Chapter Eleven.
Tom’s Examination.
A day in bed renewed Rhoda’s energy, and she took up her work with unabated fervour. The “lists” were, perhaps, less conspicuously displayed than before, but were none the less in readiness when needed, and if Miss Everett disapproved, the Latin mistress was all praise and congratulation.
“I certainly have a gift for languages, and with lessons during the holidays I shall soon be steaming ahead,” Rhoda told herself proudly. “I’ll ask mother to let Mr Mason coach me. He is a splendid teacher, and if I have an hour a day I shall learn a lot. Won’t the girls stare when I come back, and go soaring up the class! I shouldn’t wonder if I got a remove. It will be impossible to work up to Thomasina and her set, but at any rate I’ll be past the baby stages, and not disgrace myself in the examinations.”
All the world seemed bounded by examinations at present. Thomasina and the elder girls working steadily towards the goal of the “Matric”; Kathleen and her friends dreaming night and day of the “Oxford”; while nearer at hand loomed the school examinations, which ended the term. Rhoda was in a fever of anxiety to acquit herself well in the eyes of her companions on this occasion, and could think, speak, and dream of nothing else. Even her joy of getting her remove from the “Bantlings” into a higher team was swallowed up in the overwhelming interest, while Dorothy was filled at once with admiration and disgust at the monotony of her conversation.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care!” she replied callously, when anxiously consulted about a point in mathematics. “I’ve come out to play, and I’m not going to rack my brains for you or anyone else. You are getting a regular bore, Rhoda! It’s like walking about with ‘Magnall’s Questions.’ Let’s talk about frolics, or holidays, or something nice, and not worry about stupid old lessons.”
Well! Rhoda told herself, it was no wonder if Dorothy were medium, if this was the way she regarded her studies. If she took no more interest than this in the coming contest, what could she expect from the result? She would be sorry, poor dear, when she saw her name at the bottom of the list! There was no help to be expected from Dorothy; but Rhoda stored up a few knotty questions, and took the first opportunity of asking Tom for a solution. She had discovered that Tom liked nothing better than to be consulted by the younger girls, and had a tactful way of asking help in return, which took away the sense of obligation.
“Oh, by-the-by,” she would call to Rhoda, in her elegant fashion, “you are a bit of a German sausage, aren’t you? Just read over that passage for me. I’ve been puzzling over it for the whole of the evening,” and then would follow some blissful moments, when Rhoda would skim lightly over the difficulty, and feel the eyes of the girls fixed admiringly upon her.