"No; let us think of only pleasant things to-night," said Florence.
"Well, come down on the beach, Flo. I am all agog to hear your news. What is this about the Scholarship?"
"Oh, Mummy, need we talk of this either to-night?" said Florence, frowning.
"Well, yes, I should like it," said Mrs. Aylmer; "you see, you know all about it, and I don't. You told me so little in your letter. You don't write half as long letters as you used to, Flo. I wish you would, for I have nothing else to divert me. I have turned and re-turned my best dress—I turned it upside down last year, and downside up this year, and back to front and front to back, and I am trimming it now with frills which I have cut another old skirt up to make, and I really cannot do anything more with it. It won't by stylish, try as I will, and your Aunt Susan hasn't sent me a cast-off of hers for the last two years. It's very stingy of her, very stingy indeed. She sells her clothes now to a dealer in London who buys up all sorts of wardrobes. Before she found out this wardrobe-dealer I used to get her cast-offs and managed quite nicely. It's horrid of her. She is a very unamiable character. Don't you ever take after her, Florry, be sure you don't."
"I hate her quite as cordially as you do, mother; but now come along by the shore and I'll tell you about the Scholarship, if you really wish to know."
Which Florence did, with one arm clasped tightly round her mother's waist, and Mrs. Aylmer almost danced by her daughter's side as she listened, and tried to fancy herself nearly as young as Florence, and was certainly quite as eager with regard to the winning of the great Scholarship.
"You must get it," she said at last, after a pause; "it would make the most tremendous, tremendous difference."
"Well, I mean to try," said Florence.
"And if you try, dear, you will succeed. You're a very clever girl, ain't you?"
"Don't say 'ain't,' mother; it is not quite——"