you two years at school instead of one.”
“Do you think so, really? That would be too appalling.”
“I am not at all sure; from what you tell me of her character, I think it would be extremely likely.”
“Well, I will do something. For that matter, I have done something. Can’t I send it in?”
“No, no!” said Annie. “You showed it to me, and I never read such rubbish in all my life. Now, look here, Mabel. You shall write a paper, and it must be the very best paper you can put together; and I will help you all I can.”
“But there is no time.”
“Yes, there is. We can do it to-night.”
“To-night? You know we can’t.”
“I know we can. Miss Phillips goes round to see that all the girls are tucked up properly at ten o’clock. Soon afterwards she goes to bed, poor old dear! When the cat’s away the mice will play. I will tap three times on my wall, and you must tap three times on yours. Not another soul will hear us. Then we’ll both get up and slip stockings over our shoes, and we’ll go down, hand-in-hand, through the silent house until we find ourselves on the ground-floor. I know a window where the hasp is broken. We’ll raise the sash and go out. We will go to the summer-house at the far end of the grounds. I will have candles and manuscript paper and ink there all ready. You will write your essay there, in the summer-house, and I will help you.”
“It is a very dangerous thing to do, Annie, and it strikes me we risk a great deal for very little. For if I were to steal out every night between now and prize day, and write an essay every night in the summer-house, I should not get a prize.”
“You certainly wouldn’t get a prize in that way; but what you do to-night will lead you to the prize.”
“Now I don’t understand you.”
“I will tell you, Mabel. You must listen very attentively, and if you positively decide to have nothing to do with it, you must not be shocked with me or attempt to betray me. What I do I do for your good – although, I will confess, partly for my own also.”
“Ah, I thought a little bit of self would come in,” said Mabel, who knew her school friend better, perhaps, than most people did.
“Yes,” said Annie quite calmly; “I don’t pretend for a moment that I haven’t a bit of self at the bottom of this. But let me tell you my scheme. Only before I breathe it, you will promise most, most faithfully not to betray me?”
“Of course I will. I know you better than you imagine, Annie. You have your good impulses, but you are not the very straightest girl in all the world.”
“Oh, thank you so much,” said Annie. She coloured faintly. “Perhaps you would not be straight,” she said after a minute, “if you had no prospect whatever in life but Uncle Maurice – Uncle Maurice, and all the old women in the parish, every one of them, setting their caps at him, and knitting comforters for his dear throat, and working slippers for his dear feet, and asking about his precious cough, and if he would like some more red-currant jelly. Perhaps you would be a little crooked if you had to sit by the hour holding slobbering babies on your lap at mothers’ meetings, and getting your best frock jammed over by the horrid village children. Oh, it is not a life to recommend itself, I can tell you!”
“Poor Annie!” said Mabel, “I do pity you. But, of course, you won’t be always with your uncle Maurice. Now forgive me for speaking as I did, and tell me your plan.”
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nest you are trying to land me in, Annie! As if Priscilla would consent!”
“Priscilla will consent. I have sounded her, and I know she will. She fights shy of it, of course, at first, but she will consent, and before morning.”
“But, Annie, what good will it do her? My going away from the school won’t give her money to stay here.”
“Ah,” said Annie, “now comes the crux. You must give her money to stay; you must manage it. You always have heaps of pocket-money. You must undertake to pay all her school expenses for at least a year.”
“Now you are a silly!” answered Mabel.
“To begin with, I have not the slightest idea what Priscilla’s school bills amount to. I know nothing about my own school bills, far less hers. Aunt Henrietta pays for me, and there’s an end of the thing.”
“Mabel,” said Annie, who was now very much excited, “don’t be horrid, please. Listen to me.”
“I am listening. You are propounding an impossible plan, and I am telling you my opinion. Have you anything further to say to me?”
“A great deal. Your aunt is very rich.”
“Rich? Oh, I imagine so. My aunt Henrietta – Lady Lushington – can go where she likes and do what she likes. She never denies herself anything at all.”
“Nor you, Mabel, anything at all.”
“Isn’t she denying me my liberty, and is that nothing?”
“She does it for your good,” said Annie; “there is no question of money in the matter. Now do listen to me. I happen to know what dear Priscie’s school bills amount to. She is taken cheaper than the other girls, and all her expenses for one term are abundantly covered by thirty pounds. Now most likely your expenses for a single term would amount to fifty or sixty pounds, perhaps even to more; but poor old Pris is taken, on special terms. Mrs Lyttelton doesn’t wish it to be known, but I found out; for one day I came across a letter from her uncle, in which he enclosed a cheque to Priscie for last term’s expenses, and I know exactly what it amounted to: twenty-seven pounds seventeen shillings and fourpence. I thought it rather funny of him to enclose the cheque to her, and spoke to her about it. You know she is fearfully untidy, and she had left it with her handkerchiefs and ribbons and things in her top drawer. She told me then, poor girl! that her uncle always sent her the cheque, expecting her to hand it over at once to Mrs Lyttelton. ‘He hates even paying that much for me,’ she said, ‘and I do wish I could get away from him altogether. He is horrid to me, and I lead a hateful life on account of him.’”
“Poor thing!” said Mabel. “It must be disagreeable for her. In some ways she is worse off than I am.”
“She would give all the world to stay here for another year,” continued Annie; “and it’s most cruel of that horrid old uncle Josiah of here to take her from school; for I know quite well that if she were allowed another twelve months here she could try for a big scholarship, and go to Girton or Newnham, and than be able to support herself in the way she likes best.”
“Yes, of course,” said Mabel, yawning and walking over towards the window, which she flung wide-open. “But still, I don’t see how I can help.”
“I know how you can help quite well, and how you shall help, and must help,” said Annie, speaking with great deliberation. “You must do what may seem just a leetle crooked in order that good may come Priscie’s life shall not be spoiled; you shall not have a dull year; and I – poor little Annie – must also have my fan, and perhaps before long. Now I will tell you at once, Mabel, how you can do it.”
Mabel sank down in a chair, and her face became quite white.
“This
