Priscilla

Priscilla is Anne’s close companion at Redmond and one of the young women who make a home together at Patty’s Place. The scenes that define her are modest domestic ones: arriving back at the house among friends, furnishing its rooms, and sharing with Anne the long passage from lonely freshmen to seniors nearing their final examinations. Through Priscilla, college life appears not only as study and advancement but also as a household built by women for themselves.

College Companion and Member of the Household

When the friends gather at twilight in Patty’s Place’s large living room, Priscilla is among the established members of the circle: Anne, Phil, Stella, Aunt Jamesina, and several of the household’s animals are there too. The room’s firelight, purring cats, and bowl of chrysanthemums make a warm setting for a group that has already begun to feel at home together. Priscilla’s presence in this scene places her within the affectionate company at the center of the house, rather than at its edge.

The household had been settled for three weeks, following a busy first fortnight spent arranging belongings, organizing the establishment, and adjusting to differences of opinion. That account makes the comfort of the gathering something the friends have made, not simply a quality of the rented rooms. Priscilla belongs to a group learning how to share space and decisions; the brief mention of adjusted opinions suggests that communal life required accommodation as well as companionship.

Making a Home at Patty’s Place

Priscilla takes part in furnishing the house. She, Phil, and Stella bring knick-knacks and pictures and hang the pictures according to their own taste, disregarding Miss Patty’s request that the newly papered living room not acquire unnecessary holes. Anne objects, but the decorators reassure her that they will putty the holes when they leave. Priscilla’s contribution is recorded as part of a collective enterprise: the rooms become personal through the friends’ possessions and choices, even when those choices risk a small breach of the owners’ rules.

The appeal of this domestic arrangement lies in its independence as well as its sociability. Phil compares putting the nest in order to the pleasure of getting married, but without the bother of a husband. That comparison frames Patty’s Place as a form of shared domestic life chosen by young women on their own terms. Priscilla is not shown making an argument about independence; her participation in decorating and maintaining the house gives the idea its everyday form. The home is assembled from contributions, negotiated preferences, and the friends’ confidence that they can repair the holes later.

The prospect of another year at Patty’s Place extends this sense of belonging beyond a temporary experiment. Stella celebrates the prospect that the friends can keep the house and avoid being cast back into boardinghouses. Priscilla is part of the household included in that anticipation. The scene makes the possible loss of the house matter because it would mean the scattering of a shared domestic circle, not merely a change of address.

From Freshmen to Seniors

Priscilla’s connection with Anne reaches back to their arrival at Redmond. Looking toward their final examinations, Anne recalls that she and Priscilla were alone in the crowd of freshmen; now they are seniors. The contrast gives their companionship a clear span of time. Priscilla is not only one of the friends present in the current college household but also Anne’s companion in the remembered beginning of college life.

The recollection turns the ordinary fact of approaching examinations into a measure of change. Anne cannot readily believe that the years have passed, and the phrase “Pris and I” makes their shared history the point of comparison: two newcomers once faced an unfamiliar crowd together, and the same pair now stands at the end of its Redmond course. The evidence does not detail Priscilla’s individual academic ambitions or private response to graduation, but it establishes her place alongside Anne at this important threshold.

Narrative Role

Priscilla’s role in these scenes is defined through continuity and participation. She belongs both to the larger circle that makes Patty’s Place lively and to Anne’s more intimate memory of their first days at college. The house-building episode gives that companionship material expression: pictures go onto the walls, the rooms acquire the marks of their occupants, and a rented place becomes a shared nest.

The later recollection widens the significance of those domestic scenes. Patty’s Place belongs to a particular period of college life, while Priscilla’s companionship links that period to the girls’ freshman arrival and senior examinations. Her portrayal rests on shared experience rather than a separate dramatic arc: she helps make a home with her friends and remains beside Anne in the narrative’s account of how quickly college years have carried them from beginnings to an ending.