ry strange way for a
teacher, and are not at all encouraging. I don't think you care a bit
whether I get the scholarship or not."

"Yes, I do! I hope very much that you will _not_! Wait a moment now; I
am very fond of you, Rhoda; and I hope with all my heart that you will
pass, and pass well--I shall be bitterly disappointed if you don't; but
I want Kathleen to get the scholarship. She _needs_ it, and you don't;
it means far, far more to her than you can even understand."

"In one way, perhaps--not another! She wants the money, which she could
have in any case; but she is not half so keen as I am for the honour
itself--and, after all, that's the first thing. I can't do anything in
a half-and-half way, and now that I have taken up examinations I am just
burning to distinguish myself. It would be a perfect bliss, the height
of my ambition, to come out first here, and go up to Oxford, and take
honours, and have letters after one's name, and be a distinguished
scholar, written about in the papers and magazines like--like--"

"Yes! Like Miss Mott, for instance. What then?" Rhoda stood still in
the middle of her tirade, and stared at the speaker with startled eyes.
_Miss Mott_! No, indeed, she had meant nobody in the least like Miss
Mott. The very mention of the name was like a cold douche on her
enthusiasm. The creature of her dream was gowned and capped, and moved
radiant through an atmosphere of applause. Miss Mott was a commonplace,
hard-working teacher, with an air of chronic exhaustion. When one
looked across the dining-room, and saw her face among those of the
girls, it looked bleached and grey, the face of a tired, worn woman.
"The idea of working and slaving all one's youth to be like--Miss Mott!"
Rhoda exclaimed contemptuously, but Miss Everett insisted on her
position.

"Miss Mott is a capital example. You could not have a better. She was
the first student of her year, and carried everything before her. Her
position here is one of the best of its kind, for she is practically
headmistress. She would tell you herself that she never expected to do
so well."

"I think it's very mean of you, Evie, to squash me so! It's most
discouraging. I don't want to be the _least_ like Miss Mott, and you
know it perfectly well. It's no use talking, for we can't agree; and
really and truly you are the most unsympathetic to me just now."

Miss Everett looked at her steadily, with a long, tender gaze.

"I