Priscilla’s strongest bias was for Greek and Latin, but Mr. Hayes had recommended her to take up modern languages as well, and she was steadily plodding through the French and German, for which she had not so strong a liking as for her beloved classics.  Prissie was a very eager learner, and she was busy now looking over her notes of the last lecture and standing close to the door, so as to be one of the first to take her place in the lecture-room.

The rustling of a dress caused her to look round, and Rosalind Merton stood by her side.  Rosalind was by no means one of the “students” of the college.  She attended as few lectures as were compatible with her remaining there, but French happened to be one of the subjects which she thought it well to take up, and she appeared now by Prissie’s side with the invariable notebook, without which no girl went to lecture, in her hand.

“Isn’t it cold?” she said, shivering and raising her pretty face to Priscilla’s.

Prissie glanced at her for a moment, said Yes, she supposed it was cold, in an abstracted voice, and bent her head once more over her note-book.

Rosalind was looking very pretty in a dress of dark blue velveteen.  Her golden curly hair lay in little tendrils all over her head and curled lovingly against her soft white throat.

“I hate Kingsdene in a fog,” she continued, “and I think it’s very wrong to keep us in this draughty passage until the lecture-room is opened.  Don’t you, Miss Peel?”

“Well, we are before our time, so no one is to blame for that,” answered Priscilla.

“Of course, so we are.”  Rosalind pulled out a small gold watch, which she wore at her girdle.

“How stupid of me to have mistaken the hour!” she exclaimed.  Then looking hard at Prissie, she continued in an anxious tone: 

“You are not going to attend any lectures this afternoon, are you, Miss Peel?”

“No,” answered Priscilla.  “Why?”

Rosalind’s blue eyes looked almost pathetic in their pleading.

“I wonder”—­ she began; “I am so worried, I wonder if you’d do me a kindness.”

“I can’t say until you ask me,” said Priscilla; “what do you want me to do?”

“There’s a girl at Kingsdene, a Miss Forbes.  She makes my dresses now and then; I had a letter from her last night, and she is going to London in a hurry because her mother is ill.  She made this dress for me.  Isn’t it pretty?”

“Yes,” answered Priscilla, just glancing at it.  “But what connection has that with my doing anything for you?”

“Oh, a great deal; I’m coming to that part.  Miss Forbes wants me to pay her for making this dress before she goes to London.  I can only do this by going to Kingsdene this afternoon.”

“Well?” said Priscilla.

“I want to know if you will come with me.  Miss Heath does not like our going to the town alone, particularly at this time of year, when the evenings are so short.  Will you come with me, Miss Peel?  It will be awfully good-natured of you, and I really do want poor Miss Forbes to have her money before she goes to London.”