“Oh, don’t worry any more about her,” said Annie, who, for some reason, was in a particularly bad humour. “I only wish, for my part, Miss Peel had never come to St. Benet’s; I don’t like anything about her. Her heroics are as unpleasant to me as her stoicisms. But I may as well say frankly, Rosalind, before I drop this detestable subject, that I am quite sure she never stole that five-pound note: she was as little likely to do it as you, so there!”

There came a knock at the door. Rosalind flew to open it; by so doing she hoped that Miss Day would not notice the sudden colour which filled her cheeks.

Chapter Twenty Seven
Beautiful Annabel Lee

Circumstances seem to combine to spoil some people. Maggie Oliphant was one of the victims of fortune, which, while appearing to favour her, gave her in reality the worst training which was possible for a nature such as hers. She was impulsive, generous, affectionate, but she was also perverse, and, so to speak, uncertain. She was a creature of moods, and she was almost absolutely without self-control; and yet nature had been kind to Maggie, giving her great beauty of form and face, and a character which a right training would have rendered noble.

Up to the present, however, this training had scarcely come to Miss Oliphant. She was almost without relations, and she was possessed of more money than she knew what to do with. She had great abilities, and loved learning for the sake of learning, but, till she came to St. Benet’s, her education had been as desultory as her life. She had never been to school; her governesses only taught her what she chose to learn. As a child she was very fickle in this respect, working hard from morning till night one day, but idling the whole of the next. When she was fifteen her guardian took her to Rome; the next two years were spent in travelling, and Maggie, who knew nothing properly, picked up that kind of superficial miscellaneous knowledge which made her conversation brilliant and added to her many charms.

“You shall be brought out early,” her guardian had said to her. “You are not educated in the stereotyped fashion, but you know enough. After you are seventeen I will get you a suitable chaperon, and you shall live in London.”

This scheme, however, was not carried out. For, shortly after her seventeenth birthday, Maggie Oliphant met a girl whose beauty and brilliance were equal to her own, whose nature was stronger, and who had been carefully trained in heart and mind while Maggie had been neglected. Miss Lee was going through a course of training at St. Benet’s College for Women at Kingsdene. She was an uncommon girl in every sense of the word. The expression of her lovely face was as piquant as its features were beautiful; her eyes were dark as night; they also possessed the depth of the tenderest, sweetest summer night, subjugating all those who came in contact with her. Annabel Lee won Maggie’s warmest affections at once; she determined to join her friend at St. Benet’s. She spoke with ineffable scorn of her London season, and resolved, with that enthusiasm which was the strongest part of her nature, to become a student in reality. Under Annabel’s guidance she took up the course of study which was necessary to enable her to pass her entrance examination. She acquitted herself well, for her abilities were of the highest order, and entered the college with éclat. Miss Lee was a student in Heath Hall, and Maggie thought herself supremely happy when she was given a room next to her friend.

Those were brilliant days at the Hall. Some girls resided there at this time whose names were destined to be known in the world by-and-by. The workers were earnest; the tone which pervaded the life at Heath Hall was distinctly high. Shallow girls there must always be where any number are to be found together, but, during Maggie Oliphant’s first year, these girls had little chance of coming to the front. Maggie, who was as easily influenced as a wave is tossed by the wind, rose quickly to the heights with her companions. Her splendid intellect developed each day; she was merry with the merry, glad with the glad, studious with the studious. She was also generous, kind, and unselfish in company with those girls who observed the precepts of the higher life. Next to Miss Lee, Maggie was one of the most popular girls in the college. Annabel Lee had the kindest of hearts, as well as the most fascinating of ways. She was an extraordinary girl; there was a great deal of the exotic about her; in many ways she was old for her years. No one ever thought or spoke of her as a prig, but all her influence was brought to bear in the right direction. The girl who could do or think meanly avoided the expression in Annabel’s beautiful eyes. It was impossible for her to think badly of her fellow-creatures, but meanness and sin made her sorrowful. There was not a girl in Heath Hall who would willingly give Annabel Lee sorrow.

In the days that followed people knew that she was one of those rare and brilliant creatures who, like a lovely but too ethereal flower, must quickly bloom into perfection and then pass away. Annabel was destined to a short life, and after her death the high tone of Heath Hall deteriorated considerably.

This girl was a born leader. When she died no other girl in the college could take her place, and for many a long day those who had loved her were conscious of a sense which meant a loss of headship. In short, they were without their leader.

