"She has won the Scholarship. Yes, it will be such a joy. She needed it so badly, and has worked so hard." "I hate her!" "She was always kind to you. I remember the very first day she took you round the grounds. You were very good friends." "I hate her, I tell you! I detest her name." "I am sure you will write and congratulate her. Imagine if _your_ parents were poor, and you saw them harassed and anxious, how thankful you would feel to be able to help! Kathleen had a harder time than any of you, for she could take none of the nice, interesting `Extras.' I think all her friends will be glad that she has won." "I shall be glad, too, in about ten years. If I said I was glad now I should be a hypocrite, for I wanted it myself. I suppose Irene is all right, and Bertha, and all the Head girls? Has--has Dorothy--" "Yes, Dorothy has passed too." Rhoda cried aloud in bitter distress. "Oh, Evie--oh! Dorothy passed, and I have failed! Oh it is cruel-- unjust. I am cleverer than she! You can't deny it. I worked harder. I was before her always, in every class, in every exam. Oh, it's mean, it's mean that they should have put her before me!" The tears streamed down her face, for this was perhaps the bitterest moment she had known. To be beaten by Kathleen, and Irene, was bearable, but--Dorothy! Easy-going, mediocre Dorothy, who had so little ambition that she could laugh at her own shortcomings, and contentedly call herself a "tortoise." Well, the tortoise had come off victor once more, and the poor, beaten hare sat quivering with mortified grief. Miss Everett looked at her with perplexed, anxious eyes. "You will probably find when the full report comes out that you have done better in most respects, but that it is the preliminaries which have caused your failure. But Rhoda, Rhoda, how would it help you to know that another poor girl had failed, and was as miserable as yourself? Would you be _glad_ to hear that Dorothy was sitting crying at home, and Kathleen bearing her parents' grief as well as her own? You could not possibly be so selfish. I know you too well. You are far too kind and generous." "I'm a pig!" said Rhoda contritely, and the tears trickled dismally off the end of her nose, and splashed on to the wooden table. "I should like to be a saint, and resigned, and rejoice in the good fortunes of my companions like the girls in books, but I can't. I just feel sore, and mad, and aching, and as if they were all in conspiracy against me to make my failure more bitter. You had better give it up, Evie, and leave me to fight it out alone. I'll come to my senses in time, and write pretty, gushing letters to say how charmed I am--and make funny little jokes at the end about my own collapse. This is Monday--perhaps by Wednesday or Thursday--"