Towards morning a thought came to Annie. She could not quite tell when
it first darted through her brain. Perhaps it came in a dream. She was
never quite certain, but it certainly caused her to jump, and it made
her heart beat tumultuously.
"I wonder," she said aloud; and then she added, "The very thing!" Then
she said once more, "I will do it, or my name is not Annie Brooke."
That morning the mistress and the girls missed the pleasant face of
Annie Brooke from the breakfast-table. Mabel Lushington, as her
greatest friend, was begged to go to her room to see if anything was the
matter. She tapped at Annie's door. A very faint reply came, and Mabel
entered in much consternation. She found her friend lying in bed, a
handkerchief wrung out of eau-de-Cologne and water on her brow, her hair
dishevelled, her face pale.
"Oh Annie, you are ill!" said poor Mabel. "What is wrong?"
"My head, dear; it aches so badly."
"Oh, I am sorry!" said Mabel. "Mrs Lyttelton sent me upstairs to know
what is wrong."
"Tell her she must not be at all alarmed," said Annie. "It is just one
of my very worst headaches, no more. I sha'n't be able to do any
lessons to-day. But I will creep out into the garden presently. I want
air and perfect quiet. I'll get into one of the hammocks in the garden
and lie there. Tell them all not to be a bit anxious, for I know what I
want is rest."
"You do look bad," said Mabel. "Dear Annie, I know I am the cause of
it."
"You are most truly," thought Annie under her breath. But aloud she
said, "No, dear, not at all; I am subject to headaches."
"I never knew you with one before," said Mabel.
"I have kept them to myself, darling; but Mrs Lyttelton knows, for I
told her. This is just worse than the others, and I can't keep it to
myself. If Miss Phillips likes to come up, she might bring me a cup of
tea and a little toast. I couldn't eat anything else, indeed. Now,
love, go down; don't be distressed; your Annie will be all right in the
afternoon."
Mabel longed to say, "What are you going to do about the poem?" but in
sight of that pale presence with its look of suffering, and the bondage
on the head, she thought that such a remark would be quite too
heartless. She stepped, therefore, very softly out of the room, and
going downstairs, made a most effective announcement with regard to
Annie.
"She says it is nothing," remarked Mabel, who was almost in tears; "but
she looks quite dreadful--so ghastly white."
Little did Mabel know that Annie had smeared powder over her face to
give it that death-like appearance. She had managed it with great
skill, and trusted to its not being noticed.
"Miss Phillips," said Mrs Lyttelton, "will you go and see what is wrong?
If Annie is feverish we must get a doctor. She may have a little touch
of the sun, my dears; it is always unwise to be out too much this hot
weather."
"She looked awfully flushed," said one girl, "when we met her in the
High Street yesterday. It was after she had been with Mrs Priestley."
"It must be a touch of the sun," said Mrs Lyttelton; "perhaps I had
better go to her myself."
"Let me go first, dear Mrs Lyttelton," said Miss Phillips; "I can soon
let you know if there is anything wrong."
Accordingly, Miss Phillips went gently upstairs Annie had the curtains
drawn at the windows, but the windows themselves had their sashes open.
She was lying in such a position that the powder on her face could not
be noticed. When Miss Phillips came in Annie uttered a groan.
"Oh, why do you trouble?" she said, opening half an eye and looking at
the mistress.
Her dread was that Mrs Lyttelton herself might appear. It would be
difficult to hide the powder from her. Old Phillips, however, as she
termed her, was a person easily imposed upon. "Don't fuss about me,
please," said Annie. "I have just a bad headache. I am sorry I can't
be in the schoolroom this morning; but I just can't. I am not a bit
hot--not a bit--but my head is dreadful. I want to go out and lie in
one of the hammocks in the garden. Do you think Mrs Lyttelton will let
me?"
"Indeed she will, poor dear!" said Miss Phillips. "She is ever so sorry
for you. You do look bad, Annie. Wouldn't you like me to draw back the
curtain, dear? Your room is so dark."
"Oh, please don't!" said Annie. "I can't bear the light."
"Well, my dear--well, of course--how thoughtless of me! I have brought
you some tea."
"Thank you; I shall be glad of a cup."
"Poor child! Then you wouldn't like to see Mrs Lyttelton herself?"
"Not for the world," said Annie with unnecessary vehemence. But then
she added prettily, "It is so sweet of her to think of it, and for
little me--as if I were of any consequence. It's just a headache, and
I'll be all right in the garden, and at dinner-time you will see me
looking just as usual."
