"Yes, Mummy, you must take it; it is the only drop of comfort in all this. I don't like it, Mummy. I have a mind even now to——"
"To what, my dear child?"
"To take off this finery and send back the money, and just be myself. I wish to respect myself, but somehow I don't now. Oh, Mummy, Mummy, I don't like it."
"Florence, dear child, you are mad. This sudden happiness, this unlooked-for delight has slightly turned your brain—you will be all right in the future. Don't think any more about it, love. We must go upstairs now to pack your things in order to get you ready for your journey to-morrow."
"All right," said Florence.
"You have not taken your tea, dearest. Is there any little thing you would fancy—I am sure Sukey would run to the butcher's—a sweetbread or anything?"
"No, no, mother—nothing, nothing. I am not hungry—that's all."
The next morning at an early hour Florence bade her mother good-bye and started back for Cherry Court School. It was very luxurious to lie back on the soft padded cushions of the first-class carriage and gaze around her, and sometimes start up and look at her own image in the glass opposite. She could not help seeing that she looked much nicer in her white sailor hat, her pretty white gloves, and well-fitting dark blue serge than she had looked when she went to Dawlish one week ago. And that trunk in the luggage-van kept returning to her memory again and again, and in her purse were ten shillings, and in her mother's purse were three pounds, for the difference between the third-class and the first-class fares had been paid, and Florence, after keeping ten shillings for immediate expenses, could still hand her mother three pounds.
"You don't know what it will be to me, Flo," the little Mummy had said. "I shall be able to buy a new dress for the winter. I didn't dare to say a word to your Aunt Susan about her cast-offs; I scarcely liked to do so. But there are your clothes too, dear; I can cut them up and make use of them. Yes, I am quite a rich woman, and it is all owing to the Scholarship."
The thought of that three pounds for her mother did comfort Florry, and her conscience was not accusing her so loudly that day, so she sat back on the cushions and reviewed the position. She was going back to Cherry Court School as a rich girl; what would her companions think of her?