“What I want to say is about Maggie, and yet it isn’t.”
“About Miss Oliphant?”
“Oh, yes, but she’s Maggie to me. She’s the dearest, the best—there’s no one like her, no one. I didn’t understand her at first, but now I know how noble she is. I had no idea until I knew Maggie that a person could have faults, and yet be noble. It’s a new sort of experience to me.”
Prissie’s eyes, in which even in her worst moments there always sat the soul of a far-reaching sort of intelligence, were shining now through tears. Hammond saw the tears, and the lovely expression in the eyes, and said to himself—
“Good heavens, could I ever have regarded that dear child as plain?” Aloud, he said, in a softened voice, “I’m awfully obliged to you for saying these sorts of things of Miss—Miss Oliphant, but you must know, at least you must guess, that I—I have thought them for myself long, long ago.”
“Yes, of course, I know that. But have you much faith? Do you keep to what you believe?”
“This is a most extraordinary girl!” murmured Hammond. Then he said aloud, “I fail to understand you.”
They had now nearly reached the Marshalls’ door. The other two were waiting for them.
“It’s this,” said Prissie, clasping her hands hard, and speaking in her most emphatic and distressful way. “There are unkind things being said of Maggie, and there’s one girl who is horrid to her—horrid! I want you not to believe a word that girl says.”
“What girl do you mean?”