She did not hasten to show herself in the street of Framsby. What was Framsby to her that she should flaunt in its face her feeling in regard to her position? She had no occasion to go into the town, and she took care that she did not create an artificial necessity for the sake of displaying her unconventionality. Her friend Rosa paid her a visit, accompanied by her mother, who really liked Priscilla. Now Rosa's visit was one of congratulation, whereas her mother's was one of condolence, so that she had no reason to complain on any score. She did not complain. She took the congratulations with the condolences in the spirit in which they were offered, and so every one was satisfied.
At the end of a fortnight she began to have a longing for some traffic with the outer world. She was becoming as melancholy as the Lady of Shalott; and the _Daily Mirror_, in which she gazed every morning to find a reflection of the incidents of life, only caused her longings to be increased. The things of the farm, the incidents of the orchard, the promise of the crops, the "likely" calves, the multiplying of the lambs, now ceased to interest her. Neither her father nor her mother had encouraged her to take any interest in the great money-making farm; they gave her to understand that her part in connection with the farm was to spend the money that it made for the family. She was to be a "lady," and this involved laziness in all matters that mattered in connection with the farm. She was to give all her attention to her piano, to her painting, to her dressing, all these being accomplishments as essential to the development of a "lady" as an acquaintance with the methods of the farm was detrimental to the effecting of this end--the great end of life.
But Priscilla had, without any desire to go against the will of her parents, come to perceive how infinitely more interesting were the things of the farm than the working of tea cloths and the embroidering of teapot cosies--the eminently ladylike occupations which her mother encouraged her to pursue. The consequence was that, in the course of a year or two, she knew a great deal about the farm, and several times she had detected errors made by the men responsible for at least two of the departments; but having only communicated her knowledge to the men themselves, and not to her father, she had not hurt the susceptibilities of either the former or the latter.