“I only trust it is not too good,” she said. “Don’t you think it sounds very nice when I read it aloud, Mabel?”
“I suppose it does,” answered Mabel. “I have got a horrid headache; I hate sitting up all night.”
“You will have to sacrifice something to your year’s bliss,” replied Annie. “Now then, May, that is done. I have given you a paper. At five o’clock we will both go into Priscie’s room. When there, a little transaction will very briefly take place. You will have to promise Pris that you will pay her school fees for another year—namely, for three whole terms; and she, in return for this kindness, will sign this essay as her own, and will hand it in as her essay during the course of the morning. Miss Phillips will lock it up, and it will lie perdu until the great prize day. Pris meantime will have given you a really good paper, which you will sign and give in as your own. Thus your victory will be accomplished, and you need dread nothing further.”
“But,” said Mabel, “I am looked upon as rather a fool in the school; no one for a moment thinks me clever.”
“I am coming to that point. For the next fortnight I shall make myself intensely busy in circulating a little story. You must pretend to know nothing about it, and in all probability the tale will not reach your ears. But this story is to the effect that you are in reality a sort of hidden genius; in short, that you are a poet and write verses in private. Now what do you think of that? Am not I a friend worth having?”
“You are wonderfully clever,” said Mabel. “I begin to be almost afraid of you.”
“Oh, you needn’t be that, dear. Who would be afraid of poor little Annie?”
“I don’t know,” said Mabel. “Your eyes look quite wicked sometimes. You must be frightfully wicked, you know, to have thought out this scheme so cleverly.”
“I am not more wicked than you are—not one single bit,” cried Annie. “Only I have the courage of my convictions, and the ability to think things out and to save my friends. If you imagine that I am unhappy now, you are vastly mistaken. Far from being unhappy, I feel intensely triumphant; for I have managed to help three people—Priscie, you, and myself.”
“Oh Annie!” said Mabel, “I am not at all sure that Aunt Henrietta will invite you to Paris.”