“She has won the Scholarship. Yes, it will be such a joy. She needed it so badly, and has worked so hard.”
“I hate her!”
“She was always kind to you. I remember the very first day she took you round the grounds. You were very good friends.”
“I hate her, I tell you! I detest her name.”
“I am sure you will write and congratulate her. Imagine if your parents were poor, and you saw them harassed and anxious, how thankful you would feel to be able to help! Kathleen had a harder time than any of you, for she could take none of the nice, interesting ‘Extras.’ I think all her friends will be glad that she has won.”
“I shall be glad, too, in about ten years. If I said I was glad now I should be a hypocrite, for I wanted it myself. I suppose Irene is all right, and Bertha, and all the Head girls? Has—has Dorothy—”
“Yes, Dorothy has passed too.”
Rhoda cried aloud in bitter distress.
“Oh, Evie—oh! Dorothy passed, and I have failed! Oh it is cruel—unjust. I am cleverer than she! You can’t deny it. I worked harder. I was before her always, in every class, in every exam. Oh, it’s mean, it’s mean that they should have put her before me!”
The tears streamed down her face, for this was perhaps the bitterest moment she had known. To be beaten by Kathleen, and Irene, was bearable, but—Dorothy! Easy-going, mediocre Dorothy, who had so little ambition that she could laugh at her own shortcomings, and contentedly call herself a “tortoise.” Well, the tortoise had come off victor once more, and the poor, beaten hare sat quivering with mortified grief. Miss Everett looked at her with perplexed, anxious eyes.