“How snug you are here,” said Prissie, her eyes brightening, and a pink colour mounting into her cheeks. She was glad that Maggie was alone; she felt more at ease with her than with anyone, but the next moment she said, with a look of apparent regret—
“I thought Miss Banister was in your room?”
“No; Nancy has gone to her own room at the end of the corridor to do some work for an hour. She will come back to say good-night. She always does. Are you sorry to have me by myself?”
“Indeed I am not,” said Priscilla. The smile, which made her rather plain face attractive, crept slowly back to it. Maggie poured out a cup of cocoa and brought it to her, then, drawing another chair forward, she seated herself in it, sipped her own cocoa, and began to talk.
Long afterwards Priscilla remembered that talk. It was not what Maggie said, for her conversation in itself was not at all brilliant, but it was the sound of her rich, calm, rather lazy voice, the different lights which glanced and gleamed in her eyes, the dimples about her mouth, the attitude she put herself in. Maggie had a way of changing colour, too, which added to her fascinations. Sometimes the beautiful oval of her face would be almost ivory white, but then again a rosy cloud would well up and up the cheeks, and even slightly suffuse the broad, low forehead. Her face was never long the same, never more than a moment in repose; eyes, mouth, brow, even the very waves of her hair seemed to Priscilla, this first night as she sat by her hearth, to be all speech.
The girls grew cosy and confidential together. Priscilla told Maggie about her home, a little also about her past history, and her motive in coming to St. Benet’s. Maggie sympathised with all the expression she was capable of. At last Priscilla bade her new friend good-night, and, rising from her luxurious chair, prepared to go back to her own room.
She had just reached the door of Maggie’s room, and was about to turn the handle, when a sudden thought arrested her. She came back a few steps.
“May I ask you a question?” she said.
“Certainly,” replied Miss Oliphant.