If Annabel in her gaiety and brightness could influence girls who were scarcely more than acquaintances, the effect of her strong personality on Maggie was supreme. Maggie often said that she never knew what love meant until she met Annabel. The two girls were inseparable; their love for each other was compared to that of Jonathan and David of Bible story, and of Orestes and Pylades of Greek legend. The society of each gave the other the warmest pleasure.

Annabel and Maggie were both so beautiful in appearance, so far above the average girl in their pose, their walk, their manner, that people noticed these friends wherever they went. A young and rising artist, who saw them once at St. Hilda’s, begged permission to make a picture of the pair. It was done during the summer recess before Annabel died, and made a sensation in the next year’s Academy. Many of the visitors who went there stopped and looked at the two faces, both in the perfection of their youthful bloom and beauty; few guessed that one even now had gone to the Home best fitted for so ardent and high a spirit.

Annabel Lee died a year before Priscilla came to the college. Whatever Maggie inwardly felt, she had got over her first grief; her smile was again as brilliant as when Annabel was by her side, her laugh was as merry; but the very few who could look a little way into Maggie’s perverse and passionate heart, knew well that something had died in her which could never live again, that her laugh was often hollow, and her brilliant smile had only a foundation in bitterness.

Maggie did not only grieve for her friend when she mourned for Annabel. She had loved her most deeply, and love alone would have caused her agony in such a loss; but Maggie’s keenest and most terrible feelings were caused by an unavailing regret.

This regret was connected with Geoffrey Hammond.

He had known Annabel from her childhood. He was an old friend of some of her friends, and during those last, long summer holidays, which the two girls spent together under the roof of Maggie’s guardian, Hammond, who was staying with relations not far away, came to see them almost daily. He was the kind of man who could win both respect and admiration; he was grave in his nature; and his aspirations, aims, and ambitions were high. In their conversations during this lovely summer weather these young people dreamt happy dreams together, and planned a future which meant good to all mankind. Maggie, to all appearance, was heart and soul with Annabel and Geoffrey in what they thought and said.

Nothing could have been simpler or more unconventional than the intercourse between these young people. Miss Lee had known Hammond all her life; Maggie always spoke and thought of herself as second to Annabel in Geoffrey Hammond’s regard. One brilliant autumn day, however, he surprised Maggie by asking her to take a long walk alone with him. No words were said during this ramble to open Maggie Oliphant’s eyes to the true state of Hammond’s feelings for her, but, when she returned from her walk, she could not help noticing Annabel Lee’s unaccountable depression. It was not until later, however, that Maggie attributed a certain pathetic, almost heart-broken, look in her friend’s lovely eyes to its true cause.

Hammond was a graduate of St. Hilda’s College at Kingsdene, and the three friends often talked of the happy meetings they would have during the coming winter. He was a man of large property, and the favourite amusement of these young people was in talking over the brilliant life which lay before Hammond when he took possession of his estates. He would be the ideal landlord of his age; the people who lived on his property would, when he attained his majority, enter into a millennium of bliss.

Maggie returned to St. Benet’s, imagining herself quite heart-whole; but happiness shone out of her eyes, and there was a new tender ring in her voice for which she could not account to herself, and which added a new fascination to her beauty.

Shortly after the commencement of the term, Hammond met Miss Oliphant by accident just outside Kingsdene.

“I was going to post a letter to you,” he said. His face was unusually pale, his eyes full of joy and yet of solicitude.

“You can tell me what you have written,” replied Maggie, in her gayest voice.

“No, I would rather you read my letter.”

He thrust it into her hand and immediately, to her astonishment, left her.

As she walked home through the frosty air she opened Hammond’s letter, and read its contents. It contained an earnest appeal for her love, and an assurance that all the happiness of the writer’s future life depended on her consenting to marry him. Would she be his wife when her three years’ term at St. Benet’s came to an end?

No letter could be more manly, more simple. Its contents went straight to the depths of a heart easily swayed and full of strong affection.

“Yes, I love him,” whispered the girl; “I did not know it until I read this letter, but I am sure of myself now. Yes, I love him better than anyone else in the world.”

A joyous light filled Maggie’s brown eyes; her heart was gay. She rushed to Annabel’s room to tell her news, and to claim the sympathy which had never hitherto been denied her, and which was essential to the completion of her happiness.

