by L. T. Meade
dear, Nancy! whatshall I ever do with that other self of mine? It will ruin me in theend. It gets stronger every day."
Maggie sat down on the sofa. Nancy suddenly knelt by her side.
"Dear Meg," she said, caressingly, "you're the noblest, and thesweetest, and the most beautiful girl at St Benet's! Why can't youlive up to your true self?"
"There are two selfs in me," replied Maggie. "And if one evenapproaches the faintest semblance of angelhood, the other is black aspitch. There, it only wastes time to talk the thing over. I'm in forthe sort of scrape I hate most. See, Nancy, I bought this at theauction."
She opened her wardrobe, and taking out Polly Singleton's magnificenteighty-guinea sealskin jacket, slipped it on.
"Don't I look superb?" said Maggie. She shut the wardrobe-door, andsurveyed herself in its long glass. Brown was Maggie Oliphant's colour.It harmonised with the soft tints of her delicately rounded face, withthe rich colour in her hair, with the light in her eyes. It added toall these charms, softening them, giving to them a more perfect lustre.
"Oh, Maggie!" said Nancy, clasping her hands, "you ought always to bedressed as you are now."
Maggie dropped her arms suddenly to her sides. The jacket, a little toolarge for her, slid off her shoulders, and lay in a heap on the floor.
"What?" she said, suddenly. "Am I never to show my true and real self?Am I always to be disguised in sham beauty and sham goodness? Oh,Nancy, Nancy! if there is a creature I hate--I _hate_--her name isMaggie Oliphant!"
Nancy picked up the sealskin jacket, and put it back into the wardrobe.
"I am sorry you went to the auction, Maggie," she repeated, "and I'mmore sorry still to find you bought poor Polly Singleton's sealskin.Well, it's done now, and we have to consider how to get you out of thisscrape. There's no time for you to indulge in that morbid talk of yoursto-day, Maggie, darling. Let us consider what's best to be done."
"Nothing," retorted Maggie. "I shall simply go to Miss Heath and MissEccleston, and tell them the truth. There's nothing else to be done.No hope whatever of getting out of the affair. I went to PollySingleton's auction because Rosalind Merton raised the demon in me. Itried to become the possessor of the sealskin jacket because her heartwas set on it. I won an eighty-guinea jacket for ten guineas. You seehow ignoble my motives were, also how unworthy the results. I did worseeven than that--for I will out with the truth to you, Nancy--I revengedmyself still further upon that spiteful little gnat, Rosalind, andraised the price of her coveted coral to such an extent that I know byher face she is pounds in debt for it. Now, my dear, what have you tosay to me? Nothing good, I know that. Let me read Aristotle for thenext hour just to calm my mind."
Maggie turned away, seated herself by her writing bureau, and tried tolose both the past and the present in her beloved Greek.
"She will do it, too," whispered Nancy as she left the room. "No oneever was made quite like Maggie. She can feel tortures, and yet thenext moment she can be in ecstasy. She is so tantalising that at timesyou are almost brought to believe her own stories about herself. Youare almost sure that she has got the black self as well as the whiteself. But through it all, yes, through it all, you love her. DearMaggie! Whatever happens, I must always--always love her."
Nancy was walking slowly down the corridor when a room door was gentlyopened, and the sweet childish innocent face of Rosalind peeped out.
"Nancy, is that you? Do, for Heaven's sake, come in and speak to me fora moment."
"What about, Rosalind? I have only a minute or two to spare. My Germanlecture is to begin immediately."
"Oh, what does that signify? You don't know the awful trouble we've gotinto."
"You mean about the auction?"
"Yes--yes; so you have heard?"
"Of course I've heard. If that is all, Rosalind, I cannot wait todiscuss the matter now. I am very sorry for you, of course, but as Isaid to Maggie, why did you do it?"
"Oh, you've been talking to Miss Oliphant? Thank goodness she'll haveto answer for her sins as well as the rest of us."
"Maggie is my friend, so you need not abuse her, Rosalind."
