"Oh, thank you so much," said Annie. She coloured faintly. "Perhaps you would not be straight," she said after a minute, "if you had no prospect whatever in life but Uncle Maurice--Uncle Maurice, and all the old women in the parish, every one of them, setting their caps at him, and knitting comforters for his dear throat, and working slippers for his dear feet, and asking about his precious cough, and if he would like some more red-currant jelly. Perhaps _you_ would be a little crooked if you had to sit by the hour holding slobbering babies on your lap at mothers' meetings, and getting your best frock jammed over by the horrid village children. Oh, it is not a life to recommend itself, I can tell you!" "Poor Annie!" said Mabel, "I do pity you. But, of course, you won't be always with your uncle Maurice. Now forgive me for speaking as I did, and tell me your plan." [This page missing.] nest you are trying to land me in, Annie! As if Priscilla would consent!" "Priscilla will consent. I have sounded her, and I know she will. She fights shy of it, of course, at first, but she will consent, and before morning." "But, Annie, what good will it do her? My going away from the school won't give her money to stay here." "Ah," said Annie, "now comes the crux. You must give her money to stay; you must manage it. You always have heaps of pocket-money. You must undertake to pay all her school expenses for at least a year." "Now you are a silly!" answered Mabel. "To begin with, I have not the slightest idea what Priscilla's school bills amount to. I know nothing about my own school bills, far less hers. Aunt Henrietta pays for me, and there's an end of the thing." "Mabel," said Annie, who was now very much excited, "don't be horrid, please. Listen to me." "I am listening. You are propounding an impossible plan, and I am telling you my opinion. Have you anything further to say to me?" "A great deal. Your aunt is very rich." "Rich? Oh, I imagine so. My aunt Henrietta--Lady Lushington--can go where she likes and do what she likes. She never denies herself anything at all." "Nor you, Mabel, anything at all." "Isn't she denying me my liberty, and is that nothing?"