making themselves at home in Priscilla’s room, some seated on her trunk, some on her bureau, several curled up in comfortable attitudes on her bed, and she herself standing, meek, awkward, depressed, near one of the windows.
“How tired you look, Miss Peel!” said Nancy Banister.
Priscilla smiled gratefully at her.
“And your trunk is not unpacked yet?”
“Oh! there is time enough,” faltered Priscilla.
“Are we in your way?” suddenly spoke Miss Marsh, springing to her feet. “Good-night. My name is Marsh, my room is thirty-eight.”
She swung herself lazily and carelessly out of the room, followed, at longer or shorter intervals, by the other girls, who all nodded to Priscilla, told her their names, and one or two the numbers of their rooms. At last she was left alone with Nancy Banister.
“Poor thing! How tired and white you look!” said Nancy. “But now that dreadful martyrdom is over, you shall have a real cosy time. Don’t you want a nice hot cup of cocoa? It will be ready in a minute or two. And please may I help you to unpack?”
“Thank you,” said Priscilla; her teeth were chattering. “If I might have a fire?” she asked suddenly.
“Oh, you poor, shivering darling! Of course. Are there no matches here? There were some on the mantelpiece before dinner. No, I declare they have vanished. How careless of the maid. I’ll run into Maggie’s room and fetch some.”
Miss Banister was not a minute away. She returned with a box of matches, and, stooping down, set a light to the wood, and a pleasant fire was soon blazing and crackling merrily.
“Now, isn’t that better?” said Nancy. “Please sit down on your bed, and give me the key of your trunk. I’ll soon have the things out, and put all to rights for you. I’m a splendid unpacker.”
But Priscilla had no desire to have her small and meagre wardrobe overhauled even by the kindest of St. Benet’s girls.
“I will unpack presently myself, if you don’t mind,” she said. She felt full of gratitude, but she could not help an almost surly tone coming into her voice.
Nancy drew back, repulsed and distressed.
“Perhaps you would like me to go away?” she said. “I will go into Maggie’s room, and let you know when cocoa is ready.”
“Thank you,” said Prissie. Miss Banister disappeared, and Priscilla sat on by the fire, unconscious that she had given any pain or annoyance, thinking with gratitude of Nancy, and with feelings of love of Maggie Oliphant, and wondering what her little sisters were doing without her at home to-night.
By-and-by there came a tap at her door. Priscilla ran to open it. Miss Oliphant stood outside.
“Won’t you come in?” said Priscilla, throwing the door wide open, and smiling with joy. It was already delightful to her to look at Maggie. “Please come in,” she added, in a tone almost of entreaty.
Maggie Oliphant started and turned pale. “Into that room? No, no, I can’t,” she said in a queer voice. She rushed back to her own, leaving Priscilla standing in amazement by her open door.
There was a moment’s silence; then Miss Oliphant’s voice, rich, soft, and lazy, was heard within the shelter of her own apartment.
“Please come in, Miss Peel, cocoa awaits you. Do not stand on ceremony.”
Priscilla went timidly across the landing, and the next instant found herself in one of the prettiest of the students’ rooms at St. Benet’s. A few rare prints and some beautiful photogravures of well-known pictures adorned the walls. The room was crowded with knick-knacks, and rendered gay and sweet by many tall flowers in pots. A piano stood open by one of the walls, and a violin lay carelessly on a chair not far off. There were piles of new music, and some tempting, small, neatly-bound books lying about. A fire glowed on the hearth, and a little brass kettle sang merrily on the hob. The cocoa-table was drawn up in front of the fire, and on a quaintly shaped tray stood the bright little cocoa-pot, and the oddly devised cups and saucers.
“Welcome to St. Benet’s?” said Maggie, going up and taking Priscilla’s hand cordially within her own. “Now you’ll have to get into this low chair, and make yourself quite at home and happy.”
“How snug you are here,” said Prissie, her eyes brightening, and a pink colour mounting into her cheeks. She was glad that Maggie was alone; she felt more at ease with her than with anyone, but the next moment she said, with a look of apparent regret —
“I thought Miss Banister was in your room?”
“No; Nancy has gone to her own room at the end of the corridor to do some work for an hour. She will come back to say good-night. She always does. Are you sorry to have me by myself?”
“Indeed I am not,” said Priscilla. The smile, which made her rather plain face attractive, crept slowly back to it. Maggie poured out a cup of cocoa and brought it to her, then, drawing another chair forward, she seated herself in it, sipped her own cocoa, and began to talk.
Long afterwards Priscilla remembered that talk. It was not what Maggie said, for her conversation in itself was not at all brilliant, but it was the sound of her rich, calm, rather lazy voice, the different lights which glanced and gleamed in her eyes, the dimples about her mouth, the attitude she put herself in. Maggie had a way of changing colour, too, which added to her fascinations. Sometimes the beautiful oval of her face would be almost ivory white, but then again a rosy cloud would well up and up the cheeks, and even slightly suffuse the broad, low forehead. Her face was never long the same, never more than a moment in repose; eyes, mouth, brow, even the very waves of her hair seemed to Priscilla, this first night as she sat by her hearth, to be all speech.
The girls grew cosy and confidential together. Priscilla told Maggie about her home, a little also about her past history, and her motive in coming to St. Benet’s. Maggie sympathised with all the expression she was capable of. At last Priscilla bade her new friend good-night, and, rising from her luxurious chair, prepared to go back to her own room.
She had just reached the door of Maggie’s room, and was about to turn the handle, when a sudden thought arrested her. She came back a few steps.
“May I ask you a question?” she said.
“Certainly,” replied Miss Oliphant.
“Who is the girl who used to live in my room? Annabel Lee, the other girls call her. Who is she? What is there remarkable about her?”
To Priscilla’s astonishment Maggie started a step forward, her eyes blazed with an expression which was half frightened – half angry. She interlocked one soft hand inside the other, her face grew white, hard, and strained.
“You must not ask me about Annabel Lee,” she said in a whisper, “for I – I can tell you nothing about her. I can never tell you about her – never.”
Then she rushed to her sofa-bed, flung herself upon it face downwards, and burst into queer, silent, distressful tears.
Someone touched Priscilla softly on her shoulder.
“Let me take you to your room, Miss Peel,” said Nancy Banister. “Don’t take any notice of Maggie; she will be all right by-and-by.”
Nancy
