Very active preparations were being made in a certain rather humble
little cottage in the country for the heroine's return. Three small
girls were making themselves busy with holly and ivy, with badly-cut
paper flowers, with enormous texts coarsely illustrated, to render the
home gay and festive in its greeting. A little worn old woman lay on a
sofa, and superintended these active measures.
"How soon will she be here now?" said Hattie the vigorous.
"Do stay still, Hattie, and don't fidget. Don't you see how tired Aunt
Raby looks?" exclaimed Rose. "Prissie can't be here yet, and you are
such a worry when you jump up and down like that, Hattie."
Rose's words were quite severe, and Hattie planted herself on the edge
of a chair, folded her plump hands, managed to get a demure look into
her laughing eyes and dimpled mouth, and sat motionless for about half a
minute. At the end of that time she tumbled on the floor with a loud
crash, and Aunt Raby sprang to her feet with some alarm.
"Good gracious, child! are you hurt? What's the matter?"
Hattie was sitting on the floor in convulsions of mirth.
"I'm not hurt," she exclaimed. "I slipped off the chair. I didn't mean
to; I couldn't help it, really. I'm sorry I woke you, Aunt Raby."
"I wasn't asleep, child." Miss Peel walked across the room, and
vanished into the kitchen, from which very savoury smells issued.
Hattie and Rose began to quarrel and argue, and Katie, who was more or
less of a little peacemaker, suggested that they should draw up the
blind, and all three get into the window to watch for Prissie.
"I wonder how she will look?" said Rose, when they were all comfortably
established.
"I hope she won't talk in Latin," exclaimed Hattie.
"Oh, it is nice to think of seeing Prissie so soon," murmured Katie in
an ecstasy.
"I wonder," began Rose in her practical voice, "how soon Prissie will
begin to earn money. We want money even more than when she went away.
Aunt Raby isn't as well as she was then, and since the cows were sold--"
"Hush!" said Hattie. "You know we promised we wouldn't tell Prissie
about the cows."
Just then a distant sound of wheels was heard. The little girls began
to jump and shout; a moment later and Priscilla stood in the midst of
her family. A great excitement followed her arrival. There were kisses
and hugs, and wild, rapturous words from the affectionate little
sisters. Aunt Raby put her arms round Priscilla, and gave her a solemn
sort of kiss, and then the whole party adjourned into the supper-room.
The feast which was spread was so dainty and abundant that Katie asked
in a puzzled sort of way if Aunt Raby considered Prissie like the
Prodigal Son.
"What fancies you have, child!" said Aunt Raby. "The Prodigal Son,
indeed! Thank Heaven, I've never had to do with that sort! As to
Priscilla here, she's as steady as Old Time. Well, child, and are you
getting up your learning very fast?"
"Pretty well, Aunt Raby."
"And you like your grand college, and all those fine young-lady friends
of yours?"
"I haven't any fine young-lady friends."
"H'm! I daresay they are like other girls; a little bit of learning,
and a great deal of dress, eh?" Priscilla coloured.
"There are all sorts of girls at St Benet's," she said after a pause.
"Some are real students, earnest, devoted to their work."
"Have you earned any money yet, Prissie?" exclaimed Hattie. "For if you
have, I do want--look--" She thrust a small foot, encased in a broken
shoe, prominently into view.
"Hattie, go to bed this minute!" exclaimed Aunt Raby. "Go up to your
room all three of you little girls. No more words--off at once, all of
you. Prissie, you and I will go into the drawing-room, and I'll lie on
the sofa, while you tell me a little bit about your college life."
"Aunt Raby always lies oh the sofa in the evenings now," burst from
Hattie the irrepressible.
Miss Peel rushed after the plump little girl, and pushed her out of the
room.
"To bed, all of you!" she exclaimed. "To bed, and to sleep! Now,
Prissie, you are not to mind a word that child says. Come into the
drawing-room, and let us have a few words quietly. Oh, yes, I'll lie on
the sofa, my dear, if you wish it. But Hattie is wrong; I don't do it
every night. I suffer no pain either, Prissie. Many a woman of my age
is racked with rheumatics."
