The rest of the week at Dawlish passed on the wings of speed.
Mrs. Aylmer took her departure on the following morning, and neither the little Mummy nor Florence saw her again, but at the end of the week a box arrived at the widow's cottage. It was a wooden box carefully nailed down, and labelled: "This side up with care." It was addressed to Miss Florence Aylmer, and caused intense excitement, not only in the breast of Florence herself and Mrs. Aylmer, but also in that of Sukey and the near neighbors, for Mrs. Aylmer's tongue had not been idle during the few days which had passed since her sister-in-law's visit, and the intentions of Aunt Susan with regard to Florence had been freely talked over and commented on.
Nothing was said about the Scholarship. Mrs. Aylmer thought it just as well to leave that out. Her remarks were to the following effect:
"Florence is about to be adopted by her very wealthy aunt; she is already keeping her at a good school, and is about to send her some suitable dresses. In the end she will doubtless leave her her fortune."
After this Sukey and the neighbors looked with great respect at Florence, who for her part had never felt so cross in her life as when these hints were made.
"Mummy," she said once to her parent, "if I want to keep my self-respect I ought to refuse those clothes and give up Aunt Susan."
"My dear child, what do you mean? If you wanted to keep your self-respect! My dear Florence, are you mad?"
"Alas, mother, I fear I am mad," replied the girl, "for I do intend to accept Aunt Susan's bounty. I will wear her pretty dresses, and all the other things she happens to send me, and I will take her money and do my best, my very best, to get the Scholarship; but all the same, mother, I shall do it meanly, I know I shall do it meanly. It would be better for me to give up the Scholarship and go as a poor girl to Stoneley Hall. Mother, there is such a thing as lowering yourself in your own eyes, and I feel bad, bad about this."
Florence made these remarks on the evening the box arrived. The box was in the tiny sitting-room still unopened. Mrs. Aylmer was regarding it with flushed cheeks, and now after Florence's words she suddenly burst into tears.
"You try me terribly, Flo," she said, "and I have struggled so hard for your sake. This is such a splendid chance: all your future secured and I, my darling, relieved of the misery of feeling that you are unprovided for. Oh, Flo, for my sake be sensible."