“Don’t ye—don’t ye—’tain’t worth it. But now hearken. As you’re so poor, how do you manage to dress up smart?”
“Auntie is very good in giving me money for my clothes.”
“Humph!” was Dodd’s reply, “do you think you’re right to take it from her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Listen, lass. When you really want a new frock, write to me about it; don’t take any more from your aunt. And now there’s no other way in which I can help you?”
“No, sir. Thank you so much.”
“Well, then, run off to bed with you! Good-night.” He hardly touched her hand, and she left the room. “She’s not straight,” he said to himself; “she didn’t speak the truth that time. I think at the end of the year I’ll move Grace and Anne; there’s no good having them in a school with that sort of girl. She’s not straight, and she’s as clever as they’re made.”
Some of this conversation was afterwards repeated by Kitty to the Dodd sisters, and they were told how very much they owed to Kitty’s forbearance in not exposing them with herself.
At school Mrs. Fleming only once alluded to the great prize, and that was on the day when she gave the assembled school the subject for the prize essay. The subject was contained in two words: “Know Thyself.”
Mrs. Fleming said, after announcing the theme, that she would not attempt to enlarge upon it, that the two words told their own tale and explained their own meaning. The rules for the essays were very simple. Any girl who consulted another, and who even read her paper to another, would be immediately disqualified. The subject might be attacked in any manner thought best by the competitor; it might embrace history or be altogether a philosophical treatise; it might go deep into the heart or only skim the surface—all these things were immaterial. The essay was to be two thousand words in length, or at least not over that length; it was to be in the handwriting of the competitor, and she was to employ no dictionary to aid her in the spelling, although, if by any chance she required other works of reference, she would find the Encyclopædia Britannica and several other reference books in the school library. Quotations were not allowed in the essay; it was to be written on neat foolscap, on one side only of the paper, and was to be signed with any pseudonym the competitor liked to adopt. When finished it was to be folded in three, and put into a long envelope, which was to be gummed down; on the back of the envelope was to be written: “Prize Essay for the Howard Miniature.” In addition to the long envelope, there was to accompany it a small one, on which the pseudonym of the competitor was to be written, but inside of which her real name was to be given. The essays were to be put on Miss Greene’s desk not later than the evening of the 1st of June. That was all.