She did not sit at her work chatting and laughing with the others who remained behind, long after school hours, but immediately left the schoolroom, and proceeded to don her hat and ulster in haste, lest any one should come out before she could leave. Just as she lifted her glove she noticed something white on a table in one corner, and notwithstanding her haste she was moved by a strong desire to go over and look at it. It turned out to be a heap of manuscript.
"Why, it's Minnie Kimberly's," she said to herself. "Her Latin translation for the examination! just like her to leave it about in this manner!" she ran her eye over several lines.
"How beautiful!" she exclaimed, under her breath, "I could do nothing like it if I tried a hundred years. I am not afraid of her in anything else, but if she sends this, I may give up hope."
Then a strong temptation seized her to hide the manuscript, and so not only be revenged on Minnie for her humiliation, but also secure the certainty of her success in the examination.
"Why should she have everything?" she asked petulantly, "Is it not enough for her that she has sweet temper, and popularity, and—Christianity," and her lip did not curl at the word now that she was alone as it certainly would have done had there been others by. An expression of deep pain came into her beautiful face, and putting down the manuscript where she had found it, she laid her head on the dusty table and something like a sigh escaped her.
"No!" she said, in her excitement speaking aloud. "Minnie shall have the prize. She deserves it as she does all the gifts my selfish heart so wickedly envies her; we may not be friends, but at least we can be fair rivals."
A step was heard in the room, and without looking round to ascertain whose it might be, Mona snatched up her gloves and disappeared.
Minnie, for it was she, stood staring in a dazed sort of way at the place where Mona had been, not a moment before, in such an attitude of dejection as no one had ever believed her capable of yielding to, and thoroughly mystified by her last words which had reached her ears. All at once she noticed the paper on the table, and recognised it at once as her Latin translation.
"So that was it," she soliloquised. "Poor girl, she isn't happy, I am afraid. I wish we could be friends. Mab and I would soon manage to get her into a more cheerful frame of mind. If she would only join the Mission, she was the unintentional means of forming, she would find a great deal more satisfaction in her life. However, she need not be afraid of this," and she touched the pages of her work lovingly. "I don't think I will send it after all."
The meeting, so strangely convened, was held as agreed, and was numerously attended by those young ladies who lived within a convenient distance. Many who did not, sent letters expressing regret for the same, and sympathy for their object, some also sending subscriptions, and offering any other kind of aid it might be in their power to bestow.