“Still you know, Miss Weston, I am doing a lot for you; but for me I don’t suppose you’d have got the orders for the prize dresses, and I do want mine to be just as nice as Miss Maude’s. You really might let me run my eye over her directions.”
“Very well, miss, I don’t suppose it can do any ’arm; but you’ll be careful not to mention it, Miss Merrydew?”
“Certainly I shall be careful.”
Accordingly Miss Weston went to her desk and took out a letter which she put into the girl’s hand. Eagerly Kitty’s dark eyes appeared to absorb the contents, in reality she was not thinking about them, her eyes were fixed on a small mark which was made in one corner of the paper—it was, in fact, the graceful tracing of a flower, and the flower, beyond doubt, was the bluebell. Without a word Kitty handed back the letter.
“Thank you, I’ll never speak of this,” she said, and then she returned to the school. She had got far more than she had hoped, than she had dared to hope. She really wished to have a good look at Alison Maude’s handwriting, for it was her impression that it almost exactly resembled the handwriting of Grace Dodd. Grace wrote an excellent hand, firm, upright, sensible. Kitty was right in her surmise, Alison wrote exactly like Grace; but Kitty had learnt a great deal more than the fact which she was already acting upon—that the two girls wrote like each other; she was positive that she had found out by an accident the pseudonym that Alison meant to take. She would call herself “Bluebell.”
During the whole of the rest of that day Kitty was lively of the lively, and most obliging. Towards the evening fortune seemed to favour her projects, for Grace had a bad headache and Anne did not like to leave her sister.
“Why should you?” said Kitty. “I am going across to the Upper School now to put my essay on Miss Greene’s writing-desk, and you can give me yours. I suppose they’re all ready.”
“Yes, quite,” said Anne. Grace did not speak, her head was aching severely. She did not like that letter of her father’s. She meant to write to him on the following day to tell him that she had no chance of winning the prize, and that in no case would she accept one hundred pounds from him. She and Anne had consulted over this letter, but resolved to say nothing to Kitty.
“Where shall I find the essays?” asked Kitty now.
Anne went to a drawer and took them out. All directions had been carefully followed. Each essay had been folded in three and slipped into a long envelope, which was gummed down. On the back of each envelope was neatly written the words: “Prize Essay for the Howard Miniature.” Fastened to the long envelope, according to directions, was a small, ordinary envelope, which was secured by a hole which had been made in the long envelope and also in the little one; through these two holes a ribbon was strung, which was tied now in a neat little bow. Grace’s ribbon was rose colour, Anne’s was cherry red. The pseudonyms of each girl were put on the small envelope.