"I hope so, indeed," said Miss Phillips, who went downstairs to report
that Annie was singularly pale, but not in the least feverish, and that
her great desire was to lie in a hammock during the entire morning in
the shady garden.
"Go up at once and tell her that she has my permission," said Mrs
Lyttelton.
Miss Phillips opened the door very softly. Annie was still lying with
her eyes shut, the bandage at once shading and concealing her face; but
the cheeks, the tip of the little nose, and the chin were all dreadfully
white; only the pretty lips were still rosy.
Annie just opened languid eyes.
"I am better, really," she said in the faintest and most patient voice.
"You poor, sweet thing," said Miss Phillips. "How I sympathise with
you! I get those frantic headaches myself sometimes."
"It hurts me even to talk," said Annie. "I do value your sympathy, but
I can't express what I feel. May I go into the garden? Did you find
out?"
"Yes; Mrs Lyttelton has given you her permission. I am so sorry, dear,
that none of us will be able to be with you. Mrs Lyttelton herself is
going to drive to London, and of course the rest of us will be busy; but
if you want any one, love, I could send one of the maids to you."
"I shall want nothing," said Annie, whose voice, in her eagerness, had
suddenly become strong. Any one who was not poor Phillips would have
been suspicious on the spot. "I am so dreadfully sorry," said Annie,
"that you should be put out about me; but if I am allowed to treat my
headache in my own way, I shall be all right by early dinner. Now go,
dear, won't you? I will get dressed and creep down to the garden as
soon as lessons begin."
"You are such a thoughtful, unselfish girl," said Miss Phillips.
"Anybody else who looked so terribly ill would make a fuss."
"Sweet Miss Phillips!" murmured Annie; and with these words sounding in
her ear Miss Phillips left the room.
The moment she did so Annie sprang to a sitting position on her bed.
She flung the bandage across the room with a petulant movement, and the
next instant she had locked the door and begun an active and hurried
toilet. The powder was removed. The small, fair face assumed its
normal complexion, and by the time prayers were over and the girls were
all assembled in the different class-rooms, Annie, in her neat cotton
dress, wearing a big shady hat, with gloves drawn over her small white
hands, and a parasol ready to shade her from the sun, stood waiting by
her open window.
Presently she heard a welcome sound--the noise of wheels disappearing
down the avenue. Now was her time. Across the lawn she went. The
hammocks were there, but Annie had no use for them at present. Until
she was well out of sight of the house she did not dare to run, but when
a depression in the ground hid the house from view she put wings to her
feet, and flew panting and racing along by the shrubbery, until, at the
farthest end, she found a small postern door.
This door opened by means of a certain catch, so that to the uninitiated
it always seemed locked, whereas to the initiated it would open any
minute. Annie was one of the initiated. She let herself out being very
careful to close the door after her, so that it would respond to that
same apparently gentle touch when she wished to come back. It was most
important that she should make all things right with regard to the door,
as by that means she saved at least half-an-hour of her precious--her
most precious time. Oh, if only Miss Phillips could see her now! Where
was the pallid, suffering girl? Surely she was not represented by this
red-faced, panting, strong-looking creature who was careering along the
dusty roads _en route_ for Hendon.
By-and-by she reached the suburbs, turned down a side street, and
knocked loudly at a little green door. The door was opened by a woman
who was evidently at once the owner of the house and her own servant.
"How do you do, Miss Brooke?" she said, looking at Annie in some
astonishment. "I am very sorry indeed, miss, but Susie has been having
her bad days, and your dresses are not ready for you. She'll send them
down this evening, if possible; but when her back aches at its worst she
cannot manage the machine, miss; so I do hope, Miss Brooke, that you
won't be hard on her."
"Not at all; I am very sorry for her," said Annie in her gentle voice.
"May I go in and talk to her for a few minutes, Mrs Martin?"
"To be sure, miss; you will find her upstairs in the sewing-room."
Annie seemed to know her way quite well about this house. She ran up
some very steep stairs and entered a low room which had at the end a
sloping roof. There was a bed tucked as it were out of sight under the
eaves; but right in the fall blaze of the summer sun, and where the room
was most stiflingly hot, sat a very pallid girl with a large, over
hanging brow, pale, tired-looking eyes, and a sensitive mouth.
The girl was bending over a large sewing-machine, the work of which she
was guiding with her hand, while her feet worked the treadles. The
moment she saw Annie she looked at her with a great rush of colour
spreading over her face.