When Maggie entered her friend’s room, she saw, to her surprise, that Annabel was lying on her bed with flushed cheeks. Two hours before she had been, to all appearance, in brilliant health; now her face burned with fever, and her beautiful dark eyes were glazed with pain.

Maggie rushed up and kissed her. “What is it, darling,” she asked; “what is wrong? You look ill; your eyes have a strange expression.”

Annabel’s reply was scarcely audible. The pain and torpor of her last short illness were already overmastering her. Maggie was alarmed at the burning touch of her hand; but she had no experience to guide her, and her own great joy helped to make her selfish.

“Annabel, look at me for a moment; I have wonderful news to give you.”

Annabel’s eyes were closed. She opened them wide at this appeal for sympathy, stretched out her hand, and pushed back a tangle of bright hair from Maggie’s brow.

“I love you, Maggie,” she said, in that voice which had always power to thrill its listeners.

Maggie kissed her friend’s hand, and pressed it to her own beating heart. “I met Geoffrey Hammond to-day,” she said. “He gave me a letter; I have read it. Oh, Annabel, Annabel! I can be good now. No more bad half-hours, no more struggles with myself. I can be very good now.”

With some slight difficulty Annabel Lee drew her hot hand away from Maggie’s fervent clasp; her eyes, slightly distended, were fixed on her friend’s face; the flush of fever left her cheeks; a hot flood of emotion seemed to press against her beating heart; she looked at Maggie with passionate longing.

“What is it?” she asked, in a husky whisper. “Why are you so glad, Maggie? Why can you be good now?”

“Because I love Geoffrey Hammond,” answered Maggie: “I love him with all my heart, all my life, all my strength, and he loves me; he has asked me to be his wife.”

Maggie paused. She expected to feel Annabel’s arms round her neck; she waited impatiently for this last crowning moment of bliss. Her own happiness caused her to lower her eyes; her joy was so dazzling that for a moment she felt she must shade their brilliance even from Annabel’s gaze.

Instead of the pressure of loving arms, however, and the warm kiss of sympathy, there came a low cry from the lips of the sick girl. She made an effort to say something, but words failed her: the next moment she was unconscious. Maggie rushed to the bell, and gave an alarm, which brought Miss Heath and one or two servants to the room.

A doctor was speedily sent for, and Maggie Oliphant was banished from the room. She never saw Annabel Lee again. That night the sick girl was removed to the hospital, which was in a building apart from the Halls, and two days afterwards she was dead.

Typhus fever was raging at Kingsdene at this time, and Annabel Lee had taken it in its most virulent form. The doctors (and two or three were summoned) gave up all hope of saving her life from the first. Maggie also gave up hope. She accused herself of having caused her friend’s death; she believed that the shock of her tidings had killed Annabel, who, already suffering from fever, had not strength to bear the agony of knowing that Hammond’s love was given to Maggie.

On the night of Annabel’s death, Maggie wrote to Hammond refusing his offer of marriage, but giving no reason for doing so. After posting her letter, she lay down on her own sick bed, and nearly died of the fever which had taken Annabel away.

All these things happened a year ago. The agitation caused by the death of one so young, beautiful, and beloved had subsided. People could talk calmly of Annabel, and although for a long time her room had remained vacant, it was now occupied by a girl in all respects her opposite.

Nothing would induce Maggie to enter this room, and no words would persuade her to speak of Annabel. She was merry and bright once more, and few gave her credit for secret hours of misery, which were seriously undermining her health, and ruining what was best of her character.

On this particular day, as she lay back in her carriage, wrapped in costly furs, a great wave of misery and bitterness was sweeping over her heart. In the first agony caused by Annabel’s death, Maggie had vowed a vow to her own heart never, under any circumstances, to consent to be Hammond’s wife. In the first misery of regret and compunction it had been easy to Maggie Oliphant to make such a vow; but she knew well, as the days and months went by, that its weight was crushing her life, was destroying her chance of ever becoming a really strong and good woman. If she had loved Hammond a year ago her sufferings made her love him fifty times better now. With all her outward coldness and apparent indifference, his presence gave her the keenest pain. Her heart beat fast when she caught sight of his face; if he spoke to another, she was conscious of being overcome by a spirit of jealousy. The thought of him mingled with her waking and sleeping hours; but the sacrifice she owed to the memory of her dead friend must be made at all hazards. Maggie consulted no one on this subject. Annabel’s unhappy story lay buried with her in her early grave; Maggie would have died rather than reveal it. Now, as she lay back in her carriage, the tears filled her eyes.

