Priscilla's trunk was neatly packed. It was a new trunk, and had a nice
canvas covering over it. The canvas was bound with red braid, and
Priscilla's initials were worked on the top in large plain letters. Her
initials were P.P.P., and they stood for Priscilla Penywern Peel. The
trunk was corded and strapped and put away, and Priscilla stood by her
aunt's side in the little parlour of Penywern Cottage.
"Well, I think I've told you everything," said the aunt.
"Oh, yes, Aunt Raby, I sha'n't forget. I'm to write once a week, and
I'm to try not to be nervous. I don't suppose I shall be--I don't see
why I should. Girls aren't nervous nowadays, are they?"
"I don't know, my dear. It seems to me that if they aren't they ought
to be. I can understand girls doing hard things if they must. I can
understand anyone doing anything that has to be done, but as to not
being nervous--well--there! Sit down, Prissie, child, and take your
tea."
Priscilla was tall and slight. Her figure was younger than her years,
which were nearly nineteen, but her face was older. It was an almost
careworn face, thoughtful, grave, with anxious lines already deepening
the seriousness of the too serious mouth.
Priscilla cut some bread-and-butter, and poured out some tea for her
aunt and for herself.
Miss Rachel Peel was not the least like her niece. She was short and
rather dumpy. She had a sensible, downright sort of face, and she took
life with a gravity which would have oppressed a less earnest spirit
than Priscilla's.
"Well, I'm tired," she said, when the meal was over. "I suppose I've
done a great deal more than I thought I had all day. I think I'll go to
bed early. We have said all our last words, haven't we, Priscilla?"
"Pretty nearly, Aunt Raby."
"Oh, yes, that reminds me--there's one thing more. Your fees will be
all right, of course, and your travelling, and I have arranged about
your washing money."
"Yes, Aunt Raby, oh, yes; everything is all right."
Priscilla fidgeted, moved her position a little, and looked longingly
out of the window.
"You must have a little money over and above these things," proceeded
Miss Peel, in her sedate voice. "I am not rich, but I'll allow you--
yes, I'll manage to allow you two shillings a week. That will be for
pocket-money, you understand, child."
The girl's old-young face flushed painfully.
"I'll want a few pence for stamps, of course," she said. "But I sha'n't
write a great many letters. I'll be a great deal too busy studying.
You need not allow me anything like so large a sum as that, Aunt Raby."
"Nonsense, child. You'll find it all too small when you go out into the
world. You are a clever girl, Prissie, and I'm going to be proud of
you. I don't hold with the present craze about women's education. But
I feel somehow that I shall be proud of you. You'll be learned enough,
but you'll be a woman with it all. I wouldn't have you stinted for the
world, Prissie, my dear. Yes, I'll make it ten shillings a month--yes,
I will. I can easily screw that sum out of the butter money. Now, not
another word. I'm off to bed. Good-night, my love."
Priscilla kissed her aunt and went out. It was a lovely autumn evening.
She stepped on to the green sward which surrounded the little cottage,
and with the moonlight casting its full radiance on her slim figure,
looked steadily out over the sea. The cottage was on the top of some
high cliffs. The light of the moon made a bright path over the water,
and Priscilla had a good view of shining, silvered water, and dark, deep
blue sky.
She stood perfectly still, gazing straight out before her. Some of the
reflection and brightness of the moonlight seemed to get into her
anxious eyes, and the faint dawn of a new-born hope to tremble around
her lips. She thought herself rich with ten shillings a month
pocket-money. She returned to the house, feeling overpowered at Aunt
Raby's goodness.
Upstairs in Prissie's room there were two beds. One was small; in this
she herself slept. The other had now three occupants. Three heads were
raised when Prissie entered the room, and three shrill voices
exclaimed--
"Here we are, all wide-awake, Prissie, darling!" This remark, made
simultaneously, was followed by prolonged peals of laughter.
"Three of you in that small bed!" said Priscilla. She stood still, and
a smile broke all over her face. "Why, Hattie," she said, catching up
the eldest of the three girls, and giving her a fervent hug--"how did
you slip out of Aunt Raby's room?"
"Oh, I managed to," said Hattie, in a stage whisper. "Aunt Raby came
upstairs half an hour ago, and she undressed very fast, and got into
bed, and I heard her snoring in about a minute. It was then I slipped
away. She never heard."
"Hop up on the bed now, Prissie," exclaimed Rose, another of the
children, "and let us all have a chat. Here, Katie, if you'll promise
not to cry you may get into the middle, between Hattie and me, then
you'll be very close to darling Prissie."
Katie was the youngest of the three occupants of the bed: she was about
eight years old; her small face was delicate in its outline, her mouth
peevish; she did not look a strong child, and self-control could
scarcely be expected of her.
Priscilla placed her candle on the chimney-piece, jumped on the bed
according to orders, and looked earnestly at her three small sisters.
"Now, Prissie," said Hattie, in the important little voice which she
always used, "begin, go on--tell us all about your grand college life."
"How can I, Hattie, when I don't know what to say. I can't _guess_ what
I am to do at college."
"Oh dear," sighed Rose, "I only wish I were the one to go! It will be
very dull living with Aunt Raby when you are away, Priscilla. She won't
let us take long walks, and if ever we go in for a real, jolly lark we
are sure to be punished. Oh dear, oh dear!"
"Even though it is for your good, I wish with all my heart you were not
going away, Prissie," said Hattie, in her blunt fashion.
Katie burst into sudden loud wails.
Priscilla coloured. Then she spoke with firmness. "We have had enough
of this kind of talk. Katie, you shall come and sit in my lap, darling.
I'll wrap you up quite warm in this big shawl. Now, girls," she said,
"what _is_ the use of making things harder? You know, perfectly, you
two elder ones, why I must go away, and you, Katie, you know also, don't
you, pet?"
"Yes, Prissie," answered Katie, speaking in a broken, half-sobbing
voice, "only I _am_ so lonely."
"But you're not going to be selfish, darling. By-and-by I'll come back
to you all. Once every year, at least, I'll come back. And then, after
I've gone through my course of study, I'll get a situation of some
sort--a good situation--and you three shall come and live with me.
There, what do you say to that? Only three years, and then such a jolly
time. Why, Katie will be only eleven then."
Priscilla spoke in a remarkably cheerful voice, but the appalling
magnitude of three years could not be diminished, and the three little
sisters who were to stay behind with Aunt Raby were still disposed to
view things dismally.
"If _she_ wasn't just what she is--" began Hattie.
"If she didn't think the least tiny morsel of a lark wrong--" continued
Rose.
"Why, then we could pull along somehow," sighed Hattie.
"Oh, you'll pull along as it is," said Priscilla. "I'll write to you as
often as ever I can. If possible I'll keep a sort of journal, and send
it to you. And perhaps there'll be stories and larks in it. Now you
really must go to sleep, for I have to get up so early in the morning.
Katie, darling, I'll make a corner for you in my bed to-night. Won't
that be a treat?"
"Oh, yes, Prissie."
Katie's pale face was lit up by a radiant smile; Hattie and Rose lay
down side by side, and closed their eyes. In a few moments they were
sound asleep.
As they lay in the sound happy sleep of healthy childhood Priscilla bent
over them and kissed them. Then before she lay down herself she knelt
by the window, looked up at the clear, dark sky in which the moon sailed
in majesty, bent her head, murmured a few words of prayer, then crept
into bed by her little sister's side.
Prissie felt full of courage and good resolves. She was going out into
the world to-morrow, and she was quite determined that the world should
not conquer her, although she knew that she was a very poor maiden with
a specially heavy load of care on her young shoulders.