"Why, Miss Brooke!" she said.
"Ah," said Annie, "you are behaving very badly indeed to me, Susie. I
have just seen your mother, and she says that your back is so bad you
can't do your machining, and in consequence my work--_mine_, Susan--is
not finished. Oh Susan! it is somebody else's dress you are making now,
and you are quite well enough to do your machining. I am surprised."
"It is true what mother said, all the same, miss," replied the girl,
interrupting her words as she spoke with a great and exhausting fit of
coughing. "I ain't fit for no work, and this room is that stifling with
the sun pouring in and no means of opening more than that little crack
of the window. I haven't done your work, miss, for I knew you 'ud be
kind, and Mrs Hodge at the mill is so cross if I don't carry out her
least wish. But I meant--I did indeed, miss--to go on with your things
this afternoon. I did most truly, miss, for it's a real pleasure to
work for you, Miss Brooke."
"Never mind my things to-day," said Annie; "you're not fit, and that is
the simple truth. You ought to go downstairs, Susan, and get your
mother to take you into the park; that is what you want."
"I may want it, miss," said Susan, "but I won't get it, for mother have
her hands full with the parlour lodger and the drawing-room lodger.
Much time she do have for walking out with me as though I were a fine
lady."
"Poor Susie!" said Annie; "and you so clever, too."
"Ah, miss, nothing frets mother like me thinking myself clever. She
says that all I want is to know the three R's--reading, writing, and
'rithmetic--that's how she calls 'em. She hates my books, miss; and as
to my thoughts--oh, dear Miss Brooke! you are the only one in all the
world as knows about them."
"And I want to help you," said Annie. "I have come here all the way
this morning to ask you to lend me that manuscript book of yours. I
mean to show your lovely poems to a great, clever, and learned man, and
if by chance he should publish any of them, you would be famous, Susan,
and you need never do this horrible grinding work any more."
"Oh, miss," said the poor girl, "you don't say so!"
"I do say so, Susie; and I suppose I ought to know. Give me the book,
dear, at once; don't keep me, for I haven't a minute. These are school
hours, and I had to pretend I had a headache in order to get away to see
you. You must let me manage about your poetry, Susie; and of course you
will never tell."
"Why, miss, is it likely?"
"Well, fetch the book, then."
Susie crossed the room, went on her knees before an old chest of
drawers, and with the colour now high in her wasted cheeks and her light
eyes darker with emotion, she presented the treasured book to Annie.
"There is my last bit, miss; you will find it at the end. It's
`Thoughts on the Sunset' I was thinking them in reference to my own
early death, miss, and they're very affecting indeed. Perhaps you will
show them the first, miss, for they seem to me the very best I have
done."
Susie looked with a world of pathos at Annie. Her eyes said as plainly
as eyes could speak, "Oh! do read the poem before you go, and tell me
what you think of it." Annie read the message in the eyes, but had not
an idea of acceding to poor Susie's wish.
"You will have your book back in a few days," she said, "and I do hope
I'll have good news for you; and here is half-a-crown, and you needn't
hurry about my things. Good-bye, Susie. Do go into the park if you
can."
Susan nodded. She felt so grateful to Annie, and so excited, that she
could not speak. With the book tucked under her arm, Annie flew
downstairs.
She was much annoyed at being intercepted in the passage by Mrs Martin.
"I do 'ope, miss," said that poor woman, "that you ain't been 'ard on my
girl. She does do her very best; for, what with the unpickin' of your
old dresses, and what with tryin' to turn 'em into new ones, it don't
seem as though it were worth while. You pays her very little, miss; and
what with never givin' her anythin' new, it don't seem worth the
trouble, that it don't."
"Oh! I am so sorry," said Annie, who in her moment of victory was
inclined to be kind to any one; "but, you see, I take an interest in
Susan for other matters. She is not well, and she wants rest. I am so
glad to have some one to alter my old things, and if I did not give the
work to Susan, I should have to employ a girl I know at home. But I
will try--I really will--to give her some new plain cotton dresses to
make for me later on. In the meantime, Mrs Martin, I have been
recommending her to go for a walk in the park. She has great talent,
and her life ought not to be sacrificed."
"There, miss!" said Mrs Martin, putting her arms akimbo and looking with
great dissatisfaction at Annie. "It's _you_ as encourages her in
scribblin' of that poetic stuff. Never did I hear such rubbish in all
my born days. If it wasn't for you, miss, she would burn all the stuff
instead of sittin' up a-composin' of it. What with sunsets, and
deathbeds, and heartaches, and green grass, and other nonsense, I don't
know where I be when I listen to her words; I don't really. I see
you've got the book under your arm now, miss; and I do wish you'd burn
it--that I do!"
