There came a knock at the door. Rosalind flew to open it; by so doing she hoped that Miss Day would not notice the sudden colour which filled her cheeks.
Chapter Twenty Seven.
Beautiful Annabel Lee.
Circumstances seem to combine to spoil some people. Maggie Oliphant was one of the victims of fortune, which, while appearing to favour her, gave her in reality the worst training which was possible for a nature such as hers. She was impulsive, generous, affectionate, but she was also perverse, and, so to speak, uncertain. She was a creature of moods, and she was almost absolutely without self-control; and yet nature had been kind to Maggie, giving her great beauty of form and face, and a character which a right training would have rendered noble.
Up to the present, however, this training had scarcely come to Miss Oliphant. She was almost without relations, and she was possessed of more money than she knew what to do with. She had great abilities, and loved learning for the sake of learning, but, till she came to St. Benet’s, her education had been as desultory as her life. She had never been to school; her governesses only taught her what she chose to learn. As a child she was very fickle in this respect, working hard from morning till night one day, but idling the whole of the next. When she was fifteen her guardian took her to Rome; the next two years were spent in travelling, and Maggie, who knew nothing properly, picked up that kind of superficial miscellaneous knowledge which made her conversation brilliant and added to her many charms.
“You shall be brought out early,” her guardian had said to her. “You are not educated in the stereotyped fashion, but you know enough. After you are seventeen I will get you a suitable chaperon, and you shall live in London.”
This scheme, however, was not carried out. For, shortly after her seventeenth birthday, Maggie Oliphant met a girl whose beauty and brilliance were equal to her own, whose nature was stronger, and who had been carefully trained in heart and mind while Maggie had been neglected. Miss Lee was going through a course of training at St. Benet’s College for Women at Kingsdene. She was an uncommon girl in every sense of the word. The expression of her lovely face was as piquant as its features were beautiful; her eyes were dark as night; they also possessed the depth of the tenderest, sweetest summer night, subjugating all those who came in contact with her. Annabel Lee won Maggie’s warmest affections at once; she determined to join her friend at St. Benet’s. She spoke with ineffable scorn of her London season, and resolved, with that enthusiasm which was the strongest part of her nature, to become a student in reality. Under Annabel’s guidance she took up the course of study which was necessary to enable her to pass her entrance examination. She acquitted herself well, for her abilities were of the highest order, and entered the college with éclat. Miss Lee was a student in Heath Hall, and Maggie thought herself supremely happy when she was given a room next to her friend.
Those were brilliant days at the Hall. Some girls resided there at this time whose names were destined to be known in the world by-and-by. The workers were earnest; the tone which pervaded the life at Heath Hall was distinctly high. Shallow girls there must always be where any number are to be found together, but, during Maggie Oliphant’s first year, these girls had little chance of coming to the front. Maggie, who was as easily influenced as a wave is tossed by the wind, rose quickly to the heights with her companions. Her splendid intellect developed each day; she was merry with the merry, glad with the glad, studious with the studious. She was also generous, kind, and unselfish in company with those girls who observed the precepts of the higher life. Next to Miss Lee, Maggie was one of the most popular girls in the college. Annabel Lee had the kindest of hearts, as well as the most fascinating of ways. She was an extraordinary girl; there was a great deal of the exotic about her; in many ways she was old for her years. No one ever thought or spoke of her as a prig, but all her influence was brought to bear in the right direction. The girl who could do or think meanly avoided the expression in Annabel’s beautiful eyes. It was impossible for her to think badly of her fellow-creatures, but meanness and sin made her sorrowful. There was not a girl in Heath Hall who would willingly give Annabel Lee sorrow.