dinner, and Miss Heath always likes us to bepunctual for that meal. It does not matter about any other. Do youthink you can find your way to the dining-hall? Or shall I come andfetch you?"
"No--thank you. I--I can manage."
"But I'll come with pleasure if you like me to."
"No, I'd rather you didn't trouble, please."
"Very well; if you're sure you know the way. You go down the broadstairs, then turn to the right, then to the left. Good-bye, I must rushoff, or I shall be late."
Nancy shut the door behind her. She did it gently, although she did notfeel gentle, for she had a distinct sensation of being irritated.
Meanwhile Priscilla, clasping her hands together behind the closed door,looked yearningly in the direction where the bright face and trim, neatgirlish figure had stood. She was trembling slightly, and her eyesslowly filled with tears.
"I feel sick and lonely and horrid," she said, under her breath. "Talkof nerves; oh, if Aunt Raby could see me now! why, I'm positivelyshaking, I can scarcely speak, I can scarcely think properly. Whatwould the children say if they saw their Prissie now? And I'm the girlwho is to fight the world, and kill the dragon, and make a home for thenestlings. Don't I feel like it! Don't I look like it! Don't I justloathe myself! How hideously I do my hair, and what a frightful dress Ihave on. Oh, I wish I weren't shaking so much. I know I shall get redall over at dinner. I wish I weren't going to dinner. I wish, oh, Iwish I were at home again."
Crash! bang! pealed the great gong through the house. Doors were openedall along the corridor; light steps passed Priscilla's room. She heardthe rustle of silk, and the sweet, high tinkle of girlish laughter.
She stayed in her room till the last footsteps had died away, then indesperation made a rush for it, flew down the wide stairs in a bashfulagony, and, as a matter of course, entered the spacious dining-hall bythe door devoted to the dons.
A girl's life at one of the women's colleges is supposed to be more orless an unfettered sort of existence; the broad rules guiding conductare few, and little more than those which must be exercised in anywell-organised family. But there is the unspoken etiquette made chieflyby the students themselves, which fills the place like an atmosphere,and which can only be transgressed at the risk of surly glances andmuttered comments, and even words of derision.
No student was expected to enter the hall by the dons' entrance, and forthis enormity to be perpetrated by a Fresher immediately made her thecynosure of all eyes. Poor Priscilla was unconscious of any offence.She grew scarlet under the gaze of the merciless young eyes, and furtheradded to her sins by sitting down at one of the tables at the top of thehall.
No one reproved her in words, or requested her to take a lower seat, butsome rude giggles were not inaudible; and Priscilla, who wouldthankfully have taken her dinner in the scullery, heard hints about acertain young person's presumption, and about the cheek of thosewretched Freshers, which must instantly be put down with a high hand.
Priscilla had choked over her soup, and was making poor way with thefish that followed, when suddenly a sweet, low voice addressed her.
"This is your first evening at St Benet's," said the voice. "I hopeyou will be happy. I know you will, after a little."
Priscilla turned, and met the full gaze of lovely eyes, brown like anut, soft and deep as the thick pile of velvet, and yet with a latentflash and glow in them which gave them a red, half-wild gleam now andthen. The lips that belonged to this face were slightly parted in asmile; the smile and the expression in the eyes stole straight down witha glow of delicious comfort into Priscilla's heart.
"Thank you," she said, in her stiff, wooden tone; but her eyes did notlook stiff, and the girl began to talk again.
"I believe my room is next to yours. My name is Oliphant--MargaretOliphant, but everyone calls me Maggie. That is, of course, I mean myfriends do. Would you like to come into my room, and let me tell yousome of the rules?"
"Thank you," said Priscilla again. She longed to add, "I should lovebeyond words to come into your room;" but instead she remarked icily, "Ithink Miss Heath has given me printed rules."
"Oh, you have seen our dear Dorothea--I mean Miss Heath. Isn't shelovely?"