"It would hurt her very much indeed if I did," said Annie; for a further
thought had darted through her brain at Mrs Martin's words. Here would
be an easy way to hide her own deed for ever and ever. If Mrs Martin
sanctioned the burning of her daughter's book, surely Annie's wicked
scheme would be concealed for ever.
"I agree with you," said Annie, "that it is bad for poor Susan to write
so much poetry. Her heart is set on it, I know; still, if you
disapprove--"
"That I do, miss; I wish you'd give me the book now, and I'll keep it
under lock and key."
"No, no," said Annie eagerly. "Don't do that on any account whatever.
I have thought of a much better plan. She has lent me the book, for I
promised to read her poems, poor girl! and to talk them over with a
friend of mine. I need not give them back to her for the present."
"Oh, miss! I'd be _that_ grateful if you'd keep them altogether."
"I don't see that I can quite do that. Still, if you wish it--"
"I do, miss; that I do."
"Well, good-bye for the present. You mustn't keep me now, as I am in a
great hurry."
Mrs Martin moved aside, and once more Annie pursued her way up the dusty
road. The postern door presented no hindrance when she reached it, and
by-and-by, with a sigh of relief, she found herself in the cool shade of
the grounds. How inviting looked that hammock under the trees! But she
had not a moment of time to indulge in rest just then. Unperceived by
any one, she managed to reach her room. She locked the door. She made
a quick selection from poor Susan's verses. She then calmly dressed,
washed her face and hands, and when early dinner was announced, took her
place at table.
The girls were all pleased to see her, and when she assured them that
she was as well as ever they all congratulated her. Priscilla Weir sat
at table near Annie. Priscilla was not looking well. The headache
which Annie pretended to have was in reality possessed by poor
Priscilla. She was easily startled, too, and changed colour when any
one addressed her in a hurry.
Towards the end of the meal, as the girls were about to leave the room,
she bent towards Annie and said:
"Is it really true that Mabel Lushington is going to read some poems at
four o'clock this afternoon?"
"She is going to read some of her _own_ poems. Why not?" said Annie.
She spoke defiantly.
"Her own poems?" echoed Priscilla, a world of scorn in her voice.
"Yes. Why not?" said Annie.
Priscilla was silent for a minute. Then she said in a very low voice:
"I know how clever you are; but even your genius cannot rise to this. I
have seen you struggle to make even the slightest rhyme when we have
been playing at making up verses. You can't manage this."
"Never mind," said Annie. She jumped up almost rudely. The next minute
she had seized Mabel by the arm. "We have half-an-hour. Come with me
at once to my room."
Mabel did so. When they reached the room Annie locked the door.
"Now then," she said, "who's a genius? I said I would find a way out.
Sit down immediately before my desk and write what I tell you."
"Oh Annie, what do you mean?"
"I mean exactly what I say, and the fewer questions you ask the better.
I will dictate the poem, and you shall copy it."
"But--but," said Mabel, turning from red to white--"it isn't, I hope,
from a printed book. I have thought of that I have been so frightfully
miserable that I've thought of everything; but that would be so terribly
unsafe."
"This is not unsafe at any rate," said Annie, "Now you begin. Write
what I tell you."
Annie's look of triumph and her absolutely fearless manner impressed
Mabel. She wrote as best she could to Annie's dictation, and soon two
of poor Susan Martin's attempts at verse were copied in Mabel's writing.
"There you are!" said Annie. "That `sunset' one will take the cake, and
that pretty little one about `my favourite cat' will come home to every
one."
"But I haven't a favourite cat," said Mabel, "and why ever should I
write about it?"
"Did you never in the whole course of your life," was Annie's answer,
"hear of a poet's licence? You can write on anything, you know, if you
are a poet."
"Can I?" replied Mabel. "Then I suppose the cat will do."
"It will do admirably."
"I hope," said Mabel, "they won't question me afterwards about the
animal. It sounds exactly as though it were my own cat, and every one
in the school knows that I can't even touch a cat."
"What a pity you didn't tell me that before," said Annie, "and I would
have chosen something else! But there's no time now; we must fly
downstairs immediately."
"You are clever, Annie. I can't think how you got these poems. But the
`sunset' one sounds dreadful too. I never even looked at a sunset. And
then there's the thoughts about dying--as if--as if I _could_ know
anything of that."
