Annie did not reply. Constance rose, stretched herself slightly, and putting her papers together, laid them in orderly fashion in her desk.
“I shall get up early to-morrow,” she said, “and come down here and finish my paper. There is no time so good as before breakfast for brain-work.”
“Well, thank goodness, my attempt is quite finished,” said Annie.
“I suppose,” remarked Constance, “that Priscilla will get the prize. She is the cleverest of us all.”
“Oh, I’m not at all sure of that,” said Annie. “Priscie is clever, no doubt; but Mabel is clever too—very clever.”
“Mabel Lushington! What do you mean?”
“What I say. She is awfully clever when she takes pains.”
“I must say I have never found it out.”
“Well, I have,” said Annie, her cheeks brightening and her eyes growing deeper in hue, “and I will just tell you how. She is always scribbling poetry. I found her at her desk one day, and taxed her with it. She was frightfully annoyed, and begged and implored of me not to mention it, for she said she would be ragged by every one if it were discovered. Then she confessed that her one ambition was to be a poet. Isn’t it absurd? Just think of her, with her pretty, round, dimpled sort of face, a poet, forsooth! But, nevertheless, appearances deceive, and Mabel is a poet already. I should not be a scrap surprised if she did very well with such a subject as Idealism.”
“You astonish me!” said Constance. “She must be far cleverer than I gave her credit for; and her very genius in hiding all trace of her talent is much to be commended.”