A Sweet Girl Graduate by L. T. Meade (most read book in the world TXT) 📗

“I don’t know. The fact is I have not paid the whole price for it yet.”

“Haven’t you really? You said you’d bring the money when you returned this term.”

“Of course I thought I could, but I was absolutely afraid to tell mother what a lot the coral cost; and as she was so woefully short of funds, I had just to come away without the money. I never for a moment supposed I should have such ill luck.”

“It is awkward. What are you going to say to Polly Singleton?’

“I don’t know. I suppose you could not help me, Annie?”

“I certainly couldn’t. I never have a penny to bless myself with. I don’t know how I scrape along.”

Rosalind sighed. Her pretty face looked absolutely careworn.

“Don’t fret, Rose,” said Miss Day after a pause; “whether you have paid for the coral or not, you can wear it at the Elliot-Smith’s.”

“No, alas! that’s just what I can’t do. The fact is Polly is turning out awfully mean. She has come back this time with apparently an unlimited supply of pocket money, and she has been doing her best to induce me to sell her the coral back again.”

“Well, why don’t you? I’m sure I would, rather than be worried about it.”

Miss Merton’s face flushed angrily.

“Nothing will induce me to give up the coral,” she said. “I bought my new white dress to wear with it. I have looked forward all during the holidays to showing it to Meta Elliot-Smith. It’s the sort of thing to subdue Meta, and I want to subdue her. No, nothing will induce me to part with my lovely coral now.”

“Well, my dear, keep it, of course, and pay for it how you can. It’s your own affair. You have not yet explained to me, however, why, when it is in your possession, you can’t wear it with your new dress at the Elliot-Smiths’ next week.”

“Because that wretched Polly has been invited also; and she is quite mean enough and underbred enough to walk up to me before every one and ask me to give her back her property.”

“What fun if she did!” laughed Miss Day.

“Annie, you are unkind!”

“My dear, of course I don’t mean what I say, but I can’t help seeing the whole picture: you, so fine and so self-conscious and so— so perfect in all your appointments— and looking— for all you are a little thing, Rose— a good inch above every one else— and then our poor, good-natured, downright Polly catching sight of her unpaid-for ornaments round your sweet baby throat— all the John Bull in her instantly coming to the fore, and she demanding her rights in no measured terms. Oh, your face, Rosie! your face! and Meta Elliot-Smith’s enjoyment— oh, how delicious the picture is! Dear Rosalind, do wear the coral, and please— please get me an invitation to the Elliot-Smiths’. I’ll love you all my life if you give me leave to witness so lovely a spectacle!”

Miss Merton’s face changed color several times while Annie Day was speaking. She clenched her small hands and tried hard to keep back such a torrent of angry words as would have severed this so-called friendship once and for all, but Rose’s sense of prudence was greater even now than her angry passions. Miss Day was a useful ally— a dangerous foe.

With a forced laugh, which concealed none of her real feelings, she stood up and prepared to leave the room.

“You are very witty at my expense, Annie,” she said. Her lips trembled. She found herself the next moment alone in the brightly lighted corridor.

It was over a week now since the beginning of the term. Lectures were once more in full swing, and all the inmates of St. Benet’s were trying, each after her kind, for the several prizes which the life they were leading held out to them. Girls of all kinds were living under these roofs— the idle as well as the busy. Both the clever and the stupid were here, both the good and the bad. Rosalind Merton was a fairly clever girl. She had that smart sort of cleverness which often passes for wide knowledge. She was liked by many of her girl friends; she had the character of being rather good-natured; her pretty face and innocent manner, too, helped to win her golden opinions among the lecturers and dons.

Those who knew her well soon detected her want of sincerity, but then it was Rose’s endeavor to prevent many people becoming intimately acquainted with her. She had all the caution which accompanies a deceitful character and had little doubt that she could pursue those pettinesses in which her soul delighted and yet retain a position as a good, innocent and fairly clever girl before the heads of the college.

Rose generally kept her angry passions in check, but, although she had managed not to betray herself while in Miss Day’s room, now as she stood alone in the brilliantly lighted corridor, she simply danced with rage. Her small hands were clenched until the nails pierced the flesh and her delicately colored face became livid with passion.

At that moment she hated Annie Day— she hated Polly Singleton— she hated, perhaps, most of all Maggie Oliphant.

She walked down the corridor, her heart beating fast. Her own room was on another floor; to reach it she had to pass Miss Peel’s and Miss Oliphant’s rooms. As Rose was walking slowly down the corridor she saw a girl come out of Miss Oliphant’s room, turn quickly in the opposite direction to the one from which she was coming, and, quickening her pace to a run, disappear from view. Rose recognized this girl: she was Priscilla Peel. Rose hastened her own steps and peeped into Maggie’s room. To her surprise, it was empty; the door had swung wide open and the excited, perturbed girl could see into every corner. Scarcely knowing why she did it, she entered the room. Maggie’s room was acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful in the college, and Rose said to herself that she was glad to have an opportunity to examine it unobserved.

She went and stood on the hearthrug and gazed around her; then she walked over to the bureau. Some Greek books were lying open here— also a pile of manuscript, several note-books, a few envelopes and sheets of letter-paper. Still, scarcely knowing why, Rose lifted the note-paper and looked under it. The heap of paper concealed a purse.

