“Do you mean it?” she said in a choked kind of voice.  “Is that quite true what you said just now?”

“True?  What a queer child!  Of course it is true.  What do you take me for?  Why should not I sympathize with you?”

“I want you to,” said Prissie.  Tears filled her eyes; she turned her head away.  Maggie gave her hand a squeeze.

“Now eat your breakfast,” she said.  “I shall glance through my letters while you are busy.”

She leaned back in her chair and opened several envelopes.  Priscilla ate her chicken and ham, drank her coffee and felt the benefit of the double tonic which had been administered in so timely a fashion.  It was one of Miss Oliphant’s peculiarities to inspire in those she wanted to fascinate absolute and almost unreasoning faith for the time being.  Doubts would and might return in her absence, but in the sunshine of her particularly genial manner they found it hard to live.

After breakfast the girls were leaving the room together when Miss Heath, the principal of the hall in which they resided, came into the room.  She was a tall, stately woman of about thirty-five and had seen very little of Priscilla since her arrival, but now she stopped to give both girls a special greeting.  Her manners were very frank and pleasant.

“My dear,” she said to Prissie, “I have been anxious to cultivate your acquaintance.  Will you come and have tea with me in my room this afternoon?  And, Maggie, dear, will you come with Miss Peel?”

She laid her hand on Maggie’s shoulder as she spoke, looked swiftly into the young girl’s face, then turned with a glance of great interest to Priscilla.

“You will both come,” she said.  “That is right.  I won’t ask any one else.  We shall have a cozy time together, and Miss Peel can tell me all about her studies, and aims, and ambitions.”

“Thank you,” said Maggie, “I’ll answer for Miss Peel.  We’ll both come; we shall be delighted.”

Miss Heath nodded to the pair and walked swiftly down the long hall to the dons’ special entrance, where she disappeared.

“Is not she charming?” whispered Maggie.  “Did I not tell you you would fall in love with Dorothea?”

“But I have not,” said Priscilla, coloring.  “And I don’t know whether she is charming or not.”

Maggie checked a petulant exclamation which was rising to her lips.  She was conscious of a curious desire to win her queer young companion’s goodwill and sympathy.

“Never mind,” she said, “the moment of victory is only delayed.  You will tell a very different story after you have had tea with Dorothea this evening.  Now, let us come and look at the notice-boards and see what the day’s program is.  By the way, are you going to attend any lectures this morning?”

“Yes, two,” said Prissie—­ “one on Middle History, from eleven to twelve, and I have a French lecture afterward.”

“Well, I am not doing anything this morning.  I wish you were not.  We might have taken a long walk together.  Don’t you love long walks?”