“Thank you, Alison, you have given me a bit of a clue; but you won’t mind if I use it? I’m certain to write a bad essay, for my spelling ain’t none of the best. I’m sorry for meself, that I am.”
The news of the recitation, delightful to some of the girls, was the reverse of delightful to others; and Kitty thought it well to have a conference with her chosen friends on the subject. “There, now,” she said, “I know exactly what is going to happen. There’s one girl in the school to whom that prize means salvation, and she has no more a chance of it than if she wasn’t in the school at all.”
“Who are you talking about, Kitty?” asked Grace.
“Well, now, Grace, who do you think I am talking about?”
“I’m afraid it’s yourself,” answered Grace.
“Of course it is myself. You don’t know how badly I want that prize, you don’t know what life will be to me when I leave this school.”
“There’s one thing, Kitty, which does astonish us,” said Anne Dodd.
“What is that?”
“The marvellous way in which you have come round father.”
Kitty laughed.