, to mark the place.

A moment or two later Maggie came in.

“Still here, Prissie!” she exclaimed, in her somewhat indifferent but good-natured voice. “What a bookworm you are turning into!”

“I have been waiting for you to help me, if you will, Maggie,” said Priscilla. “I have lost the right clue to the full sense of this passage—see! Can you give it to me?”

Maggie sat down at once, took up the book, glanced her eyes over the difficult words, and translated them with ease.

“How lovely!” said Prissie, clasping her hands, and giving herself up to a feeling of enjoyment. “Don’t stop, Maggie, please; do read some more!” Miss Oliphant smiled.

“Enthusiast!” she murmured.

She translated with brilliancy to the end of the page; then, throwing the book on her knee, repeated the whole passage aloud in Greek.

The note that Prissie put in as a mark fell on the floor. She was so lost in delighted listening that she did not notice it, but, when Maggie at last stopped for want of breath, Priscilla saw the little note, stooped forward to pick it up, glanced at the handwriting, and a shadow swept over her expressive face.

“Oh! thank you, Maggie, thank you,” she exclaimed; “it is beautiful, entrancing! It made me forget everything for a short time, but I must not listen to any more; it is, indeed, most beautiful; but not for me.”

“What do you mean, you little goose? You will soon read Euripides as well as I do. What is more, you will surpass me, Priscilla; your talent is greater than mine.”

“Don’t say that, Maggie; I can scarcely bear it when you do.”

“Why do you say you can scarcely bear it? Do you love me so well that you hate to excel me? Silly child, as if I cared!”

“Maggie, I know you are really too great to be possessed by petty weaknesses. If I ever did excel you, which is most unlikely, I know you would be glad both for me and yourself. No, it is not that; I am unhappy because of no fancy.”

“What worries you then?”

“Maggie, do you see this note?”

“Yes; it is from Miss Heath, is it not?”

“It is. I am to see her to-night.”

“Well, Prissie, you must be quick with your revelation, for I have some notes to look over.”

“I won’t keep you a moment. I am to see Miss Heath to tell her—” Prissie paused. Her face grew deadly white. “I am to see Miss Heath to tell her—to tell her—that I.—Oh, Maggie! I must give up my classics. I must; it’s all settled. Don’t say anything. Don’t tempt me to reconsider the question. It can’t be reconsidered, and my mind is made up. That’s it; it’s a trouble, but I must go through with it. Good-night, Maggie.”

Prissie held out her long, unformed hand; Miss Oliphant clasped it between both her own.

“You are trembling,” she said, standing up and drawing the girl towards her. “I don’t want to argue the point if you so firmly forbid me. I think you quite mad, of course. It is absolutely impossible for me to sympathise with such wild folly. Still, if your mind is made up, I won’t interfere. But, seeing that at one time we were very firm friends, you might give me your reasons, Priscilla.”

Priscilla slowly and stiffly withdrew her hands; her lips moved. She was repeating Miss Oliphant’s words under her breath—

“At one time we were friends.”

“Won’t you speak?” said Maggie, impatiently.

“Oh, yes, I’ll speak; I’ll tell you the reason. You won’t understand, but you had better know—” Prissie paused again; she seemed to swallow something; her next words came out slowly with great difficulty: “When I went home for the Christmas recess I found Aunt Raby worse. You don’t know what my home is like, Miss Oliphant; it is small and poor. At home we are often cold, and often hungry. I have three little sisters, and they want clothes and education; they want training, they want love, they want care. Aunt Raby is too weak to do much for them now; she is very, very ill. You have not an idea—not an idea—Miss Oliphant, in your wealth and your luxury what the poverty of Penywern Cottage is like. What does such poverty mean? How shall I describe it to you? we are sometimes glad of a piece of bread; butter is a luxury; meat we scarcely taste.” Prissie again broke off to think and consider her next words. Maggie, whose sympathies were always keenly aroused by any real emotion, tried once again to take her hands; Prissie put them behind her. “Aunt Raby is a good woman,” continued Priscilla; “she is brave, she is a heroine. Although she is just a commonplace old woman, no one has ever led a grander life in its way. She wears poor clothes—oh, the poorest; she has an uncouth appearance, worse even than I have, but I am quite sure that God—Godrespects her—God thinks her worthy. When my father and mother died (I was fourteen when my dear mother died) Aunt Raby came and took me home and my three little sisters. She gave us bread to eat. Oh, yes, we never quite wanted food, but before we came Aunt Raby had enough money to feed herself, and no more. She took us all in and supported us, because she worked so very, very hard. Ever since I was fourteen—I am eighteen now—Aunt Raby has done this. Well,” continued Priscilla, slow tears coming to her eyes and making themselves felt in her voice, “this hard work is killing her; Aunt Raby is dying because she has worked so hard for us. Before my three years have come to an end here, she will be far, far away: she will be at rest for ever—God will be making up to her for all she has done here. Her hard life which God will have thought beautiful will be having its reward. Afterwards I have to support and educate the three little girls. I spoke to Mr Hayes—my dear clergyman, about whom I have told you, and who taught me all I know—and he agrees with me that I know enough of Greek and Latin now for rudimentary teaching, and that I shall be better qualified to take a good paying situation if I devote the whole of my time while at St. Benet’s to learning and perfecting myself in modern languages. It’s the end of a lovely dream, of course, but there is no doubt—no doubt whatever—what is right for me to do.”

Prissie stopped speaking; Maggie went up again and tried to take her hand; she drew back a step or two, pretending not to see.

“It has been very kind of you to listed,” she said; “I am very grateful to you, for now, whatever we may be to each other in future, you will understand that I don’t give up what I love lightly. Thank you, you have helped me much. Now I must go and tell Miss Heath what I have said to you. I have had a happy reading of Euripides and have enjoyed listening to you. I meant to give myself that one last treat—now it is over. Good-night.”

Priscilla left the room—she did not even kiss Maggie as she generally did at parting for the night.

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