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.
When they entered the tiny bedroom Aunt Raby spoke again—
“Your dress will do, but I have been fretting about your winter jacket, Prissie. There’s my best one, though—you know, the quilted satin which my mother left me; its loose and full, and you shall have it.”
“But you want it to go to church in yourself, Aunt Raby.”
“I don’t often go to church lately, child. I take a power of comfort lying on the sofa, reading my Bible, and Mr Hayes doesn’t see anything contrary to Scripture in it, for I asked him. Yes, you shall have my quilted satin jacket to take back to college with you, Prissie, and then you’ll be set up fine.”