“Yes; things are most horribly contrary,” said Mabel.
“Unless I can set them right,” thought Annie to herself.
There was an expression on her face which Mabel could not fathom when she suddenly ran up to her, kissed her, and said, “Leave it to me.”
Chapter Two.
The Temptation.
Priscilla, when she left the girls’ special sitting-room, went out into the grounds. She saw a group of her young companions standing on the lawn. She was, on the whole, a favourite in the school, particularly with the younger girls, for she was gentle and good-natured, often helping them with their studies and sympathising with their small sorrows. But now she avoided her companions, and going to a shrubbery at one side of the grounds, paced up and down a shady walk.
Priscilla was very ambitious, and the letter she had received was the end of everything. She was an only child. Her father was in India, her mother dead. She was left under the care of an uncle, her mother’s brother, a rough, fairly good-natured, but utterly unsympathetic person. Priscilla’s father was a clerk, with only a very small salary, in one of the Government Houses at Madras. He could do little more than support himself, and Priscilla was therefore left to the care of Uncle Josiah. It was he who paid for her schooling, who received her during the holidays, who gave her what clothes she possessed—in short, who supplied what he considered her every want.
Occasionally she heard from her father; but by this time he had married again, had one or two little children, and found it more than ever impossible to do anything for Priscilla. When he wrote he urged her to make the most of her education, for when she was really properly educated she could support herself as a governess, or a coach, or a mistress at one of the high schools.