“It’s a mystery, so far,” explained the dormitory head with enthusiasm, “but it’s sure to be most awfully thrilling. Mrs. Hope-Scott, a great friend of Miss Slater’s, you know, has offered it—the prize, I mean—to the school.”
“But what for?” inquired Margot eagerly.
“Well, that’s what we don’t know. On the last day of last term Miss Slater told us there was to be one; but she is to tell us more about it on the first day of this term—that’s to-morrow, you know—and we’re all just longing to hear.”
“If it’s for lessons, there’s no chance for me,” groaned Stella.
“But if it’s for music, perhaps Gretta might get it,” burst in Margot excitedly. “Mother says——”
“Oh, it won’t be for anything like that, I should think,” said Josy. “It’s a prize, Miss Slater said, that anyone could get; ‘from the oldest to the youngest; age will make no difference, nor intellectual ability,’ that’s exactly what she said. I didn’t know what it meant, and Miss Read told me afterwards—for I asked her—that it means that you needn’t be so awfully clever.”
“New girls might have a chance, then?” ventured Gretta.
“Oh, rather,” replied Josy. “That won’t make any difference. Mrs. Hope-Scott had a girl at school here once; Hilda her name was, and she was head girl before I came. She went and trained to be a nurse, and then she died—nursing some poor people with fever, you know—and her mother is giving the prize in remembrance of her. Miss Slater told us all that on the last day of last term, and——”
“Now, not another word in here,” said nurse, opening the door and speaking very emphatically; “off you go to sleep this very instant!”
She shut it again decisively as she uttered the words, and it spoke well for the impression that Miss Read’s speech had left on Margot’s mind that, with a question on the very tip of her tongue, she yet refrained from asking it, and turned on her side to fall asleep almost before the sound of nurse’s footsteps had died away.