The girl’s old-young face flushed painfully.
“I’ll want a few pence for stamps, of course,” she said. “But I sha’n’t write a great many letters. I’ll be a great deal too busy studying. You need not allow me anything like so large a sum as that, Aunt Raby.”
“Nonsense, child. You’ll find it all too small when you go out into the world. You are a clever girl, Prissie, and I’m going to be proud of you. I don’t hold with the present craze about women’s education. But I feel somehow that I shall be proud of you. You’ll be learned enough, but you’ll be a woman with it all. I wouldn’t have you stinted for the world, Prissie, my dear. Yes, I’ll make it ten shillings a month—yes, I will. I can easily screw that sum out of the butter money. Now, not another word. I’m off to bed. Good-night, my love.”
Priscilla kissed her aunt and went out. It was a lovely autumn evening. She stepped on to the green sward which surrounded the little cottage, and with the moonlight casting its full radiance on her slim figure, looked steadily out over the sea. The cottage was on the top of some high cliffs. The light of the moon made a bright path over the water, and Priscilla had a good view of shining, silvered water, and dark, deep blue sky.
She stood perfectly still, gazing straight out before her. Some of the reflection and brightness of the moonlight seemed to get into her anxious eyes, and the faint dawn of a new-born hope to tremble around her lips. She thought herself rich with ten shillings a month pocket-money. She returned to the house, feeling overpowered at Aunt Raby’s goodness.
Upstairs in Prissie’s room there were two beds. One was small; in this she herself slept. The other had now three occupants. Three heads were raised when Prissie entered the room, and three shrill voices exclaimed—
“Here we are, all wide-awake, Prissie, darling!” This remark, made simultaneously, was followed by prolonged peals of laughter.
“Three of you in that small bed!” said Priscilla. She stood still, and a smile broke all over her face. “Why, Hattie,” she said, catching up the eldest of the three girls, and giving her a fervent hug—“how did you slip out of Aunt Raby’s room?”
“Oh, I managed to,” said Hattie, in a stage whisper. “Aunt Raby came upstairs half an hour ago, and she undressed very fast, and got into bed, and I heard her snoring in about a minute. It was then I slipped away. She never heard.”
“Hop up on the bed now, Prissie,” exclaimed Rose, another of the children, “and let us all have a chat. Here, Katie, if you’ll promise not to cry you may get into the middle, between Hattie and me, then you’ll be very close to darling Prissie.”