The last words were said with a little gasp. The elder woman lay back
on the sofa, with a sigh of relief. She turned her face so that the
light from the lamp should not reveal the deathly tired lines round it.
Aunt Raby was dressed in a rough homespun garment. Her feet were clad
in unbleached cotton stockings, also made at home; her little, iron-grey
curls lay flat at each side of her hollow cheeks. She wore list
slippers, very coarse and common in texture. Her whole appearance was
the essence of the homely, the old-fashioned, even the ungainly.
Priscilla had seen elegance and beauty since she went away; she had
entered into the life of the cultivated, the intellectually great. In
spite of her deep affection for Aunt Raby, she came back to the ugliness
and the sordid surroundings of home with a pang which she hated herself
for feeling. She forgot Aunt Raby's sufferings for a moment in her
uncouthness. She longed to shower riches, refinement, beauty upon her.
"How has your dress worn, Prissie?" said the elder woman, after a pause.
"My sakes, child, you have got your best brown cashmere on! A
beautiful fine bit of cashmere it was, too. I bought it out of the
money I got for the lambs' wool."
Aunt Raby stretched out her hand, and, taking up a fold of the cashmere,
she rubbed it softly between her finger and thumb.
"It's as fine as velvet," she said, "and I put strong work into it, too.
It isn't a bit worn, is it, Prissie?"
"No, Aunt Raby, except just round the tail. I got it very wet one day,
and the colour went a trifle; but nothing to signify."
A vivid picture rose up before Priscilla's eyes as she spoke of Mrs
Elliot-Smith's drawing-room, and the dainty, disdainful ladies in their
gay attire, and her own poor, little, forlorn figure in her muddy
cashmere dress--the same dress Aunt Raby considered soft and beautiful
as velvet.
"Oh, Aunt Raby," she said with sudden impulse, "a great many things have
happened to me since I went away. On the whole I have had a very good
time."
Aunt Raby opened her mouth to emit a prodigious yawn.
"I don't know how it is," she said, "but I'm a bit drowsy to-night. I
suppose it's the weather. The day was quite a muggy one. I'll hear
your news another time, Priscilla; but don't you be turned with the
vanities of the world, Priscilla. Life's but a passing day: you mind
that when you're young, and it won't come on you as a shock when you are
old. I'm glad the cashmere has worn well--ay, that I am, Prissie. But
don't put it on in the morning, my love, for it's a sin to wear through
beautiful fine stuff like that. And, even if the colour is gone a bit
round the hem, the stuff itself isn't worn, and looks don't signify.
You'll have to make up your mind to wear the cashmere for best again
next term, Prissie, for, though I'm not pinched in any way, I'm not
overflush either, my love."
Priscilla, who had been sitting in a low chair near her aunt, now rose
to her feet.
"Ought we not to come to bed?" she said. "If you don't feel tired, you
look it, Aunt Raby. Come upstairs, do, and let me help you to take your
things off, and put you into bed. Come, Aunt Raby, it will be like old
times to help you, you know."
The girl knelt by the old woman, took one of her withered hands, raised
it suddenly to her lips, and kissed it. Aunt Raby's face was still
turned from the light.
"Don't you keep kneeling on your cashmere," she said. "You'll crease it
awfully, and I don't see my way to another best dress this term."
"You needn't, Aunt Raby," said Priscilla, in a steady voice. "The
cashmere is quite neat still. I can manage well with it."
Aunt Raby rose slowly and feebly from the sofa.
"You may help me to get into bed if you like," she said. "The muggy day
has made me wonderfully drowsy, and I'll be glad to lie down. It's only
that: I'll be as pert as a cricket in the morning."
The old woman leant on the girl's strong, young arm, and stumbled a bit
as she went up the narrow stairs.