This scheme, however, was not carried out.  For, shortly after her seventeenth birthday, Maggie Oliphant met a girl whose beauty and brilliance were equal to her own, whose nature was stronger and who had been carefully trained in heart and mind while Maggie had been neglected.  Miss Lee was going through a course of training at St. Benet’s College for Women at Kingsdene.  She was an uncommon girl in every sense of the word.  The expression of her lovely face was as piquant as its features were beautiful; her eyes were dark as night; they also possessed the depth of the tenderest, sweetest summer night, subjugating all those who came in contact with her.  Annabel Lee won Maggie’s warmest affections at once; she determined to join her friend at St. Benet’s.  She spoke with ineffable scorn of her London season and resolved, with that enthusiasm which was the strongest part of her nature, to become a student in reality.  Under Annabel’s guidance she took up the course of study which was necessary to enable her to pass her entrance examination.  She acquitted herself well, for her abilities were of the highest order, and entered the college with eclat.  Miss Lee was a student in Heath Hall, and Maggie thought herself supremely happy when she was given a room next to her friend.

Those were brilliant days at the hall.  Some girls resided there at this time whose names were destined to be known in the world by and by.  The workers were earnest; the tone which pervaded the life at Heath Hall was distinctly high.  Shallow girls there must always be where any number are to be found together, but, during Maggie Oliphant’s first year, these girls had little chance of coming to the front.  Maggie, who was as easily influenced as a wave is tossed by the wind, rose quickly to the heights with her companions.  Her splendid intellect developed each day.  She was merry with the merry, glad with the glad, studious with the studious.  She was also generous, kind and unselfish in company with those girls who observed the precepts of the higher life.  Next to Miss Lee, Maggie was one of the most popular girls in the college.  Annabel Lee had the kindest of hearts, as well as the most fascinating of ways.  She was an extraordinary girl; there was a great deal of the exotic about her; in many ways she was old for her years.  No one ever thought or spoke of her as a prig, but all her influence was brought to bear in the right direction.  The girl who could do or think meanly avoided the expression of Annabel’s beautiful eyes.  It was impossible for her to think badly of her fellow-creatures, but meanness and sin made her sorrowful.  There was not a girl in Heath Hall who would willingly give Annabel Lee sorrow.

In the days that followed people knew that she was one of those rare and brilliant creatures who, like a lovely but too ethereal flower, must quickly bloom into perfection and then pass away.  Annabel was destined to a short life, and after her death the high tone of Heath Hall deteriorated considerably.