“Well, I must own to feeling a little sleepy,” said Molly.
“And so am I,” said Belle.
“Girls, girls, come in; your father wants to lock up,” called Mrs. Tristram at that moment.
The girls all entered the house, lit their candles, and went upstairs to their rooms.
As Maggie was wishing her two dear friends good-night she said quietly, “I hope you won’t mind; but Merry Cardew—or, as I ought to call her, Miss Cardew—has asked me to go over to the Manor to-morrow morning in order to show me the old house. I said I’d be there at ten o’clock, and could then get back to you in time for lunch. I do trust you don’t mind.”
“Of course we don’t,” said Molly in a hearty tone. “Now, good-night, Mags.”
“But if you think, Maggie,” said Isabel, “that you will succeed in that scheme of yours you will find yourself vastly mistaken.”
Maggie smiled gently, and the next moment she found herself alone. She went and stood by the open window. There was a glorious full moon in the sky, and the garden, with its deep shadows and brilliant avenues of light, looked lovely. But Maggie was not thinking of the scenery. Her thoughts were busy with those ideas which were always running riot in her busy little head. She was not unamiable; she was in reality a good-hearted girl, but she was very ambitious, and she sighed, above all things for power and popularity.
When she came to visit Molly and Isabel she had not the faintest idea of inducing Cicely and Merry to join that select group who were taught by Mrs. Ward at Aylmer House. But when once the idea had entered her brain, she determined, with her accustomed quickness, to carry it into execution. She had never yet, in the whole course of her life, met with defeat. At the various schools where she had been taught she had always been popular and had won friends and never created an enemy-but at Aylmer House, extraordinary and delightful as the life was, there was one girl who excited her enmity—who, in short, roused the worst that was in her. That girl’s name was Aneta Lysle. No sophistries on the part of Maggie, no clever speeches, no well-timed and courteous acts, could win the approval of Aneta; and just because she was impossible to get at, because she carried her young head high, because she had that which Maggie could never have—a stately and wonderful 26 beauty—Maggie was jealous of her, and was determined, if she could not win Aneta over to be her friend, to use her own considerable powers against the girl. She had not for a single moment, however, thought that she could be helped by Cicely and Merry in this direction, and had intended to get them to come to the school simply because they were aristocratic and rich, in the first instance. But when she saw Lady Lysle—Lady Lysle, who hated her mother and before whom her mother trembled and shrank; Lady Lysle, who was Aneta’s aunt—she knew that Cicely and Merry might be most valuable aids to her in carrying out her campaign against Aneta, and would help her to establish herself once and for all as the most powerful and important person in Mrs. Ward’s school.
Power was everything to Maggie. By power she meant to rule her small school-world, and eventually by the aid of that same gift to take her position in the greater world that lies beyond school. In her heart of hearts she considered Cicely and Merry tiresome, silly, ignorant little girls; but they could be made to play into her hands. They must come to Aylmer House—oh yes! and already she felt certain she had put the thin end of the wedge beneath that opposition which she knew she must expect from Mr. Cardew. She would see him again on the morrow. Indeed, greater schemes than hers could be carried into effect within a fortnight.