“I am too weak for this to go on any longer,” she said to herself. “I shall leave St. Benet’s at the end of the present term. What is the winning of a tripos to me? what do I want with honours and distinctions? Everything is barren to me. My life has no flavour in it. I loved Annabel, and she is gone. Without meaning it, I broke Annabel’s heart. Without meaning it, I caused my darling’s death, and now my own heart is broken, for I love Geoffrey – I love him, and I can never, under any circumstances, be his wife. He misunderstands me – he thinks me cold, wicked, heartless – and I can never, never set myself right with him. Soon he will grow tired of me, and give his heart to someone else, and perhaps marry someone else. When he does, I too shall die. Yes, whatever happens, I must go away from St. Benet’s.”

Maggie’s tears always came slowly; she put up her handkerchief to wipe them away. It was little wonder that when she returned from her drive her head was no better.

“We must put off the rehearsal,” said Nancy Banister. She came into Maggie’s room, and spoke vehemently. “I saw you at lunch, Maggie: you ate nothing – you spoke with an effort. I know your head is worse. You must lie down, and, unless you are better soon, I will ask Miss Heath to send for a doctor.”

“No doctor will cure me,” said Maggie. “Give me a kiss, Nance; let me rest my head against yours for a moment. Oh, how earnestly I wish I was like you.”

“Why so? What have I got? I have no beauty; I am not clever; I am neither romantically poor, like Prissie, nor romantically rich, like you. In short, the fairies were not invited to my christening.”

“One or two fairies came, however,” replied Maggie, “and they gave you an honest soul, and a warm heart, and – and happiness, Nancy. My dear, I need only look into your eyes to know that you are happy.”

Nancy’s blue eyes glowed with pleasure. “Yes,” she said, “I don’t know anything about dumps and low spirits.”

“And you are unselfish, Nancy; you are never seeking your own pleasure.”

“I am not obliged to: I have all I want. And now to turn to a more important subject. I will see the members of our Dramatic Society, and put off the rehearsal.”

“You must not; the excitement will do me good.”

“For the time, perhaps,” replied Nancy, shaking her wise head, “but you will be worse afterwards.”

“No. Now, Nancy, don’t let us argue the point. If you are truly my friend, you will sit by me for an hour, and read aloud the dullest book you can find, then perhaps I shall go to sleep.”

Chapter Twenty Eight
“Come and Kill the Bogie.”

Notwithstanding Nancy’s dismal prognostications, Maggie Oliphant played her part brilliantly that night. Her low spirits were succeeded by gay ones; the Princess had never looked more truly regal, nor had the Prince ever more passionately wooed her. Girls who did not belong to the society always flocked into the theatre to see the rehearsals. Maggie’s mood scarcely puzzled them. She was so erratic that no one expected anything from her but the unexpected: if she looked like a drooping flower one moment, her head was erect the next, her eyes sparkling, her voice gay. The flower no longer drooped, but blossomed with renewed vigour. After reading for an hour Nancy had left her friend asleep. She went downstairs, and, in reply to several anxious inquiries, pronounced it as her opinion that Maggie, with all the good will in the world, could scarcely take part in the rehearsals that night.

“I know Maggie is going to be ill,” said Nancy, with tears in her eyes. Miss Banister was so sensible and so little given to undue alarms, that her words had effect, and a little rumour spread in the college that Miss Oliphant could not take her part in the important rehearsals which were to take place that evening. Her appearance, therefore, in more than her usual beauty, with more vigour in her voice, more energy and brightness in her eyes, gave at once a pleasing sense of satisfaction. She was cheered when she entered the little theatre, but, if there was a brief surprise, it was quickly succeeded by the comment which generally followed all her doings – “This is just like Maggie; no one can depend on how she will act for a moment.”

At that rehearsal, however, people were taken by surprise. If the Princess did well, the young Prince did better. Priscilla had completely dropped her rôle of the awkward and gauche girl. From the first there had been vigour and promise in her acting. To-night there was not only vigour, but tenderness – there was a passion in her voice which arose now and then to power. She was so completely in sympathy with her part that she ceased to be Priscilla: she was the Prince who must win this wayward Princess or die.

Maggie came up to her when the rehearsals were over.

“I congratulate you,” she said. “Prissie, you might do well on the stage.”

Priscilla smiled. “No,” she said, “for I need inspiration to forget myself.”

“Well, genius would supply that.”

