"Got 'em _all_ on, haven't I?" she enquired genially. "Must do honour to the occasion, you know, and here's yourself all a-blowing, all a- growing, looking as fresh as a daisy, in your grand white clothes!" "Indeed, then, I feel nothing of the kind, or it must be a very dejected daisy. You have heard the news, of course, and know that I am--" "Plucked!" concluded Tom, pronouncing the awful word without a quiver. "Yes. Thought you would be; you were so cheap that arithmetic morning. You can't do sums when you are on the point of fainting every second minute... Very good results on the whole." "Yes, but--isn't it awful for me? Don't you pity me? I never in my life had such a blow." "Bit of a jar, certainly, but it's over now, and can't be helped. No use whining!" said Tom calmly, and Rhoda gave a little jump in her seat. After all, can anyone minister to a youthful sufferer like a friend of her own age? Tom's remarks would hardly have been considered comforting by an outsider, yet by one short word she had helped Rhoda more than any elderly comforter had been able to do. It was interesting and praiseworthy to grieve over such a disappointment as she had experienced, to be sorrowful, even heart-broken, but _to whine_! That put an entirely different aspect on her grief! To whine was feeble, childish, and undignified, a thing to which no self-respecting girl could stoop. As Rhoda recalled her tears and repinings, a flush of shame came to her cheeks, and she resolved that, whatever she might have to suffer in the future, she would, at least, keep it to herself, and not proclaim her trouble on the house-tops.