A Sweet Girl Graduate | Page 5

all over her rosy face. "I thought
perhaps you might like to know one or two things as you are quite
strange here. My name is Banister. I have a room in the same corridor,
but quite at the other end. You must come and visit me presently. Oh,
has no one lit your fire? Wouldn't you like one? The evenings are
turning so chilly now, and a fire in one's room gives one a home-like
feeling, doesn't it? Shall I light it for you?"
"No, no, thank you," said Priscilla stiffly. She longed to rush at Nancy
and smother her with kisses, but she could only stand in the middle of
her room, helpless and awkward, held in a terrible bondage of shyness.

Nancy drew back a step, chilled in spite of herself.
"I see there are matches on the chimney-piece," she said, "so you can
light the fire yourself whenever you like. The gong that will sound in a
minute will be for dinner, and Miss Heath always likes us to be
punctual for that meal. It does not matter about any other. Do you think
you can find your way to the dining-hall or shall I come and fetch
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 broad
stairs, then turn to the right, then to the left. Good-by. I must rush off,
or I shall be late."
Nancy shut the door behind her. She did it gently, although she did not
feel 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,
neat girlish figure had stood. She was trembling slightly and her eyes
slowly filled with tears.
"I feel sick and lonely and horrid," she said under her breath. "Talk of
nerves; oh, if Aunt Raby could see me now! Why, I'm positively
shaking, I can scarcely speak, I can scarcely think properly. What
would the children say if they saw their Prissie now? And I'm the girl
who is to fight the world, and kill the dragon, and make a home for the
nestlings. Don't I feel like it! Don't I look like it! Don't I just loathe
myself! How hideously I do my hair, and what a frightful dress I have
on. Oh, I wish I weren't shaking so much. I know I shall get red all over
at dinner. I wish I weren't going to dinner. I wish, oh, I wish I were at
home again."

Crash! bang! pealed the great gong through the house. Doors were
opened all along the corridor; light steps passed Priscilla's room. She
heard the rustle of silk and the sweet, high tinkle of girlish laughter.
She stayed in her room till the last footsteps had died away, then in
desperation made a rush for it, flew down the wide stairs in a bashful
agony, and, as a matter of course, entered the spacious dining-hall by
the door devoted to the dons.
A girl's life at one of the women's colleges is supposed to be more or
less an unfettered sort of existence. The broad rules guiding conduct are
few and little more than those which must be exercised in any
well-organized family. But there is the unspoken etiquette made chiefly
by the students themselves, which fills the place like an atmosphere,
and which can only be transgressed at the risk of surly glances and
muttered comments and even words of derision.
No student was expected to enter the hall by the dons' entrance, and for
this enormity to be perpetrated by a fresher immediately made her the
cynosure of all eyes. Poor Priscilla was unconscious of any offense.
She grew scarlet under the gaze of the merciless young eyes and further
added to her sins by sitting down at one of the tables at the top of the
hall.
No one reproved her in words or requested her to take a lower seat, but
some rude giggles were not inaudible; and Priscilla, who would
thankfully have taken her dinner in the scullery, heard hints about a
certain young person's presumption, and about the cheek of those
wretched freshers, which must instantly be put down with a high hand.
Priscilla had choked over her soup, and was making poor way with the
fish that followed, when suddenly a sweet, low voice addressed her.
"This is your first evening at St. Benet's," said the voice. "I hope you
will be happy. I know you will, after a little."
Priscilla turned and met the full gaze of lovely eyes, brown