"Love him!" answered Kitty. Her color changed, a flush of red rose into her cheeks, leaving them the next moment more pallid than ever.
"You don't look very strong," pursued Mary, who had a blunt downright sort of manner; "I wonder if India will agree with you; I wonder if you will really go to India."
"Why do you say that?" answered Kitty, impatiently, "when it is the one dream, the one hope of my life. Of course I shall go to India. I shall do that in any case," she added sotto voce.
"It is so strange all about this Scholarship," continued Mary, in an uneasy voice, "that we three should long for it so earnestly, and yet each feel that two others will be more or less injured if we win it."
"Don't let us talk of it," said Kitty. "I—I must get it."
"And I must get it," pursued Mary, "and yet perhaps it means a little less to me than it does to you and Florence. Florence is the one likely to win it, I am sure."
Kitty's face turned white again and her little hand trembled.
"I must get it," she said, in a restless voice. "I don't think I am selfish—I try not to be, and I would do anything for you, Mary, and anything for Florence; but—but I can't give up the Scholarship: it means too much."
She shivered slightly.
At that moment Florence entered the room. She sat down at her desk, unlocked it, and took out her papers. She was just about to commence her study—for the Scholarship study was all extra, and had to be done in odd hours and moments—when, glancing up, she met the disturbed and questioning gaze of Kitty Sharston.