One day the old clergyman who lived at a small vicarage near called to see Miss Peel. He discovered Priscilla deep over Carlyle’s “History of the French Revolution.” The young girl had become absorbed in the fascination of the wild and terrible tale. Some of the horror of it had got into her eyes as she raised them to return Mr. Hayes’ courteous greeting. His attention was arrested by the look she gave him. He questioned her about her reading, and presently offered to help her. From this hour Priscilla made rapid progress. She was not taught in the ordinary fashion, but she was being really educated. Her life was full now; she knew nothing about the world, nothing about society. She had no ambitions and she did not trouble herself to look very far ahead. The old classics which she studied from morning till night abundantly satisfied her really strong intellectual nature. Mr. Hayes allowed her to talk with him, even to argue points with him. He always liked her to draw her own conclusions; he encouraged her really original ideas; he was proud of his pupil, and he grew fond of her. It was not Priscilla’s way to say a word about it, but she soon loved the old clergyman as if he were her father. Some time between her sixteenth and seventeenth birthday that awakening came which altered the whole course of her life. It was a summer’s day Priscilla was seated in the old wainscoted parlor of the cottage, devouring a book lent to her by Mr. Hayes on the origin of the Greek drama and occasionally bending to kiss little Katie, who sat curled up in her arms, when the two elder children rushed in with the information that Aunt Raby had suddenly lain flat down in the hayfield, and they thought she was asleep. Prissie tumbled her book in one direction and Katie in the other. In a moment she was kneeling by Miss Peel’s side. “What is it, Aunt Raby?” she asked tenderly. “Are you ill?” The tired woman opened her eyes slowly. “I think I fainted, dear love,” she said. “Perhaps it was the heat of the sun.” Priscilla managed to get her back into the house. She grew better presently and seemed something like herself, but that evening the aunt and niece had a long talk, and the next day Prissie went up to see Mr. Hayes. “I am interested,” he said when he saw her enter the room, “to see how you have construed that passage in Cicero, Priscilla. You know I warned you of its difficulty.” “Oh, please, sir, don’t,” said Prissie, holding up her hand with an impatient movement, which she now and then found herself indulging in. “I don’t care if Cicero is at the bottom of the sea. I don’t want to speak about him or think about him. His day is over, mine is— oh, sir, I beg your pardon.” “Granted, my dear child. Sit down, Prissie. I will forgive your profane words about Cicero, for I see you are excited. What is the matter?” “I want you to help me, Mr. Hayes. Will you help me? You have always been my dear friend, my good friend.”