“Yes, I do want her to win the prize,” said Annie, “and for that reason I want her to read your essay as though it were her own.”
“You forget one thing,” said Priscilla. “Mabel writes so atrociously that no one will believe for a single moment that my paper could be her work; and, on the other hand, people will be as little likely to go down in their high estimation of my talent as to suppose that I have seriously written the twaddle which she will give me. You see yourself, Annie, the danger of your scheme. It is unworkable; our teachers are all a great deal too clever to be taken in by it. It cannot possibly be carried out.”
“It can, and will,” said Annie. “I have thought of all that, and am preparing the way. In the first place, the paper you will read will be by no means bad. It will be the sort of paper that will pass muster, and long before prize day there will be an undercurrent of belief in the school that Mabel is by no means the dunce she is credited to be.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You had best not know, Priscilla. The main thing for you to consider is this: You do not go to your horrid uncle Josiah. You spend your summer holidays with him, I know; but you return here afterwards. You have another happy year at Lyttelton School, and at the end of that time you win a splendid scholarship for Newnham or Girton, and go to Cambridge for three happy years. Think of it, Priscilla; and you can do it so easily. Do think of it, darling Pris. You are either a household drudge or a country dressmaker if you don’t do this thing; and if you do—and it’s really such a very little thing—you may be anything you like.”
Priscilla sat very still while Annie was talking to her, but in each of her cheeks there rose a brilliant spot of colour. It spread and spread until the whole young face looked transformed, the eyes brighter and darker than before, the lips quivering with suppressed excitement. The girl’s figure became suddenly tense. She stood up; she caught Annie’s hands between her own.
“Oh, how you tempt me!” she said. “How you tempt me! I did not know I could be so wicked as to listen to you; but I am tempted—tempted!”
“Of course you are, darling. Who would not be who was in your shoes? Isn’t it the law of life to do the very best for one’s self?”
“Oh, but it isn’t the right law!” gasped poor Priscilla.
“Well, right or wrong,” answered Annie, “it is the wisest law.”