“I, Dorothy Sedgewick, offer myself as a candidate for the Lamb Bursary. I promise to abide by the conditions laid down, and I declare myself a fit person to be enrolled.”
Again the Head bowed in response to the inquiring look of Mr. Melrose, who asked Dorothy to join the others on the dais, and she went forward, feeling as if she was treading on air. It seemed such a solemn ceremony, and there was the same sensation of awe in her heart that she felt when she was in church.
She was in the midst of writing her name when she heard the stir of another girl rising and then the words:—
“I, Rhoda Fleming, offer myself——”
Dorothy paused with her pen suspended, and her face went ashen white, as the glib tongue of Rhoda repeated the declaration that she was a fit person to be enrolled. Oh, how could she do it? Was it possible that Tom was right, and the average girl had no sense at all of honour, or moral obligation?
“Will you finish your signature, if you please, Miss Sedgewick.” It was the quiet voice of the gentleman taking the signatures that broke in upon Dorothy’s confused senses. Murmuring an apology, she finished writing her name, and went across to sit beside Daisy Goatby, while Rhoda came up to the dais to sign the enrollment paper. Joan Fletcher was the next, and she was followed by Jessie Wayne. Dora Selwyn, the head girl, did not compete; she was specializing in botany and geology, and did not want to be compelled to give her time to other subjects. There were seven candidates this year: last year there had been four, and the year before there had been eight. As Miss Groome, the Form-mistress remarked, seven was a good workable number, sufficient to make competition keen, but not too many to crowd each other in the race.
At the conclusion of the little ceremony the girls rose to their feet to sing “Auld Lang Syne,” and then with a rousing three-times-three—the first for Miss Lamb of evergreen memory, the second for the school, and the third for the newly-enrolled—they swarmed out to the grounds, for the rest of the day was to be holiday. They were to have a tennis tournament among themselves, with a box of chocolates for first prize, and an ounce of the strongest peppermints to be bought in Sowergate as consolation to the one who should score the least.
The three gentlemen stayed to lunch, and sat at the high table in the dining-room with the Head and such of the staff as were not at the lower tables carving.
The seven candidates had been decorated with huge white rosettes, in recognition of their position, and the talk at table was chiefly about Miss Lamb and her unfortunate love story.
“I expect she was afraid if she had married the man her uncle would have cut her out of his will, and so she would have been poor,” said Rhoda, who was very bright and gay.