"You must read them as pathetically as you can," said Annie, "and make
the best of a bad job. I believe they'll go down admirably. Now then,
fold them up and put them away; and don't let's be found closeted
together here." Sharp at four that afternoon Mabel appeared before her
assembled schoolfellows and read--it must be owned rather badly--first
some "Lines to a Favourite Cat," and then "Thoughts on the Sunset." The
poems were not poetry in any sense of the word; nevertheless, there was
a vague sort of far-off suggestion of poetry about them. It is true the
girls giggled at the thought of Mabel and her cat, and were not
specially impressed by the violet and rose tints of the sunset, or by
the fact that florid, large, essentially living-looking Mabel should
talk of her last faint breath, and of the time when she lay pale and
still and was a corse.
She read the lines, however, and they seemed thoroughly genuine. When
she had finished she looked at her companions.
"Well, I'd like to say, `I'm blowed!'" said Agnes; while Constance
Smedley, the head-girl of the school, said in a low tone:
"I congratulate you, Mabel; and I'm very much surprised. There is no
saying what you will do in the future, only I hope you won't speak of
dead people as corses, for I dislike the term."
"And of course after this," said a merry, round-faced girl who had
hitherto not spoken, "we will expect to have further lines on pussie,
poor, pussie; and, oh, Mabel, _what_ a cheat you are! And you always
said you loathed cats!"
At this instant one of the youngest girls in the school rushed up and
flung a tabby-cat into Mabel's lap. The cat was large; a very rough
specimen of the race. Being angry at such treatment, it unsheathed all
its claws. Mabel shrieked with terror, and flung the poor animal aside
with great vehemence.
"Oh, poor pussie, poor pussie!" laughed the others; "but she loves you
all the same.
"When pussy comes, so sleek and warm,
And rubs against my knee,
I think we're safe from every harm,
My pretty cat and me.
"Oh Mabel, Mabel! you are a humbug."
"I hate cats!" burst from Mabel.
Annie turned pale for a minute; but her self-composure did not long
desert her. "Being a poet, you know, you're quite certain to be a
little mad at times," she remarked. "All poets are. I suppose you had
a mad fit, dear Mabel, when you wrote about your favourite cat. I
thought so."
"I think so, and I think I am mad now," said Mabel, marching away from
the others as she spoke, and plunging into the cool depths of the
paddock.
At that moment, more than cats, she hated herself; she hated Annie; she
hated Priscilla. What an awful tissue of lies she was weaving round
herself! Surely another year at Mrs Lyttelton's school would have been
much better than this. But, alas! it is not given to us to retrace our
steps. Mabel had taken up a position, and there was nothing for it now
but to abide by it. To confess all that she had done, to demand the
money back from Priscilla, to stay on at school, were greater feats than
she had courage to perform; and even if she were willing to do this, was
not Annie always by her side--Annie, who did not repent, who was
feathering her own nest so nicely, and who was priding herself on having
overcome the immense difficulty of proving poor, stupid Mabel a poet?
The great day of the prize-giving followed soon after, and, to the
unbounded astonishment of the girls, Mabel Lushington's essay on
"Idealism" won the first literature prize.
The essays were not read by the girls themselves, but by one of the
teachers who had a beautiful voice and that dear enunciation which makes
every word tell. The vote in favour of Mabel was unanimous. Her paper
had thought; it had even style. In all respects it was far above the
production of an ordinary schoolgirl, and beyond doubt it was far and
away the best essay written.
Priscilla's paper passed muster, but it did not even win the second
prize. Mabel looked quite modest and strikingly handsome when the great
prize was bestowed upon her--a magnificent edition of all the great
English poets, bound in calf and bearing the school coat-of-arms.
Mrs Lyttelton, more astonished than pleased, was nevertheless forced to
congratulate Mabel. She turned soon afterwards to one of the girls.
"I must confess," she said, "that I never was so surprised in my life."
"I should have been just as amazed as you," answered Constance, "but for
the fact that there is far more in Mabel than any one has the least idea
of. She is a poet, you know."
"A poet, my dear?"
"Yes; indeed she is. We simply would not believe it; but she read us
some of her verses. A few, of course, were nothing but drivel; but
there were lines on the sunset which quite amazed me, for they were full
of thought."
"I am glad to hear it, Constance; nevertheless, I may as well confess to
you that my feelings at the present moment are mingled ones. I wanted
Priscilla to win the prize."
