"Perhaps," said Florence, "but all the same I don't believe this ribbon could have been bought for twopence a yard. I must speak to mademoiselle; she could not--oh, no, no, that is impossible--mademoiselle is very poor and stingy--but what does it mean?"
"It means that you are going to wear cherry-colored ribbons to-night, doesn't it?" said Kitty, "and now cheer up, do, Florry, and work away at your history. I must run off now to wash my hands before dinner."
After dinner Mrs. Clavering called the girls of the Upper school into the oak parlor.
"My dears," she said, "I won't keep you a minute, but I have just had a letter from Sir John Wallis, and he wishes me to say that he would like the girls who are to compete for the preliminary examination for the Scholarship to write their answers to the English History questions. He has sent over the questions in this envelope, and you can all read them, and you are to write your answers in advance, and fold them up and put them into envelopes for him to open and read to-night. I believe there are ten questions, but his rule is that you are none of you to be helped by any book in the answers, and that no one girl is to assist another. That is all, my dears; you can go into the school-room and get the matter through in less than an hour if you like. And now hurry away, for there is no time to lose. I will have the question pinned up in the school-room for you all to see."
Mrs. Clavering hastened away, and all the girls of the Upper school, seven in all, presently found themselves seated by their desks, busily answering Sir John Wallis's questions on the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
When Mrs. Clavering had made her statement Florence had cast one anxious, half-despairing glance in Kitty's direction, and Kitty had slowly raised her arched eyebrows and looked at her friend with compassion and distress.
Kitty now walked quickly to her desk, glanced at the questions, and wrote the answers in a good bold, firm hand.
Her early training with her father stood her in excellent stead, and she was able to give a vivid account of the Spanish Armada and of other great events in the reign of good Queen Bess. She felt quite cheerful and hopeful as she wrote her answers, expressing them in good English, and taking great pains to be correct with regard to spelling. At last they were finished. She slipped them into her envelope, put them back in her desk, and left the room. As she did so she passed Florence, whose cheeks were flushed like peonies, and who was bending in some despair over her paper, for Florence was well known in the school to be ignorant as regarded all matters connected with history, although she was smart enough in her own line.