"I feel sick and lonely and horrid," she said under her breath. "Talk of nerves; oh, if Aunt Raby could see me now! Why, I'm positively shaking, I can scarcely speak, I can scarcely think properly. What would the children say if they saw their Prissie now? And I'm the girl who is to fight the world, and kill the dragon, and make a home for the nestlings. Don't I feel like it! Don't I look like it! Don't I just loathe myself! How hideously I do my hair, and what a frightful dress I have on. Oh, I wish I weren't shaking so much. I know I shall get red all over at dinner. I wish I weren't going to dinner. I wish, oh, I wish I were at home again."

Crash! bang! pealed the great gong through the house. Doors were opened all along the corridor; light steps pa.s.sed Priscilla's room.

She heard the rustle of silk and the sweet, high tinkle of girlish laughter.

She stayed in her room till the last footsteps had died away, then in desperation made a rush for it, flew down the wide stairs in a bashful agony, and, as a matter of course, entered the s.p.a.cious dining-hall by the door devoted to the dons.

A girl's life at one of the women's colleges is supposed to be more or less an unfettered sort of existence. The broad rules guiding conduct are few and little more than those which must be exercised in any well-organized family. But there is the unspoken etiquette made chiefly by the students themselves, which fills the place like an atmosphere, and which can only be transgressed at the risk of surly glances and muttered comments and even words of derision.

No student was expected to enter the hall by the dons' entrance, and for this enormity to be perpetrated by a fresher immediately made her the cynosure of all eyes. Poor Priscilla was unconscious of any offense. She grew scarlet under the gaze of the merciless young eyes and further added to her sins by sitting down at one of the tables at the top of the hall.

No one reproved her in words or requested her to take a lower seat, but some rude giggles were not inaudible; and Priscilla, who would thankfully have taken her dinner in the scullery, heard hints about a certain young person's presumption, and about the cheek of those wretched freshers, which must instantly be put down with a high hand.

Priscilla had choked over her soup, and was making poor way with the fish that followed, when suddenly a sweet, low voice addressed her.

"This is your first evening at St. Benet's," said the voice. "I hope you will be happy. I know you will, after a little."

Priscilla turned and met the full gaze of lovely eyes, brown like a nut, soft and deep as the thick pile of velvet, and yet with a latent flash and glow in them which gave them a red, half-wild gleam now and then. The lips that belonged to this face were slightly parted in a smile; the smile and the expression in the eyes stole straight down with a glow of delicious comfort into Priscilla's heart.

"Thank you," she said in her stiff, wooden tone; but her eyes did not look stiff, and the girl began to talk again.

"I believe my room is next to yours. My name is Oliphant-- Margaret Oliphant, but every one calls me Maggie. That is, of course, I mean my friends do. Would you like to come into my room and let me tell you some of the rules?"

"Thank you," said Priscilla again. She longed to add, "I should love beyond words to come into your room"; but instead she remarked icily, "I think Miss Heath has given me printed rules."

"Oh, you have seen our dear Dorothea-- I mean Miss Heath. Isn't she lovely?"

"I don't know," answered Priscilla. "I think she's rather a plain person."

"My dear Miss"-- I have not caught your name-- "you really are too deliciously prosaic. Stay here for a month, and then tell me if you think Dorothea-- I mean Miss Heath-- plain. No, I won't say any more.

You must find out for yourself. But now, about the rules. I don't mean the printed rules. We have, I a.s.sure you, at St. Benet's all kinds of little etiquettes which we expect each other to observe. We are supposed to be democratic and inclined to go in for all that is advanced in womanhood. But, oh dear, oh dear! let any student dare to break one of our own little pet proprieties, and you will see how conservative we can be."

"Have I broken any of them?" asked Priscilla in alarm. "I did notice that every one stared at me when I came into the hall, but I thought it was because my face was fresh, and I hoped people would get accustomed to me by and by."

"You poor, dear child, there are lots of fresh faces here besides yours. You should have come down under the shelter of my wing, then it would have been all right."

"But what have I done? Do tell me. I'd much rather know."

"Well, dear, you have only come into the hall by the dons' entrance, and you have only seated yourself at the top of the table, where the learned students who are going in for a tripos take their august meals. That is pretty good for a fresher. Forgive me, we call the new girls freshers for a week or two. Oh, you have done nothing wrong. Of course not, how could you know any better? Only I think it would be nice to put you up to our little rules, would it not?"

"I should be very much obliged," said Priscilla. "And please tell me now where I ought to sit at dinner."

Miss Oliphant's merry eyes twinkled.

"Look down this long hall," she said. "Observe that door at the further end-- that is the students' door; through that door you ought to have entered."

"Yes-- well, well?"

"What an impatient 'well, well.' I shall make you quite an enthusiastic Benet.i.te before dinner is over."

Priscilla blushed.

"I am sorry I spoke too eagerly," she said.

"Oh, no, not a bit too eagerly."

"But please tell me where I ought to have seated myself."

"There is a table near that lower entrance, Miss----"

"Peel," interposed Priscilla. "My name is Priscilla Peel."

"How quaint and great-grandmotherly. Quite delicious! Well, Miss Peel, by that entrance door is a table, a table rather in a draught, and consecrated to the freshers-- there the freshers humbly partake of nourishment."

"I see. Then I am as far from the right place as I can be."

"About as far as you can be."

"And that is why all the girls have stared so at me."

"Yes, of course; but let them stare. Who minds such a trifle?"

Priscilla sat silent for a few moments. One of the neat waiting-maids removed her plate; her almost untasted dinner lay upon it. Miss Oliphant turned to attack some roast mutton with truly British vigor.

By and by Priscilla's voice, stiff but with a break in it, fell upon her ear.

"I think the students at St. Benet's must be very cruel."

"My dear Miss Peel, the honor of the most fascinating college in England is imperiled. Unsay those words."

Maggie Oliphant was joking. Her voice was gay with badinage, her eyes brimful of laughter. But Priscilla, unaccustomed to light repartee or chaff in any form, replied to her with heavy and pained seriousness.

"I think the students here are cruel," she repeated. "How can a stranger know which is the dons' entrance and which is the right seat to take at table? If n.o.body shows her, how can a stranger know? I do think the students are cruel, and I am sorry-- very sorry I came."

CHAPTER III

AN UNWILLING AT HOME

MOST of the girls who sat at those dinner-tables had fringed or tousled or curled locks. Priscilla's were brushed simply away from her broad forehead. After saying her last words, she bent her head low over her plate and longed even for the protection of a fringe to hide her burning blushes. Her momentary courage had evaporated; she was shocked at having betrayed herself to a stranger; her brief fit of pa.s.sion left her stiffer and shyer than ever. Blinding tears rushed to Priscilla's eyes, and her terror was that they would drop on to her plate. Suppose some of those horrid girls saw her crying? Hateful thought. She would rather die than show emotion before them.

At this moment a soft, plump little hand was slipped into hers and the sweetest of voices said:

"I am so sorry anything has seemed unkind to you. Believe me, we are not what you imagine. We have our fun and our prejudices, of course, but we are not what you think we are."

Priscilla could not help smiling, nor could she resist slightly squeezing the fingers which touched hers.

"You are not unkind, I know," she answered; and she ate the rest of her dinner in a comforted frame of mind.

After dinner one of the lecturers who resided at Heath Hall, a pleasant, bright girl of two- or three-and-twenty, came and introduced herself, and presently took Priscilla with her to her own room, to talk over the line of study which the young girl proposed to take up.