"But before we go," said Mrs. Aylmer, "tell me, my darling, why are you nervous, why you fear you may not get the Scholarship."
"I told you last night, mother--can't you understand? I am your one pet chicken, but I am not anything at all really in the eyes of the world. I am not beautiful and I am not specially clever."
"But you got amongst the lucky three, as you call them; you must be clever to have done that."
Florence stared very hard at her mother; her face went a little pale and then red.
"What is the matter, Flo? Why do you stare at me like that?"
"I am going to tell you something if you will never tell back again."
"What is it, dear? Really, Flo, you make me quite uncomfortable; you have got a very bold way of staring, love."
"I am going to tell you something," repeated Florence; "I got into the lucky three because I was mean. I did a mean, shabby, low thing, Mummy."
"Oh, no, no," said Mrs. Aylmer, restlessly, "no, no, darling."
"I did, mother," said Florence, and now her lips trembled. "I did something very mean, and I did it to the girl who gave me those lovely cherry ribbons."
"That spoilt chit--Kitty Sharston you call her?"
"Yes, that girl. I opened her desk and looked at an answer which she put to a certain question in English History which I did not know myself. If I had not answered that question I make no doubt I should not have been included in the lucky three."
"Well, well," said Mrs. Aylmer. She looked restless and disturbed. She went again to the little window and looked out. "I don't see how you can help yourself," she said.
"But it was a mean thing, wasn't it, mother?"
"Poor people cannot help themselves," said the widow, in a restless voice, "but I wish you hadn't told me, Florence; it was--it was the sort of thing that your poor father would not have done; but there, you couldn't help yourself, of course."
"Then you don't think, mother, that I ought to tell Mrs. Clavering?" said Florence.
"Tell and give up your chance! No, no, no; that is the disadvantage of being so poor, one has to stoop sometimes. Your father would not have done it, but you could not help yourself. Come out, child, come out."
The mother and daughter wandered along the beach. They visited the shrimp-woman and then sat under the shade of a big rock and looked at the dancing waves, and talked of Florence's chance of winning the coming Scholarship.