“I don’t think it will. After you have been at St. Benet’s a little longer you will know that we not only appreciate cleverness and studious ways, but also obliging and sociable and friendly manners; and—and—pretty rooms—rooms with easy-chairs, and comfortable lounges, and the thousand and one things which give one a feeling of home. Take my advice, Miss Peel, there’s no use fighting against the tide. You’ll have to do as others do in the long run, and you may as well do it at once. That is my plain opinion, and I should not have given it to you, if I had not thought you needed it. Good-night.”
“No, stop a minute,” said Priscilla. Every scrap of colour had left her face, every trace of nervousness her manner. She walked before the two girls to the door, and closed it. “Please stay just for a minute longer, Miss Day and Miss Marsh, and you too, Miss Banister, if you will.”
She went across the room again, and, opening the top drawer of her bureau, took out her purse. Out of the purse she took a key. The key fitted a small padlock, and the padlock belonged to her trunk. She unlocked her empty trunk and opened it.
“There,” she said, turning to the girls—“there,” she continued, “you will be good enough to notice that there are no photographs concealed in this trunk, no pictures, no prints.” She lifted the tray. “Empty, you see,” she added, pointing with her hand to the lower portion of the trunk—“nothing here to make my room pretty, and cosy, and home-like.” Then she shut the trunk again and locked it, and going up to where the three girls stood, gazing at her in bewilderment and some alarm, she unfastened her purse, and turned all its contents into the palm of her hand.
“Look, Miss Marsh,” she said, turning to the girl who had spoken last. “You may count what is here. One sovereign, one half-sovereign, two or three shillings, some pence. Would this money go far at Spilman’s, do you think?”
Priscilla put it all slowly back again into her purse. Her face was still absolutely colourless. She laid the purse on the top of her bureau.
“I do not suppose,” she said, in a low, sad voice, “that I am the sort of girl who often comes to a place of this sort. I am poor, and I have got to work hard, and I have no time for pleasure. Nevertheless,” she added—and now a great wave of colour swept over her face, and her eyes were lit up, and she had a sensation of feeling quite glad, and strong, and happy—“I am not going away because I am poor, and I am not going to mind what anyone thinks of me as long as I do right. My room must stay empty and bare, because I have no money to make it full and beautiful. And do you think that I would ask those—those who sent me here—to add one feather’s weight to their cares and expenses, to give me money to buy beautiful things because I am afraid of you? No, I should be awfully afraid to do that; but I am not afraid of you.”
Priscilla opened the drawer of her bureau and put her little light purse back again in its hiding-place.
“Good-night, Miss Peel,” said Miss Day, in a thin, small kind of voice.
“Good-night, Miss Peel,” said Miss Marsh. The girls went gently out of the room. They closed the door behind them, without making any noise. Nancy Banister remained behind. She came up to Priscilla, and kissed her.