Part 6 (1/2)
”We have none of us big appet.i.tes,” said Priscilla after a long, solemn pause; ”we can do with very little food-- very little. The only one who ever is really hungry is Hattie.”
Aunt Raby looked up at the pale face, for Prissie was taller than her aunt even then, and said in a shocked voice:
”Good gracious, child! do you think I'd stint one of you? You ought all to be hearty, and I hope you will be. No, no, it isn't that, Prissie, but there'll be no luxuries, so don't you expect them.”
”I don't want them,” answered Priscilla.
The children all went to Devons.h.i.+re, and Aunt Raby toiled, as perhaps no woman had ever toiled before, to put bread into their mouths. Katie had a fever, which made her pale and thin and took away that look of robustness which had characterized the little Yorks.h.i.+re maiden. n.o.body thought about the children's education, and they might have grown up without any were it not for Priscilla, who taught them what she knew herself. n.o.body thought Priscilla clever; she had no brilliance about her in any way, but she had a great gift for acquiring knowledge.
Wherever she went she picked up a fresh fact, or a fresh fancy, or a new idea, and these she turned over and over in her active, strong, young brain until she a.s.similated them and made them part of herself.
Among the few things that had been saved from her early home there was a box of her father's old books, and as these comprised several of the early poets and essayists, she might have gone further and fared worse.
One day the old clergyman who lived at a small vicarage near called to see Miss Peel. He discovered Priscilla deep over Carlyle's ”History of the French Revolution.” The young girl had become absorbed in the fascination of the wild and terrible tale. Some of the horror of it had got into her eyes as she raised them to return Mr. Hayes'
courteous greeting. His attention was arrested by the look she gave him. He questioned her about her reading, and presently offered to help her. From this hour Priscilla made rapid progress. She was not taught in the ordinary fas.h.i.+on, but she was being really educated. Her life was full now; she knew nothing about the world, nothing about society. She had no ambitions and she did not trouble herself to look very far ahead. The old cla.s.sics which she studied from morning till night abundantly satisfied her really strong intellectual nature.
Mr. Hayes allowed her to talk with him, even to argue points with him.
He always liked her to draw her own conclusions; he encouraged her really original ideas; he was proud of his pupil, and he grew fond of her. It was not Priscilla's way to say a word about it, but she soon loved the old clergyman as if he were her father.
Some time between her sixteenth and seventeenth birthday that awakening came which altered the whole course of her life. It was a summer's day Priscilla was seated in the old wainscoted parlor of the cottage, devouring a book lent to her by Mr. Hayes on the origin of the Greek drama and occasionally bending to kiss little Katie, who sat curled up in her arms, when the two elder children rushed in with the information that Aunt Raby had suddenly lain flat down in the hayfield, and they thought she was asleep.
Prissie tumbled her book in one direction and Katie in the other. In a moment she was kneeling by Miss Peel's side.
”What is it, Aunt Raby?” she asked tenderly. ”Are you ill?”
The tired woman opened her eyes slowly.
”I think I fainted, dear love,” she said. ”Perhaps it was the heat of the sun.”
Priscilla managed to get her back into the house. She grew better presently and seemed something like herself, but that evening the aunt and niece had a long talk, and the next day Prissie went up to see Mr.
Hayes.
”I am interested,” he said when he saw her enter the room, ”to see how you have construed that pa.s.sage in Cicero, Priscilla. You know I warned you of its difficulty.”
”Oh, please, sir, don't,” said Prissie, holding up her hand with an impatient movement, which she now and then found herself indulging in.
”I don't care if Cicero is at the bottom of the sea. I don't want to speak about him or think about him. His day is over, mine is-- oh, sir, I beg your pardon.”
”Granted, my dear child. Sit down, Prissie. I will forgive your profane words about Cicero, for I see you are excited. What is the matter?”
”I want you to help me, Mr. Hayes. Will you help me? You have always been my dear friend, my good friend.”
”Of course I will help you. What is wrong? Speak to me fully.”
”Aunt Raby fainted in the hayfield yesterday.”
”Indeed? It was a warm day; I am truly concerned. Would she like to see me? Is she better to-day?”
”She is quite well to-day-- quite well for the time.”
”My dear Priscilla, what a tragic face! Your Aunt Raby is not the first woman who has fainted and got out of her faint again and been none the worse.”