not for this had they left Kunitz.  The thought of all they had dreamed life in Creeper Cottage was going to be, of all they had never doubted it was going to be, of peaceful nights passed in wholesome slumber, of days laden with fruitful works, of evenings with the poets, came into her head and made this tormented marching suddenly seem intensely droll.  She laughed into her pillow till the tears rolled down her face, and the pains she had to take to keep all sounds from reaching Fritzing only made her laugh more.

It was a windy night, and the wind sighed round the cottage and rattled the casements and rose every now and then to a howl very dreary to hear.  While Priscilla was laughing a great gust shook the house, and involuntarily she raised her head to listen.  It died away, and her head dropped back on to her arms again, but the laughter was gone.  She lay solemn enough, listening to Fritzing’s creakings, and thought of the past day and of the days to come till her soul grew cold.  Surely she was a sort of poisonous weed, fatal to every one about her?  Fritzing, Tussie, the poor girl Emma—­oh, it could not be true about Emma.  She had lost the money, and was trying to gather courage to come and say so; or she had simply not been able to change it yet.  Fritzing had jumped to the conclusion, because nothing had been heard of her all day at home, that she had run away with it.  Priscilla twisted herself about uneasily.  It was not the loss of the five pounds that made her twist, bad though that loss was in their utter poverty; it was the thought that if Emma had really run away she, by her careless folly, had driven the girl to ruin.  And then Tussie.  How dreadful that was.  At three in the morning, with the wailing wind rising and falling and the room black with the inky blackness of a moonless October night, the Tussie complication seemed to be gigantic, of a quite appalling size, threatening to choke her, to crush all the spring and youth out of her.  If Tussie got well she was going to break his heart; if Tussie died it would be her fault.  No one but herself was responsible for his illness, her own selfish, hateful self.  Yes, she was a poisonous weed; a baleful, fatal thing, not fit for great undertakings, not fit for a noble life, too foolish to depart successfully from the lines laid down for her by other people; wickedly careless; shamefully shortsighted; spoiling, ruining, everything she touched.  Priscilla writhed.  Nobody likes being forced to recognize that they are poisonous weeds.  Even to be a plain weed is grievous to one’s vanity, but to be a weed and poisonous as well is a very desperate thing to be.  She passed a dreadful night.  It was the worst she could remember.