new idea, and these she turned over and over in her active, strong,
young brain until she assimilated them and made them part of herself.

Among the few things that had been saved from her early home there was
a box of her father's old books, and as these comprised several of the
early poets and essayists, she might have gone further and fared
worse.

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