The talk was about St. Robert’s, about Oxford in general, the new friends, the principal, the games, the debates, the lectures, the sermons, the celebrities, the undergraduates, the concerts, the chapels, the boats, the architecture; all were touched on for further discussion by and by as they sat at the evening meal, and then on the chairs and cushions in the verandah; and through all there was no exclusion of the elder sister, but rather she was the one who could appreciate the interest of what Agatha had seen and heard; and even she was allowed to enter into the amusement of an Oxford bon mot, sometimes, indeed, when it was far beyond Paula and Vera.
There was no doubt that the term had much improved Agatha even in appearance and manner. She held herself better, pronounced better, uttered no slangish expressions, and twice she repressed little discourtesies on the part of her sisters, and neglects such as were not the offspring of tender familiarity, but of an indifference akin to rudeness. Magdalen had endured, knowing how bad it was for their manners, but unwilling to become more of an annoyance than could be helped. The indescribable difference in Agatha’s whole manner sent Magdalen to bed happier than she had been since the arrival of her sisters, and feeling as if Agatha had come to her own side of a barrier.
Perhaps it was quite true; for the last two months had been a time of growth with the maiden, changing her from a schoolgirl to a student, from the “brook to the river.” She had, indeed, studied hard, but that she had always done, as being clever, intellectual and ambitious. The difference had been from her intercourse with persons slightly her elders, but who did not look on authorities as natural enemies, to be tolerated for one’s own good. There had been a development of the conscience and soul even in this first term that made her regard her elder sister not merely with a sense of compulsory gratitude and duty, but with sympathy and fellow feeling, which were the more excited when she saw her own chilliness of last spring carried further by the two young girls.
So breakfast went off merrily; and after the round of the garden and the pets, Agatha promised to come, when summoned, to hear how well Thekla could read French. In the meantime she waited in the morning-room, looking at her sisters’ books; Vera pushed aside the Venetian blind.
“Don’t come in that way, Flapsy!” called Paula. “You’ll be heard in the dining-room, and the M.A. will tremble at your dusty feet.”
“They aren’t dusty,” said Vera, pulling up the blind with a clatter.
“Aren’t they?” laughed Paula, pointing.
“You had better go and wipe them,” said Agatha.
“I don’t believe in M.A.’s fidgets,” returned Vera.
“But I do, in proper deference to the head of the house,” said Agatha, gravely.