Priscilla looked hungrily at these unexpected trophies of art. She could have shouted with glee as she recognised some of her dear, wild Devonshire flowers among the groups on the door panels. She wondered if all the rest of the students were treated to these artistic decorations, and grew a little happier and less homesick at the thought.
Priscilla could have been an artist herself had the opportunity arisen, but she was one of those girls all alive with aspiration and longing who never up to the present had come in the way of special culture in any style.
She stood for some time gazing at the groups of wild flowers, then remembering with horror that she was to receive visitors that night, she looked round the room to see if she could do anything to make it appear home-like and inviting.
It was a nice room, certainly. Priscilla had never before in her whole life occupied such a luxurious apartment, and yet it had a cold, dreary, uninhabited feel. She had an intuition that none of the other students’ rooms looked like hers. She rushed to light the fire, but could not find the matches, which had been removed from their place on the mantelpiece, and felt far too shy to ring the electric-bell. It was Priscilla’s fashion to clasp her hands together when she felt a sense of dismay, and she did so now, as she looked around the pretty room, which yet with all its luxuries looked to her cold and dreary.
The furniture was excellent of its kind. A Turkey carpet covered the centre of the floor, the boards round the edge were stained and brightly polished. In one corner of the room was a little bed, made to look like a sofa by day, with a Liberty cretonne covering. A curtain of the same shut away the wardrobe and washing apparatus. Just under one of the bay-windows stood a writing-table, so contrived as to form a writing-table, and a bookcase at the top, and a chest of drawers to hold linen below. Besides this there was a small square table for tea in the room, and a couple of chairs. The whole effect was undoubtedly bare.
Priscilla was hesitating whether to begin to unpack her trunk or not when a light knock was heard at her door. She said “Come in,” and two girls burst rather noisily into the apartment.
“How do you do?” they said, favouring the fresh girl with a brief nod. “You came to-day, didn’t you? What are you going to study? Are you clever?”
These queries issued rapidly from the lips of the tallest of the girls. She had red hair, tousled and tossed about her head. Her face was essentially commonplace; her small restless eyes now glanced at Priscilla, now wandered over the room. She did not wait for a reply to any of her queries, but turned rapidly to her companion.
“I told you so, Polly,” she said. “I was quite sure that she was going to be put into Miss Lee’s room. You see I’m right, this is Annabel Lee’s old room; it has never been occupied since.”
“Hush!” said the other girl.