“So I can, and so I will, dear child. God bless you. You are happy now.”
“Happy!” Maggie’s eyes were glistening through the softest rainbow of tears. Hammond came and took the hand which she had suddenly thrown at her side.
“We both owe everything to Priscilla,” he said.
Chapter Thirty Three.
Conclusion.
Before Maggie Oliphant left St. Benet’s she brought some of the honour which had long been expected from her to the dearly-loved Halls: she took a first-class in her tripos examination. With her mind at rest, a great deal of the morbidness of her character disappeared, and her last term at St. Benet’s reminded the students who had known her in Annabel Lee’s time of the old, brilliant, and happy Maggie. Miss Oliphant’s bad half-hours became rarer and rarer, and Hammond laughed when she spoke to him of them, and said that she could not expect him to believe in their existence.
Shortly after the conclusion of the summer term Maggie and Hammond were married, and her little world at St. Benet’s had to get on without the presence which had always exerted the influence of a strong personality, and which had been potent both for good and evil.
By this time, however, a girl whose personal charms were few, whose poverty was apparent, and whose gaucherie was even now often extreme, was more than filling the place left vacant by Maggie. Extreme earnestness, the sincerity of a noble purpose, the truthfulness of a nature which could not stoop to deceit, was spreading an influence on the side of all that was good and noble. No girl did more honour to Heath Hall than she who, at one time, was held up to derision, and laughed at as odd, prudish, and uninteresting.