Kitty herself knew nothing of these whispers. She was very busy planning and reconstructing all her previous ideas with regard to education. Her first object was to come out one of the happy three who were to compete for the Scholarship in the coming October. If she succeeded in this she felt sure that all would be well. She began now eagerly to examine her companion's faces. Sometimes they turned away from her bright, almost too bright, eyes, but then again they would look at her with a certain compassion.
It would be very nice, they all thought, to win the Scholarship—there was no girl at Cherry Court School who would not feel proud to get so great a prize—but they also knew that what would be merely nice for them was life or death for poor Kitty Sharston, and yet nothing had been told them; they only surmised that there was a wish in Mrs. Clavering's breast that Kitty should be the lucky girl.
On a certain afternoon about a week before the Cherry Feast, Mabel and Alice Cunningham, with Florence Aylmer and Edith King, were once more assembled under one of the cherry trees in the cherry orchard.
"I am sure of it," said Alice. "Of course, it is nothing that I have heard, but it is a sort of look in Mrs. Clavering's face, and she is so eager to give Kitty all sorts of help. She has her by herself now every evening to coach her for an hour."
"Well, for my part, I don't call it a bit fair," said Florence Aylmer.
"Florry! Oh, surely you are not jealous, and of poor little Kitty?"
"I am not exactly jealous—oh, no, I am not jealous," said Florence, "but it rather takes the heart out of one. If after all one's trouble and toil and exertion one gets the thing and then Mrs. Clavering is discontented and Kitty Sharston's heart is broken, I don't see the use of having a big fight—do you, Mabel? do you, Edith?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Edith; "I only feel puzzled; perhaps it is a mere suspicion and there is no truth in it."
"I cannot imagine, if it is really Sir John's wish that Kitty should be the successful competitor, why he does not give her the money straight away and end the thing," said Florence again.
"But, you see, he could not do that," said Mabel, "for Kitty is very proud and——"