Rhoda gave a gasp of dismay, and stared at her with horrified eyes.
“You will forbid me to go in for any more exams.! You won’t allow me to try again?”
The Principal smiled slightly.
“That is, perhaps, over-stating the case. The final decision must, of course, rest with your parents. If, in opposition to my advice, they should still desire—”
But Rhoda heard no more. The idea that her father and mother should wish her to go in for any work which interfered with health was so impossible to conceive that it might as well be dismissed at once. With one fell crash her castle in the air had fallen to the ground and lay in ruins at her feet. If she had not done well this time, farewell for ever to her dreams of distinction, for no other opportunity would be granted!
For the first half of the holidays the thought weighed upon her with depressing force, but gradually, as health improved, the outlook lightened also, and she began to pose to herself in a new light. If she passed well—and, despite her illness, she looked back on most of the papers with a feeling of complacency—if she won the scholarship, or even gained distinction, her reputation among her class-mates would be to a certain extent established, and the fact that the delicate nature of her nervous system debarred her from further efforts would entitle her to a tribute of peculiar sympathy. When other girls succeeded, their companions would shake their heads, and whisper among themselves, “If Rhoda could only—”
“A good thing for her that Rhoda,” etcetera, etcetera. In imagination she could hear the remarks, and her face unconsciously assumed the expression of meek endurance with which she would listen. And so more and more did the result of that week’s work fill the horizon of her life; she thought of it day by day, and dreamt of it by night; she talked of it to Ella, until even that patient listener wearied of the theme; she counted the weeks, the days, the hours, until the report should arrive. And then one morning, half-way through breakfast, Mr Chester looked up from his eggs and bacon and remarked casually—as if it were an ordinary, commonplace subject, and not an affair of life and death:
“By the way, Rhoda, there is something about your examination in the paper to-day. I noticed the heading. You may like to see it!”
Rhoda leant back in her chair, and held out her hand in dumb entreaty. The newspaper was open at the right page, and her eye fell at once on the familiar heading, and, underneath, a long list of numbers.