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 classics 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.
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