“Yes, that is true.”
“I am almost sorry,” continued Mrs. Fleming, “for Peggy’s sake, that the people in London have insisted on recitations; however, there is no help for it now, and Peggy shall not be discouraged, she shall do her very best. Before she leaves this school I can promise one thing, that she will get the Howard miniature; but I don’t want to spoil the darling by giving it to her this year.”
“I know a girl,” said Miss Greene, “who is trying for it desperately hard.”
“Who is that, my dear?”
“Kitty—Kitty Merrydew. She is a good deal altered; don’t you think so?”
“Do you think she is altered in spirit, dear?”
“Ah, that I can’t say.”
“It is very sad,” continued Mrs. Fleming, after a pause, “that Hannah and Sophy are not competing; there are no girls in this school who want the prize more than they do. However, they are quite determined, and I must not say a word. I think they both look very, very sad; they keep together a great deal, and don’t talk much to the others. Haven’t you noticed that, dear Henrietta?”
“Well, no, being in the Upper School, I don’t see so much of them as Julia does,” was Henrietta’s answer. “Yes, I’m sorry they’re not competing; but, after all, they can have another trial.”
By this time it was whispered all over the school, both in the Upper and Lower School, that beyond any doubt whatsoever, Peggy would come out first in the recitations. There was a great deal of indignation on the part of the few girls who did not like her. It is true that these girls were very few in number; they consisted, in fact, only of Kitty and the two Dodds. There was another girl in the Upper School who did not greatly take to her, but she has nothing to do with this story, and need scarcely be mentioned by name. She was not trying for the prize, she was a rich girl and had little or no ambition in her character. She, as well as Alison Maude, was to leave at the end of the present term. Alison was in perfect raptures over Peggy’s recitation; she went to the little girl’s room that evening and said to her: “My dear, I have come with a request.”