Annabel and Maggie were both so beautiful in appearance, so far above
the average girl in their pose, their walk, their manner that people
noticed these friends wherever they went. A young and rising artist,
who saw them once at St. Hilda's, begged permission to make a picture
of the pair. It was done during the summer recess before Annabel died
and made a sensation in the next year's Academy. Many of the visitors
who went there stopped and looked at the two faces, both in the
perfection of their youthful bloom and beauty. Few guessed that one
even now had gone to the Home best fitted for so ardent and high a
spirit.
Annabel Lee died a year before Priscilla came to the college. Whatever
Maggie inwardly felt, she had got over her first grief; her smile was
again as brilliant as when Annabel Lee was by her side, her laugh was
as merry; but the very few who could look a little way into Maggie's
perverse and passionate heart knew well that something had died in her
which could never live again, that her laugh was often hollow and her
brilliant smile had only a foundation in bitterness.
Maggie did not only grieve for her friend when she mourned for
Annabel. She had loved her most deeply, and love alone would have
caused her agony in such a loss; but Maggie's keenest and most
terrible feelings were caused by an unavailing regret.
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