“No, Maggie, no. The motive that seems to turn me into the Prince himself cannot come again. Oh, Maggie, if I succeed! If I succeed!”

“What do you mean, you strange child?”

“I cannot tell you with my voice: don’t you guess?”

“I cannot say. You move me strangely; you remind me of – I quite forget that you are Priscilla Peel.”

Priscilla laughed joyously.

“How gay you look to-night, Prissie, and yet I am told you were miserable this morning. Have you forgotten your woes?”

“Completely.”

“Why is this?”

“I suppose because I am happy and hopeful.”

“Nancy tells me that you were quite in despair to-day. She said that some of those cruel girls insulted you.”

“Yes, I was very silly; I got a shock.”

“And you have got over it?”

“Yes; I know you don’t believe badly of me. You know that I am honest and – and true.”

“Yes, my dear,” said Maggie, with fervour, “I believe in you as I believe in myself. Now, have you quite disrobed? Shall we go into the library for a little?”

The moment they entered this cheerful room, which was bright with two blazing fires and numerous electric lights, Miss Day and Miss Marsh came up eagerly to Maggie.

“Well,” they said, “have you made up your mind?”

“About what?” she asked, raising her eyes in a puzzled way.

“You will come with us to the Elliot-Smiths’? You know how anxious Meta is to have you.”

“Thank you; but am I anxious to go to Meta?”

“Oh! you are, you must be; you cannot be so cruel as to refuse.”

After the emotion she had gone through in the morning, Maggie’s heart was in that softened, half-tired state when it could be most easily influenced; she was in no mood for arguing – or for defiance of any sort. “Peace at all hazards” was her motto just now. She was also in so reckless a mood as to be indifferent to what anyone thought of her. The Elliot-Smiths were not in her “set;” she disliked them and their ways, but she had met Meta at a friend’s house a week ago. Meta had been introduced to Miss Oliphant, and had pressed her invitation vigorously. It would be a triumph of triumphs to Meta Elliot-Smith to introduce the beautiful heiress to her own set. Maggie’s refusal was not listened to. She was begged to reconsider the question; implored to be merciful, to be kind; assured of undying gratitude if she would consent to come even for one short hour.

Miss Day and Miss Marsh were commissioned by Meta to secure Maggie at all costs.

“You will come?” said Miss Day; “you must come.” Then coming up close to Maggie, she whispered in an eager voice – “Would not you like to find out who has taken your five-pound note? Miss Peel is your friend; would it not gratify you to clear her?”

“Why should I clear one who can never possibly be suspected?” replied Miss Oliphant, in a voice of anger. Her words were spoken aloud, and so vehemently that Annie Day drew back a step or two in alarm.

“Well, but you would like to know who really took your money?” she reiterated, again speaking in a whisper.

Maggie was standing by one of the bookcases; she stretched up her hand to take down a volume. As she did so, her eyes rested for a moment on Priscilla.

“I would as soon suspect myself as her,” she thought, “and yet last night, for a moment, even I was guilty of an unworthy thought of you, Prissie, and if I could doubt, why should I blame others? If going to the Elliot-Smiths’ will establish your innocence, I will go.”

“Well,” said Miss Day, who was watching her face, “I am to see Meta to-morrow morning; am I to tell her to expect you?”

“Yes,” replied Maggie, “but I wish to say at once, with regard to that five-pound note, that I am not interested in it. I am so careless about my money matters, that it is quite possible I may have been mistaken when I thought I put it into my purse.”

“Oh! oh! but you spoke so confidently this morning.”

“One of my impulses. I wish I had not done it.”

“Having done it, however,” retorted Miss Day, “it is your duty to take any steps which may be necessary to clear the college of so unpleasant and disgraceful a charge.”

“You think I can do this by going to the Elliot-Smiths’?”

“Hush! you will spoil all by speaking so loud. Yes, I fully believe we shall make a discovery on Friday night.”

“You don’t suppose I would go to act the spy?”

“No, no, nothing of the sort; only come – only come!”

Maggie opened her book, and glanced at some of its contents before replying.

“Only come,” repeated Annie, in an imploring voice.

“I said I would come,” answered Maggie. “Must I reiterate my assurance? Tell Miss Elliot-Smith to expect me.”

Maggie read for a little in the library; then, feeling tired, she rose from her seat and crossed the large room, intending to go up at once to her own chamber. In the hall, however, she was attracted by seeing Miss Heath’s door slightly open. Her heart was full of compunction for having, even for a moment, suspected Priscilla of theft. She thought she would go and speak to Miss Heath about her.

