“Oh,” said Mabel, “it is awful—awful! Really, I sometimes think my head will give way under the strain. Of course it may succeed; but there are so many ‘ifs.’ Suppose the man to whom we are selling the necklace shows it in his window the next day; what will Aunt Henrietta say then?”
“You goose!” replied Annie. “We shall be in Zermatt by then; and I will make an arrangement with the shopman to keep the necklace out of the window until we are off. Now I have everything as clear as daylight. You must coax and coax as you know how for the beautiful necklace, and you must get your aunt Henrietta, if possible, to pay forty pounds for it. That is the only thing to be done, but it just needs tact and resource. I shall be present with my tact and resource. I will allow you to be alone with your aunt to-morrow morning, and then, when I think she has scolded you long enough, I will come innocently into the room, and you must start the subject of the necklace; then trust to me for the rest. Mrs Priestley is asked in this letter, which will never go—for the one with the thirty pounds will take its place—to send the full items of her account to Zermatt. She will do so; and your aunt will be so much in love with you for your economy, and so full of remorse at having accused you of extravagance, that she will probably give you another necklace when there, which one you can keep. The main thing, however, is to get through this little business to-morrow. Now go to bed and to sleep, May Flower, and never say again that your Annie does not help you out of scrapes.”
Chapter Eighteen.
Dawn at Interlaken.
The next day dawned, fresh, clear, and beautiful, with that exquisite quality in the air which so characterises Interlaken. Priscilla, when she opened her eyes in the tiny bedroom which was close to Annie’s and just as much under the roof—although no one thought her unselfish for selecting it—sprang out of bed and approached the window. The glorious scene which lay before her with the majestic Jung Frau caused her to clasp her hands in a perfect ecstasy of happiness. The pure delight of living was over her at that moment. It was permeating her young being. For a time she forgot her present ignoble position—the sin she had sinned, the deceit in which she had had such an important share. She forgot everything but just that she herself was a little unit in God’s great world, a speck in His universe, and that God Himself was over all.
The girl fell on her knees, clasped her hands, and uttered a prayer of silent rapture. Then more soberly she returned to her bed and lay down where she could look at the ever-changing panorama of mountain and lake.
They were going on to Zermatt on the following day; and Zermatt would be still more beautiful—a little higher up, a little nearer those mountains which are as the Delectable Mountains in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, past the power of man to describe. Priscie owned to herself, as she lay in bed, that she was glad she had come.
“It was not going to be nice at first,” she thought. “But this repays everything. I shall remember it all for the rest of my days. I am not a bit good, I know; I have put goodness from me. I have chosen ambition, and the acquiring of knowledge, and the life of the student, and by-and-by an appointment of some worth where I can enjoy those things which I thirst for. But whatever is before me, I am never going to forget this scene. I am never going to forget this time. It is wonderfully good of God to give it to me, for I am such a wicked girl. Annie and Mabel are wicked too, but they could never have done what they did without my help. I am, therefore, worse than they—much worse.”