On the night their mother was buried Aunt Rachel Peel, their father’s sister, came from her home far away on the borders of Devonshire, and told the four desolate children that she was going to take them away to live on her little farm with her.

Aunt Raby spoke in a very frank manner.  She concealed nothing.

“It’s only fair to tell you, Prissie,” she said, addressing the tall, gawky girl, who stood with her hands folded in front of her—­ “it’s only fair to tell you that hitherto I’ve just made two ends meet for one mouth alone, and how I’m to fill four extra ones the Lord knows, but I don’t.  Still, I’m going to try, for it shall never be said that Andrew Peel’s children wanted bread while his sister, Rachel Peel, lived.”

“We have none of us big appetites,” said Priscilla after a long, solemn pause; “we can do with very little food—­ very little.  The only one who ever is really hungry is Hattie.”

Aunt Raby looked up at the pale face, for Prissie was taller than her aunt even then, and said in a shocked voice: 

“Good gracious, child! do you think I’d stint one of you?  You ought all to be hearty, and I hope you will be.  No, no, it isn’t that, Prissie, but there’ll be no luxuries, so don’t you expect them.”

“I don’t want them,” answered Priscilla.

The children all went to Devonshire, and Aunt Raby toiled, as perhaps no woman had ever toiled before, to put bread into their mouths.  Katie had a fever, which made her pale and thin and took away that look of robustness which had characterized the little Yorkshire maiden.  Nobody thought about the children’s education, and they might have grown up without any were it not for Priscilla, who taught them what she knew herself.  Nobody thought Priscilla clever; she had no brilliance about her in any way, but she had a great gift for acquiring knowledge.  Wherever she went she picked up a fresh fact, or a fresh fancy, or a new idea, and these she turned over and over in her active, strong, young brain until she assimilated them and made them part of herself.

Among the few things that had been saved from her early home there was a box of her father’s old books, and as these comprised several of the early poets and essayists, she might have gone further and fared worse.

One day the old clergyman who lived at a small vicarage near called to see Miss Peel.  He discovered Priscilla deep over Carlyle’s “History of the French Revolution.”  The young girl had become absorbed in the fascination of the wild and terrible tale.  Some of the horror of it had got into her eyes as she raised them to return Mr. Hayes’ courteous greeting.  His attention was arrested by the look she gave him.  He questioned her about her reading, and presently offered to help her.  From this hour Priscilla made rapid progress.  She was not taught in the ordinary fashion, but she was being really educated.  Her life was full now; she knew nothing about the world, nothing about society.  She had no ambitions and she did not trouble herself to look very far ahead.  The old classics which she studied from morning till night abundantly satisfied her really strong intellectual nature.