She knocked at the Vice-Principal’s door.

“Come in,” answered the kind voice, and Maggie found herself a moment later seated by the fire: the door of Miss Heath’s room shut, and Miss Heath herself standing over her, using words of commiseration.

“My dear,” she said, “you look very ill.”

Maggie raised her eyes. Miss Heath had seen many moods on that charming face; now the expression in the wide-open, brown eyes caused her own to fill with sudden tears.

“I would do anything to help you, my love,” she said, tenderly, and, stooping down, she kissed Maggie on her forehead.

“Perhaps, another time,” answered Miss Oliphant. “You are all that is good, Miss Heath, and I may as well own frankly that I am neither well nor happy, but I have not come to speak of myself just now. I want to say something about Priscilla Peel.”

“Yes, what about her?”

“She came to you last night. I know what she came about.”

“She told me she had confided in you,” answered the Vice-Principal, gravely.

“Yes. Well, I have come to say that she must not be allowed to give up her Greek and Latin.”

“Why not?”

“Miss Heath, how can you say, ‘why not’? Prissie is a genius; her inclination lies in that direction. It is in her power to become one of the most brilliant classical scholars of her day.”

Miss Heath smiled. “Well, Maggie,” she said, slowly, “even suppose that is the case – and you must own that, clever as Priscilla is, you make an extreme statement when you say such words – she may do well, very well, and yet turn her attention to other subjects for the present.”

“It is cruel!” said Maggie, rising and stamping her foot, impatiently. “Priscilla has it in her to shed honour on our college; she will take a first-class when she goes in for her tripos, if her present studies are not interfered with.”

Miss Heath smiled at Maggie in a pitying sort of way. “I admit,” she said, “that first-class honours would be a very graceful crown of bay to encircle that young head; and yet, Maggie, yet – surely Priscilla can do better?”

“What do you mean? How can she possibly do better?”

“She can wear a nobler crown. You know, Maggie, there are crowns to be won which cannot fade.”

“Oh!” Maggie’s lips trembled; she looked down.

After a pause, she said, “Priscilla told me something of her home and her family. I suppose she has also confided in you, Miss Heath?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Well, I have come to-night to say that it is in my power to use some of that money which I detest in helping Prissie – in helping her family. I mean to help them; I mean to put them all in such a position that Priscilla shall not need to spend her youth in uncongenial drudgery. I have come to say this to you, Miss Heath, and I beg of you – yes, I beg of you – to induce my dear Prissie to go on with her classical studies. It will now be in your power to assure her that the necessity which made her obliged to give them up no longer exists.”

“In short,” said Miss Heath, “you will give Miss Peel of your charity, and take her independence away?”

“What do you mean?”

“Put yourself in her place, Maggie. Would you take money for yourself and those dear to you from a comparative stranger?”

Maggie’s face grew very red. “I think I would oblige my friend, my dear friend,” she said.

“Is Prissie really your dear friend?”

“Why do you doubt me? I love her very much. Since – since Annabel died, no one has come so close to me.”

“I am glad of that,” replied Miss Heath. She went up to Maggie and kissed her.

“You will do what I wish?” asked the girl, eagerly.

“No, my dear: that matter lies in your hands alone. It is a case in which it is absolutely impossible for me to interfere. If you can induce Priscilla to accept money from you, I shall not say a word; and, for the sake of our college, I shall, perhaps, be glad, for there is not the least doubt that Prissie has it in her to win distinction for St. Benet’s. But, on the other hand, if she comes to me for advice, it will be impossible for me not to say to her – ‘My dear, character ranks higher than intellect. You may win the greatest prizes and yet keep a poor and servile soul. You may never get this great earthly distinction, and yet you may be crowned with honour – the honour which comes of uprightness, of independence, of integrity.’ Prissie may never consult me, of course, Maggie; but, if she does, I must say words something like these. To tell the truth, my dear, I never admired Priscilla more than I did last night I encouraged her to give up her classics for the present, and to devote herself to modern languages, and to those accomplishments which are considered more essentially feminine. As I did so I had a picture before me, in which I saw Priscilla crowned with love, the support and blessing of her three little sisters. The picture was a very bright one, Maggie, and your crown of bay looks quite tawdry beside the other crown which I hope to see on Prissie’s brow.”