“What did you say?” Nancy bent forward a little impatiently.

“I wish—­ yes, do come,” with a violent effort.

“All right, you may expect me.”

Nancy flew after Maggie Oliphant, and Priscilla went slowly up the wide, luxurious stairs.  She turned down the corridor which led to her own room.  There were doors leading out of this corridor at both sides, and Priscilla caught glimpses of luxurious rooms bright with flowers and electric light.  Girls were laughing and chatting in them; she saw pictures on the walls and lounges and chairs scattered about.  Her own room was at the far end of the corridor.  The electric light was also brightening it, but the fire was unlit, and the presence of the unpacked trunk, taking up a position of prominence on the floor, gave it a very unhomelike feel.  In itself the room was particularly picturesque.  It had two charming lattice windows, set in deep square bays.  One window faced the fireplace, the other the door.  The effect was slightly irregular, but for that very reason all the more charming.  The walls of the room were painted light blue; there was a looking-glass over the mantel-piece set in a frame of the palest, most delicate blue.  A picture-rail ran round the room about six feet from the ground, and the high frieze above had a scroll of wild roses painted on it in bold, free relief.

The panels of the doors were also decorated with sprays of wild flowers in picturesque confusion.  Both the flowers and the scroll were boldly designed, but were unfinished, the final and completing touches remaining yet to be given.

Priscilla looked hungrily at these unexpected trophies of art.  She could have shouted with glee as she recognized some of her dear, wild Devonshire flowers, among the groups on the door panels.  She wondered if all the rest of the students were treated to these artistic decorations and grew a little happier and less homesick at the thought.

Priscilla could have been an artist herself had the opportunity arisen, but she was one of those girls all alive with aspiration and longing who never up to the present had come in the way of special culture in any style.

She stood for some time gazing at the groups of wild flowers, then remembering with horror that she was to receive visitors that night, she looked round the room to see if she could do anything to make it appear homelike and inviting.

It was a nice room, certainly.  Priscilla had never before in her whole life occupied such a luxurious apartment, and yet it had a cold, dreary, uninhabited feel.  She had an intuition that none of the other students’ rooms looked like hers.  She rushed to light the fire, but could not find the matches, which had been removed from their place on the mantel-piece, and felt far too shy to ring the electric bell.  It was Priscilla’s fashion to clasp her hands together when she felt a sense of dismay, and she did so now as she looked around the pretty room, which yet with all its luxuries looked to her cold and dreary.