“You must not overwork yourself, my dear,” said Miss Heath. “That would be a very false beginning. I think— I am sure— that you have an earnest and ardent nature, but you must avoid an extreme which will only end in disaster.” Prissie frowned. “What do you mean?” she said. “I have come here to study. It has been done with such, such difficulty. It would be cruel to waste a moment. I mustn’t; it wouldn’t be right. You can’t mean what you say.” Miss Heath was silent. She thought it kinder to look away from Prissie. After a moment she said in a voice which she on purpose made intensely quiet and matter of fact: “Many girls come to St. Benet’s, Miss Peel, who are, I fancy, circumstanced like you. Their friends find it difficult to send them here, but they make the sacrifice, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another— and the girls come. They know it is their duty to study; they have an ulterior motive, which underlies everything else. They know by and by they must pay back.” “Oh, yes,” said Priscilla, starting forward and a flush coming into her face. “I know that— that is what it is for. To pay back worthily— to give back a thousandfold what you have received. Those girls can’t be idle, can they?” she added in a gentle, piteous sort of way. “My dear, there have been several such girls at St. Benet’s, and none of them has been idle; they have been best and first among our students. Many of them have done more than well— many of them have brought fame to St. Benet’s. They are in the world now and earning honorable livelihoods as teachers or in other departments where cultivated women can alone take the field. These girls are all paying back a thousandfold those who have helped them.” “Yes,” said Prissie. “You would like to follow their example?” “Oh, yes; please tell me about them.” “Some of them were like you and thought they would take up everything— everything I mean in the scholastic line. They filled their days with lectures and studied into the short hours of the night. Maggie, dear, please tell Miss Peel about Good-night and Good-morning.” “They were such a funny pair,” said Maggie. “They had rooms next to each other in our corridor, Miss Peel. They were both studying for a tripos, and during the term before the examination one went to bed at four and one got up at four. Mary Joliffe used to go into Susan Martin’s room and say good morning to her. Susan used to raise such a white face and say, ‘Good night, my dear.’ Well, poor things, neither of them got a tripos; they worked too hard.”