The other girls turned and twisted a little and finally fell asleep too; Gretta was the last, and her first dream was of her father, sitting alone with his pipe in the cheerless dining-room at home.
CHAPTER VI
THE HOPE-SCOTT PRIZE
“ARE you going to try for the prize, Gretta? And isn’t it a funny one?”
So spoke Sybil, who, trotting by the side of her sister in the middle rank of the long crocodile of girls that was being marshalled by Miss Read for the first walk of the term, looked jolly enough certainly, and anything but home-sick.
“I suppose everybody’ll try for it,” said Gretta slowly, “but I shouldn’t think there’s any chance for us; you see we’ve never thought much about being brave, and it seems such a new kind of thing. Did you understand what Miss Slater said about it at Prayers, Sybil?”
“About its being for the girl who did the bravest thing this term?” replied her younger sister. “Why, yes, of course, that much I did. But when she talked about different kinds of brave things, I really didn’t listen much; I was so longing to hear what the prize was going to be. But—a golden shield, Gretta—I’d never guessed it would be a thing like that, and with those funny words. And who was Brito—— I’ve forgotten the rest; I wasn’t listening very much just then.”
“Britomart, you mean,” said Gretta. “I hadn’t heard about her before, either. She was a Knight, Sybil, but not quite the same as the ones we know about. She was a Maiden-Knight, you know, of very long ago, and very brave. That’s what the words mean: ‘Ne Evill Thing She Feard.’ They were true about her, Miss Slater said, and they’re going to be printed on the bravery-shield.”
“She must have been awfully brave, then. I suppose she didn’t mind the—the dark, or anything, Gretta; but, I say, it was funny spelling, though,” remarked Sybil wisely. “D’you know, when we got back to the class-room, Gretta, Miss Taylor wrote it up on the blackboard—those words, I mean—and she talked about it a lot. But I thought—though I didn’t say it, of course——”
“And a jolly good thing too, Mistress Sybil!” remarked Josy from behind, where she was walking with Stella, and listening to the child’s high-pitched voice.
“Be quiet!” flashed Sybil angrily. “I wasn’t talking to you, and you don’t even know me!”