“I don’t know; I cannot always remember things so well,” she answered. “But it was all so interesting, and the professor has such a way of ticking his facts off, it is so easy to keep them in mind.”
“There is one comfort,” said Hazel. “You will be certain to be in the Sixth after the little affair of this morning.”
“I don’t know about that,” replied Dorothy, thinking of some of the questions on the paper she had filled in that morning.
A little later there came to her a message summoning her to the Head’s private room, and she went in fear and trembling. If she was put in the Sixth, she would be able to enter for the Lamb Bursary; if she was not in the Sixth her chance would be gone for always, for she knew that it was quite impossible for her to stay at school for more than one year.
Miss Arden was very kind; she made Dorothy sit down, and drawing out the Sixth Form examination paper, began to talk to her about it.
“In many ways,” began the Head, speaking in her calmly assured manner, “I do not think you are up to the level of the Sixth, but in other things you are very good indeed. I was still debating whether to put you straight into the Sixth, or to keep you for one term in the Upper Fifth to see how you would shape; but before I had really made up my mind, Professor Plimsoll came in and told me of what happened at his lecture. He was so impressed with your ability that, acting on his suggestion, I am going to put you straight into the Sixth, and I hope that you will work hard enough to justify me in having done this. It is very unusual for a new girl to be put into the Sixth. Different schools have different methods of work, and a girl has usually to be with us a little time before we feel sufficiently sure of her. However, I hope it is all going to be quite right.”
“Thank you very much; I will be sure to work,” murmured Dorothy, and her eyes were shining like two stars at the prospect before her; then she asked in a low tone, her voice a little shaken, “May I enter for the Lamb Bursary, now that I am going to be in the Sixth?”
Miss Arden smiled. “You can enter if you wish. Indeed, I shall be very glad if you do. Even if you are not within seeing distance of getting it, the discipline and the hard work will be good for you. It will be good for the others too, for the more candidates the better the work that is done. Rhoda Fleming was to have left last term, but she has come back for the purpose of competing. I hope that next week, when the candidates are enrolled, a good number of the Sixth will offer themselves.”
Dorothy went out from the presence of the Head, feeling as if she was walking on air. How wonderful that she was in the Sixth! How still more wonderful that it was really her humiliation at Professor Plimsoll’s lecture which was the means of putting her there. It had not seemed a very awful thing to stand up beside the professor and repeat to him what she remembered of his lecture, but it had been a very keen humiliation indeed to find that he had considered her a time-waster, and had really called her out to shame her in the eyes of the others. She had suffered tortures while the girls were cheering her. Yet if all that had not happened, she would not have been in the Sixth now, with the possibility of winning the Lamb Bursary in front of her.
Rhoda Fleming was coming down the stairs as she went up. Just when passing, Rhoda leaned towards her, and smiling maliciously, murmured, “Prig!”