“Oh, yes; but there is no time for anything of that sort here—­ nor——­” Priscilla hesitated.  “I don’t think there’s space for a very long walk here,” she added.  The color rushed into her cheeks as she spoke and her eyes looked wistful.

Maggie laughed.

“What are your ideas in regard to space, Miss Peel?  The whole of Kingsdeneshire lies before us.  We are untrammeled and can go where we please.  Is not that a sufficiently broad area for our roamings?”

“But there is no sea,” said Priscilla.  “We should never have time to walk from here to the sea, and nothing—­ nothing else seems worth while.”

“Oh, you have lived by the sea?”

“Yes, all my life.  When I was a little girl, my home was near Whitby, in Yorkshire, and lately I have lived close to Lyme—­ two extreme points of England, you will say; but no matter, the sea is the same.  To walk for miles on the top of the cliffs, that means exercise.”

“Ah,” said Maggie with a sigh, “I understand you—­ I know what you mean.”

She spoke quickly, as she always did under the least touch of excitement.  “Such a walk means more than exercise; it means thought, aspiration.  Your brain seems to expand then and ideas come.  Of course you don’t care for poor flat Kingsdeneshire.”

Priscilla turned and stared at Miss Oliphant.  Maggie laughed; she raised her hand to her forehead.

“I must not talk any more,” she said, turning pale and shrinking into herself.  “Forgive my rhapsodies.  You’ll understand what they are worth when you know me better.  Oh, by the way, will you come with me to Kingsdene on Sunday?  We can go to the three o’clock service at the chapel and afterward have tea with some friends of mine—­ the Marshalls—­ they’d be delighted to see you.”

“What chapel is the service at?” inquired Priscilla.

“What chapel?  Is there a second?  Come with me, and you will never ask that question again.  Get under the shade of St. Hilda’s—­ see once those fretted roofs and those painted windows.  Listen but once to that angel choir, and then dare to ask me what chapel I mean when I invite you to come and taste of heaven beforehand.”

“Thank you,” said Priscilla, “I’ll come.  I cannot be expected to know about things before I have heard of them, can I?  But I am very much obliged to you, and I shall be delighted to come.”

CHAPTER IX

 A new life

The vice-principal’s room at Heath Hall was double the size of those occupied by the students.  Miss Heath had, of course, a separate sleeping apartment.  Her delightful sitting-room, therefore, had not the curtained-off effect which took slightly from the charm of the students’ rooms.  In summer Miss Heath’s room was beautiful, for the two deep bay windows—­ one facing west, the other south—­ looked out upon smoothly kept lawns and flower-beds, upon tall elm trees and also upon a distant peep of the river, for which Kingsdene was famous, and some of the spires and towers of the old churches.  In winter, too, however—­ and winter had almost come now—­ the vice-principal’s room had a unique effect, and Priscilla never forgot the first time she saw it.  The young girl stepped across the threshold of a new life on this first evening.  She would always remember it.