Meanwhile Mabel, surrounded by glory--her schoolfellows and the
different visitors who had come to the school for the occasion crowding
round her and congratulating her--had no longer any feeling of remorse.
She acknowledged that Annie was right, and loved Annie, for the time
being, with all her heart.
It was Annie herself who took the telegram to the post-office to convey
the great information to Lady Lushington. It was Annie herself who was
the happy recipient of the reply which came later on that evening. The
words of Lady Lushington's telegram were brief:
"Congratulation. True to my word. Join me in Paris on Friday. Writing
to Mrs Lyttelton."
The three girls with whom this story first opened were together once
more in the private sitting-room at Lyttelton School. When Mabel had
read her telegram she flung it across to Priscilla.
"Then all is well," she said; "and we owe it to Annie."
"Yes," said Priscilla. "And I have had a telegram," she added, "an hour
ago. It is from Uncle Josiah. He wishes me to remain with Mrs
Lyttelton daring the vacation. He doesn't care that I should return
home at present."
"Well, that will suit you exactly, won't it?" said Annie.
"I suppose so. I only wonder what Mrs Lyttelton will say."
"And I am going to my uncle. We all break up to-morrow; but you and I
shall meet again in the autumn, Priscilla. You will have to say
good-bye to dear old Mabel now."
"You must wish me luck," said Mabel. "I won't forget my part; you need
have no anxiety about your school fees."
"Uncle Josiah seems pleased on the whole that I should remain," answered
Priscilla, "although I cannot make out the wording of his telegram; but
I do wonder what arrangement he will make for paying Mrs Lyttelton."
"If he cannot pay her you ought to go back," said Annie, who did not at
all wish to have this additional expense laid at Mabel's door. She
wished as much as possible of Mabel's money should be devoted to
herself. "But I suppose you will hear in the morning."
"Yes; I suppose so," said Priscilla.
"You look pretty miserable, Priscie. I wonder why, seeing all that
Mabel and I have done for you."
"All that _I_ have done for _you_, you mean," said Priscilla.
"Well, I like that," said Annie.
"I will speak out for once," said Priscilla, her eyes flashing fire and
her pale face becoming suffused with colour. "I have gone under, and I
hate myself. The hour of triumph to-day ought to have been mine. Don't
you suppose that I feel it? I loathe myself so deeply that I don't
think I am even a good enough girl to help my aunt in the house-work at
home; and I pity the village dressmaker who would have me apprenticed to
her. I am so bad that I loathe myself. Oh, you think that I shall be
happy. You don't know me; I can never be happy again!"
Mabel's face immediately became pale. She looked at Priscilla as though
she were going to cry. It was Annie who took the bull by the horns.
"Now, this is sheer nonsense," she said. "You know perfectly well,
Priscilla, that no better thing could have been done than what has
happened to-day. In the first place, you are not disgraced, for the
essay you read was quite creditable. It ought to have been, indeed,
seeing that it was my work. And, in the second place, you have a year's
schooling guaranteed. With your brains, think what you will achieve--a
fine scholarship at least, and then Girton as your reward. You mean to
say that for the sake of some little pricks of conscience you would not
take these advantages? Of course you will! Indeed, you have done so,
so there's no good saying anything more about it."
"I know there isn't," said Priscilla. "I don't expect sympathy; I
deserve all that I can get." She left the room as she spoke.
"Oh, isn't she quite too dreadful?" said Annie.
"I don't know," answered Mabel; "I expect I'd feel much the same if I
were she."
The next day Priscilla received a letter from her uncle. She had
written to tell him that the funds for another year's schooling had been
provided for her.
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"My dear Priscilla," he wrote, "I am more disappointed than glad at your
news; but of course, if a friend wants to pay for your schooling, I
don't interfere. You say that you hope to win a scholarship at the end
of the term. That may or may not be the case. All that I can say is
that I hope you will get it, for it is my intention to wash my hands of
you. I made you a sensible offer, and you have rejected it. Your aunt
and I agree that as you are too grand for us, _we_, on our part, are too
poor for you. Henceforth you may look to your father in India for any
assistance you may require. But as I don't want to be hard on you, I am
willing to pay a small sum for your support during the coming holidays,
which I wish you to spend at Lyttelton School. I enclose money
herewith--five pounds. I have no doubt the mistress will keep you for
that for it will more than cover your consumption of food.
"Good-bye, my dear Priscilla. I look upon you as an instance of want of
gratitude. You are too fine a lady for your aunt and me.--Your uncle,
Josiah."