"I don't know," answered Priscilla. "I think she's rather a plainperson."
"My dear Miss--(I have not caught your name)--you really are toodeliciously prosaic. Stay here for a month, and then tell me if youthink Dorothea--I mean Miss Heath--plain. No, I won't say any more.You must find out for yourself. But now, about the rules. I don't meanthe _printed_ rules. We have, I assure you, at St Benet's all kinds oflittle etiquettes which we expect each other to observe. We aresupposed to be democratic, and inclined to go in for all that isadvanced in womanhood. But, oh dear, oh dear! let any student dare tobreak one of our own little pet proprieties, and you will see howconservative we can be."
"Have I broken any of them?" asked Priscilla in alarm. "I did noticethat everyone stared at me when I came into the hall, but I thought itwas because my face was fresh, and I hoped people would get accustomedto me by-and-by."
"You poor dear child, there are lots of fresh faces here besides yours.You should have come down under the shelter of my wing, then it wouldhave been all right."
"But what have I done? Do tell me. I'd much rather know."
"Well, dear, you have _only_ come into the hall by the dons' entrance,and you have _only_ seated yourself at the top of the table, where thelearned students who are going in for a tripos take their august meals.That is pretty good for a Fresher. Forgive me, we call the new girlsFreshers for a week or two. Oh, you have done nothing wrong. Of coursenot, how could you know any better? Only I think it would be nice toput you up to our little rules, would it not?"
"I should be very much obliged," said Priscilla. "And please tell menow where I ought to sit at dinner."
Miss Oliphant's merry eyes twinkled.
"Look down this long hall," she said. "Observe that door at the fartherend--that is the students' door; through that door you ought to haveentered."
"Yes--well, well?"
"What an impatient `Well, well.' I shall make you quite an enthusiasticBenetite before dinner is over."
Priscilla blushed.
"I am sorry I spoke too eagerly," she said.
"Oh, no, not a bit too eagerly."
"But please tell me where I ought to have seated myself."
"There is a table near that lower entrance, Miss--"
"Peel," interposed Priscilla. "My name is Priscilla Peel."
"How quaint and great-grandmotherly. Quite delicious! Well, Miss Peel,by that entrance door is a table, a table rather in a draught, andconsecrated to the Freshers--there the Freshers humbly partake ofnourishment."
"I see. Then I am as far from the right place as I can be."
"About as far as you can be."
"And that is why all the girls have stared so at me."
"Yes, of course; but let them stare. Who minds such a trifle?"
Priscilla sat silent for a few moments. One of the neat waiting-maidsremoved her plate; her almost untasted dinner lay upon it. MissOliphant turned to attack some roast mutton with truly British vigour.
By-and-by Priscilla's voice, stiff but with a break in it, fell upon herear.
"I think the students at St Benet's must be very cruel."
"My dear Miss Peel, the honour of the most fascinating college inEngland is imperilled. Unsay those words."
Maggie Oliphant was joking. Her voice was gay with badinage, her eyesbrimful of laughter. But Priscilla, unaccustomed to light repartee orchaff in any form, replied to her with heavy and pained seriousness.
"I think the students here are cruel," she repeated. "How can astranger know which is the dons' entrance, and which is the right seatto take at table? If nobody shows her, how can a stranger know? I dothink the students are cruel, and I am sorry--I am very sorry I came."
CHAPTER THREE.
AN UNWI
LLING "AT HOME."
Most of the girls who sat at those dinner-tables had fringed or tousledor curled locks. Priscilla's were brushed simply away from her broadforehead. After saying her last words, she bent her head low over herplate, and longed even for the protection of a fringe to hide herburning blushes. Her momentary courage had evaporated; she was shockedat having betrayed herself to a stranger; her brief fit of passion lefther stiffer and shyer than ever. Blinding tears rushed to Priscilla'seyes, and her terror was that they would drop on to her plate. Supposesome of those horrid girls saw her crying? Hateful thought. She wouldrather die than show