A Sweet Girl Graduate | Page 8

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.
The furniture was excellent of its kind. A Turkey carpet covered the
center of the floor, the boards round the edge were stained and brightly
polished. In one corner of the room was a little bed, made to look like a
sofa by day, with a Liberty cretonne covering. A curtain of the same
shut away the wardrobe and washing apparatus. Just under one of the
bay windows stood a writing-table, so contrived as to form a
writing-table, and a bookcase at the top, and a chest of drawers to hold
linen below. Besides this there was a small square table for tea in the
room and a couple of chairs. The whole effect was undoubtedly bare.
Priscilla was hesitating whether to begin to unpack her trunk or not
when a light knock was heard at her door. She said "Come in," and two
girls burst rather noisily into the apartment.
"How do you do?" they said, favoring the fresh girl with a brief nod.
"You came to-day, didn't you? What are you going to study? Are you
clever?"

These queries issued rapidly from the lips of the tallest of the girls. She
had red hair, tousled and tossed about her head. Her face was
essentially commonplace; her small restless eyes now glanced at
Priscilla, now wandered over the room. She did not wait for a reply to
any of her queries, but turned rapidly to her companion.
"I told you so, Polly," she said. "I was quite sure that she was going to
be put into Miss Lee's room. You see, I'm right; this is Annabel Lee's
old room; it has never been occupied since."
"Hush!" said the other girl.
The two walked across the apartment and seated themselves on
Priscilla's bed.
There came a fresh knock at the door, and this time three students
entered. They barely nodded to Priscilla and then rushed across the
room with cries of rapture to greet the girls who were seated on the bed.
"How do you do, Miss Atkins? How do you do, Miss Jones?"
Miss Jones and Miss Atkins exchanged kisses with Miss Phillips, Miss
Marsh and Miss Day. The babel of tongues rose high, and every one
had something to say with regard to the room which had been assigned
to Priscilla.
"Look," said Miss Day, "it was in that corner she had her rocking-chair.
Girls, do you