"
"So I can and so I will, dear child. God bless you. You are happy
now."
"Happy!" Maggie's eyes were glistening through the softest rainbow of
tears. Hammond came and took the hand which she had suddenly thrown at
her side.
"We both owe everything to Priscilla," he said.
CONCLUSION
BEFORE Maggie Oliphant left St. Benet's she brought some of the honor
which had long been expected from her to the dearly loved halls: she
took a first class in her tripos examination. With her mind at rest, a
great deal of the morbidness of her character disappeared, and her
last term at St. Benet's reminded the students who had known her in
Annabel Lee's time of the old, brilliant and happy Maggie. Miss
Oliphant's bad half-hours became rarer and rarer, and Hammond laughed
when she spoke to him of them and said that she could not expect him
to believe in their existence.
Shortly after the conclusion of the summer term Maggie and Hammond
were married, and her little world at St. Benet's had to get on
without the presence which had always exerted the influence of a
strong personality and which had been potent both for good and evil.
By this time, however, a girl whose personal charms were few, whose
poverty was apparent and whose gaucherie was even now often extreme,
was more than filling the place left vacant by Maggie.
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