The two walked across the apartment and seated themselves on Priscilla’s bed.
There came a fresh knock at the door, and this time three students entered. They barely nodded to Priscilla, and then rushed across the room with cries of rapture to greet the girls who were seated on the bed.
“How do you do, Miss Atkins? How do you do, Miss Jones?”
Miss Jones and Miss Atkins exchanged kisses with Miss Phillips, Miss Marsh, and Miss Day. The babel of tongues rose high, and everyone had something to say with regard to the room which had been assigned to Priscilla.
“Look,” said Miss Day, “it was in that corner she had her rocking-chair. Girls, do you remember Annabel’s rocking-chair, and how she used to sway herself backwards and forwards in it, and half-shut her lovely eyes?”
“Oh, and don’t I just seem to see that little red tea-table of hers near the fire,” burst from Miss Marsh. “That Japanese table, with the Japanese tea-set—oh dear, oh dear! those cups of tea—those cakes! Well, the room was luxurious, was worth coming to see in Annabel’s time.”
“It’s more than it is now,” laughed Miss Jones in a harsh voice. “How bare the walls look without her pictures. It was in that recess the large figure of ‘Hope’ by Burne-Jones used to hang, and there, that queer, wild, wonderful head looking out of clouds. You know she never would tell us the artist’s name. Yes, she had pretty things everywhere! How the room is altered! I don’t think I care for it a bit now.”
“Could anyone who knew Annabel Lee care for the room without her?” asked one of the girls. She had a common, not to say vulgar, face, but it wore a wistful expression as she uttered these words.
All this time Priscilla was standing, feeling utterly shy and miserable. From time to time other girls came in; they nodded to her, and then rushed upon their companions. The eager talk began afresh, and always there were looks of regret, and allusions, accompanied by sighs, to the girl who had lived in the room last.
“Well,” said one merry little girl, who was spoken to by the others as Ada Hardy, “I have no doubt that by-and-by, when Miss—” She glanced towards Priscilla.