"Lucky for her that she has got one true friend!" retorted Rosalind.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what I say. Maggie is making such a fool of herself that we areall laughing at her behind her back."
"Indeed? I fail to understand you."
"You are being made a fool of, too, Nancy. Oh, I did think you'd havehad more sense."
"How? Speak. Say at once what you want to say, Rosalind, and stoptalking riddles, for I must fly to my work."
"Fly, then," retorted Rosalind, "only think twice before you give yourconfidence to a _certain person_. A person who makes a fine parade ofpoverty and so-called honesty of purpose, but who can, and who does,betray her kindest and best friend behind her back. It is my privatebelief we have to thank this virtuous being for getting us into thepleasant scrape we are in. I am convinced she has tried to curry favourby telling Miss Heath all about poor Polly's auction."
"You mean Priscilla Peel?" said Nancy, in a firm voice. She forgot herGerman lecture now. "You have no right to say words of that kind. Youhave taken a dislike to Prissie, no one knows why. She is not asinteresting nor as beautiful as Maggie, but she is good, and you shouldrespect her."
Rosalind laughed bitterly.
"Good? Is she? Ask Mr Hammond. You say she is not beautiful norinteresting. Perhaps he finds her both. Ask him."
"Rosalind, I shall tell Maggie what you say. This is not the first timeyou have hinted unkind things about Priscilla. It is better to sift amatter of this kind to the bottom than to hint it all over the collegeas you are doing Maggie shall take it in hand."
"Let her! I shall only be too delighted! What a jolly time the saintlyPriscilla will have."
"I can't stay any longer, Rosalind."
"But, Nancy, just one moment. I want to put accounts right with Pollybefore to-night. Mother sent me ten pounds to buy something at theauction. The coral cost fourteen guineas. I have written to mother forthe balance, and it may come by any post. _Do_ lend it to me until itcomes! _Do_, kind Nancy!"
"I have not got so much in the world, I have not really, Rosalind.Good-bye; my lecture will have begun."
Nancy ran out of the room, and Miss Merton turned to survey ruefully herempty purse, and to read again a letter which had already arrived fromher mother:--
"My Dear Rosalind--
"I have not the additional money to spare you, my poor child. The ten pounds which I weakly yielded at your first earnest request was, in reality, taken from the money which is to buy your sisters their winter dresses. I dare not encroach any further on it, or your father would certainly ask me why the girls were dressed so shabbily. Fourteen guineas for coral! You know, my dear child, we cannot afford this extravagance. My advice is to return it to your friend, and to ask her to let you have the ten guineas back. You might return it to me in a Postal Order, for I want it badly. It was one thing to struggle to let you have it in the hopes that you would secure a really valuable garment like a sealskin jacket, and another to give it to you for some rather useless ornaments.
"Your affectionate mother,--
"Alice Merton."
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
IN MISS ECCLESTON'S SITTING-ROOM.
Miss Eccleston was a dark, heavy-looking person; she was not asattractive either in appearance or manner as Miss Heath. She wasestimable, and the college authorities thought most highly of her, buther character possessed more hardness than softness, and she was not aspopular with the girls and young lecturers who lived in Katharine Hallas was Miss Heath with her girls.
When Maggie entered Miss Eccleston's sitting-room that evening, shefound the room about half-full of eager, excited-looking girls. MissEccleston was standing up and speaking; Miss Heath was leaning againstthe wall; a velvet curtain made a background which brought out hermassive an
d grand figure in full relief.
Miss Eccleston looked excited and angry; Miss Heath's expression was alittle perplexed, and a kind of sorrowful mirth brought smiles to herlips now and then, which she was most careful to suppress instantly.
As Maggie made her way to the front of the room she recognised severalof the girls. Rosalind Merton, Annie Day, Lucy Marsh, were all present.She saw them, although they were standing hidden behind many othergirls. Prissie, too, was there--she had squeezed herself into a corner.She looked awkward, plain, and wretched. She was clasping andunclasping her hands, and trying to subdue the nervous tremors which shecould not conceal.
Maggie, as she
