But in May Millar's case her failure was such a foregone conclusion, was so remedial by reason of her youth, and so qualified by the share she had taken in the Greek play, that a point was stretched for her, and she was privately put out of pain at once. Latterly May had not entertained the slightest expectation of any other sentence, yet the blow fell so heavily upon her that it was well it was the end of the term.
To do Thirlwall Hall no more than justice, everybody was sorry for their youngest, gentlest, prettiest, most inspired, and withal most inoffensive and obliging student. Miss Lascelles took May into her private sitting-room and recklessly lavished the few moments the lady principal had in which to rest and recruit from the fatigue of receiving company, and playing a becoming part in the academical gaieties with which the summer term at St. Ambrose's closes, in order to speak encouraging words to the poor crestfallen child. Miss Vanhansen implored May to cross the herring-pond at her expense, and have a good time among the Barbarian's relations in Ol' Virginny and Kentuck. The girl who had played Alcestis wanted to inaugurate a reading-party in which May should be coached all round every day. Failing this, the same adventurous spirit would get up a series of Greek plays in London drawing-rooms, with Miss Millar's assistance; and so far as she herself was concerned, she would never be contented till Miss Millar played Admetus to her Alcestis. A large deputation of blue-stockinged maidens from Thirlwall Hall escorted May to the railway station, and more than one was relieved to find that she was going first to join her sisters in London instead of carrying the mortification of her failure straight to her country-town home.
It might be the deferring of an ordeal, and yet it was with a white face, as abashed and well-nigh as scared as if she had committed a crime, that May awaited Annie in the drawing-room to which the probationers' friends were free at St. Ebbe's. The consciousness had come too late of having wasted the little money her father had to spare on sentimental self-indulgence and the gratification of her own feelings instead of employing it as it was meant to be employed, in controlling herself and doing her duty, so as to acquire fitting arms for the battle of life.
It was this horrible comprehension which made her wistful eyes grow distended and fixed in their sense of guilt and disgrace. She might have committed a forgery, and be come to tell Annie what she had done. May was essentially one-idea'd at this period of her life, and she had dwelt on the fact of her failure and exaggerated its importance, like the most egotistical of human beings, till it filled her imagination and blotted out every other consideration.
Annie, in the full career of a busy professional morning, snatched a moment between two important engagements to see her sister.
May looked with imploring, fascinated eyes at Annie in her nurse's gown and cap. The younger girl had some faint inkling of Annie's earlier experience in the life of an hospital; yet there she was as fresh and fair and bright as ever—a thousand times cooler and happier-looking than her visitor.
"Here you are, May," Annie was saying in glad greeting, as she held her sister by the two shoulders, after she had kissed her; "and I declare you have grown since you went to St. Ambrose's. Oh, you incorrigible girl, when you were so much the tallest of us before you went there."
May could only make one answer with parched lips, faltering tongue, and eyes dry under their heavy cloud of grief, "Annie, I have failed in my examination!"
Annie started in surprise, while her face fell for a second. "What a pity!" she could not help exclaiming. "Father will be——" She broke off in the middle of the sentence. "Don't fret about it," she added, quickly taking another look into May's face; "that will do no good, and it is not very much after all. I cannot stay another minute now, May," she went on to tell the bewildered girl in the most matter-of-fact tone, so that May was in danger of feeling half-offended at finding her tribulation taken so cavalierly—"just like Annie!"
"You must wait for me," Annie was saying further. "There is a poor fellow—a patient of mine—who is to have his arm amputated this morning, and I must be with him when it is done."