“Oh, dad!” Gretta held fast to the envelope, unable just yet to give it up even for a moment. “It’s from Miss Slater. How could I deserve it, really? But she says—she says——”
“Out with it,” said the doctor in a professional voice.
“It’s the Hope-Scott Shield, and it’s to be given to-day”—Gretta spoke in gasps—“and so Miss Slater wrote to me first, because——”
“Well?” inquired the doctor patiently, while his bacon grew colder every minute on his plate.
“Because they’re giving it to me!” choked Gretta, and rushed out of the doctor’s room like a whirlwind, just in time to prevent herself from committing the unpardonable offence of bursting into tears by her patient’s side.
“Well, well, well!” said the doctor. He picked up the letter that had dropped to the floor beside him, and was forced to polish his glasses several times very carefully before he could read its contents.
Mrs. Hope-Scott had heard, Miss Slater wrote, how Gretta had cheerfully agreed to give up her life at school in favour of her little sister, and go back to duties at home. She would like, therefore, to offer her the shield, in recognition of what she herself considered to be an act of bravery, shown in everyday surroundings, perhaps, but none the less courageous for that. “You will try to live up to the words on the shield, I know,” wrote the head mistress; “though written of Britomart, the maiden-knight, I should wish them to prove true of all the girls who have been at the Cliff School.”
“But I can’t believe it yet, dad,” said Gretta later on, when, seated beside the invalid in the drawing-room, she awaited with sparkling eyes the coming of the travellers. “What will they say? The girls at school can’t think I deserved it! Hark!” as the peal of the front-door bell sounded through the house. “I believe they’ve come.”
But the visitor proved to be Mr. Courtney, in a state of excitement so great about something or other that he scarcely seemed to take in Gretta’s wonderful piece of information. “I’ve news,” he announced, entering the room as he spoke, and addressing the doctor; “and news that you will be uncommonly glad to hear.”
“News! More news!” Gretta held her breath. Could it be from Auntie Tib?