Prissie put out a timid hand and touched Maggie on the arm.  She turned abruptly.

“I forgot,” she said to her companion.  “Please wait for me outside, Hester; I’ll join you in a moment.  I have just a word to say to Miss Peel.  What is it, Prissie” said Maggie then, when the other girl had walked out of hearing.  “Why did you touch me?”

“Oh, for nothing much,” replied Prissie, half frightened at her manner, which was sweet enough but had an intangible hardness about it, which Priscilla felt, but could not fathom.  “I thought you’d be so glad about the decision Miss Heath and Miss Eccleston have come to.”

“No, I am not particularly glad.  I can’t stay now to talk it over, however; Hester Stuart wants me to practise a duet with her.”

“May I come to your room later on, Maggie?”

“Not to-night, I think; I shall be very busy.”

Miss Oliphant nodded brightly and disappeared out of the dining-hall.

Two girls were standing not far off.  They had watched this little scene, and they now observed that Prissie clasped her hands and that a woe-begone expression crossed her face.

“The spell is beginning to work,” whispered one to the other.  “When the knight proves unfaithful the most gracious lady must suffer resentment.”

Priscilla did not hear these words.  She went slowly upstairs and back to her own room, where she wrote letters home, and made copious notes from her last lectures, and tried not to think of the little cloud which seemed to have come between her and Maggie.

Late, on that same evening, Polly Singleton, who had just been entertaining a chosen bevy of friends in her own room, after the last had bidden her an affectionate “good night,” was startled at hearing a low knock at her door.  She opened it at once.  Miss Oliphant stood without.

“May I come in?” she asked.

“Why, of course.  I’m delighted to see you.  How kind of you to come.  Where will you sit?  I’m afraid you won’t find things very comfortable, for most of my furniture is gone.  But there’s the bed; do you mind sitting on the bed?”

“If I want to sit at all the bed is as snug a place as any,” replied Maggie.  “But I’m not going to stay a moment, for it is very late.  See, I have brought you this back.”

Polly looked, and for the first time observed that her own sealskin jacket hung on Maggie’s arm.

“What do you mean?” she said.  “My sealskin jacket!  Oh, my beauty!  But it isn’t mine, it’s yours now.  Why do you worry me—­ showing it to me again?”

“I don’t want to worry you, Miss Singleton.  I mean what I say.  I have brought your jacket back.”

“But it is yours—­ you bought it.”

“I gave a nominal price for it, but that doesn’t make it mine.  Anyhow, I have no use for it.  Please take it back again.”

Poor Polly blushed very red all over her face.