A sealskin purse with gold clasps. Rose snatched her hands away, flung down the note-paper as if she had been stung and walked back again to the hearthrug. Once more the color rushed into her cheeks, once more it retreated, leaving her small, young, pretty face white as marble.

She was assailed by a frightful temptation and she was scarcely the girl to resist it long. In cold blood she might have shrunk from the siren voice which bade her release herself from all her present troubles by theft, but at this moment she was excited, worried, scarcely capable of calm thought. Here was her unexpected opportunity. It lay in her power now to revenge herself on Miss Oliphant, on Prissie, on Polly Singleton and also to get out of her own difficulties.

How tempting was Maggie’s purse! how rich its contents were likely to prove! Maggie was so rich and so careless that it was quite possible she might never miss the small sum which Rose meant to take. If she did, it would be absolutely impossible for her to trace the theft to innocent baby Rose Merton. No; if Maggie missed her money and suspected any one, she would be almost forced to lay the crime to the door of the girl she no longer, in her heart, cared about— Priscilla Peel.

A very rich flood of crimson covered Rose’s cheeks as this consequence of her sin flashed before her vision. Less even than before was she capable of seeing right from wrong. The opportunity was far too good to lose; by one small act she would not only free herself, but accomplish the object on which she had set her mean little heart: she would effectually destroy the friendship of Maggie and Priscilla.

Stealthily, with her cheeks burning and her eyes bright with agitation, she once more approached the bureau, took from under the pile of papers the little sealskin purse, opened it, removed a five-pound note, clasped the purse again and restored it to its hiding-place, then flew on the wings of the wind from the room.

A moment or two later Priscilla came back, sat calmly down in one of Maggie’s comfortable chairs, and, taking up her Greek edition of Euripides, began to read and translate with eagerness.

As Prissie read she made notes with a pencil in a small book which lay in her lap. The splendid thoughts appealed to her powerfully; her face glowed with pleasure. She lived in the noble past; she was a Greek with the old Greeks; she forgot the nineteenth century, with its smallness, its money worries— above all, she forgot her own cares.

At last in her reading she came to a difficult sentence, which, try as she would, she could not render into English to her own satisfaction. She was a very careful student and always disliked shirking difficulties; the pleasure of her reading would be lost if she did not do full justice to the lines which puzzled her. She resolved to read no further until Maggie appeared. Maggie Oliphant, with her superior information, would soon cut the knot for her. She closed the copy of Euripides with reluctance, and, putting her hand into her pocket, took out a note she had just received, to mark the place.

A moment or two later Maggie came in.

“Still here, Prissie!” she exclaimed in her somewhat indifferent but good-natured voice. “What a bookworm you are turning into!”

“I have been waiting for you to help me, if you will, Maggie,” said Priscilla. “I have lost the right clew to the full sense of this passage— see! Can you give it to me?”

Maggie sat down at once, took up the book, glanced her eyes over the difficult words and translated them with ease.

“How lovely!” said Prissie, clasping her hands and giving herself up to a feeling of enjoyment. “Don’t stop, Maggie, please; do read some more!”

Miss Oliphant smiled.

“Enthusiast!” she murmured.

She translated with brilliancy to the end of the page; then, throwing the book on her knee, repeated the whole passage aloud in Greek.

The note that Prissie put in as a mark fell on the floor. She was so lost in delighted listening that she did not notice it, but, when Maggie at last stopped for want of breath, Priscilla saw the little note, stooped forward to pick it up, glanced at the handwriting, and a shadow swept over her expressive face.

“Oh! thank you, Maggie, thank you,” she exclaimed; “it is beautiful, entrancing! It made me forget everything for a short time, but I must not listen to any more; it is, indeed, most beautiful, but not for me.”

“What do you mean, you little goose? You will soon read Euripides as well as I do. What is more, you will surpass me, Priscilla; your talent is greater than mine.”

“Don’t say that, Maggie; I can scarcely bear it when you do.”

“Why do you say you can scarcely bear it? Do you love me so well that you hate to excel me? Silly child, as if I cared!”

“Maggie, I know you are really too great to be possessed by petty weaknesses. If I ever did excel you, which is most unlikely, I know you would be glad both for me and for yourself. No, it is not that; I am unhappy because of no fancy.”

“What worries you then?”

“Maggie, do you see this note?”

“Yes; it is from Miss Heath, is it not?”

“It is. I am to see her to-night.”

“Well, Prissie, you must be quick with your revelation, for I have some notes to look over.”

“I won’t keep you a moment. I am to see Miss Heath to tell her—— Prissie paused. Her face grew deadly white. “I am to see Miss Heath to tell her— to tell her— that I— oh, Maggie! I must give up my classics. I must; it’s all settled. Don’t say anything. Don’t tempt me to reconsider the question. It can’t be reconsidered, and my mind is made up. That’s it; it’s a trouble, but I must go through with it. Good night, Maggie.”

Prissie held out her long, unformed hand; Miss Oliphant clasped it between both her own.

“You are trembling,” she said, standing up and drawing the girl toward her. “I don’t want to argue the point if you so firmly forbid me. I think you quite mad, of course. It is absolutely impossible for me to