those clothes and give up Aunt Susan."

"My dear child, what do you mean? If you wanted to keep your
self-respect! My dear Florence, are you mad?"

"Alas, mother, I fear I am mad," replied the girl, "for I do intend to
accept Aunt Susan's bounty. I will wear her pretty dresses, and all
the other things she happens to send me, and I will take her money and
do my best, my very best, to get the Scholarship; but all the same,
mother, I shall do it meanly, I know I shall do it meanly. It would be
better for me to give up the Scholarship and go as a poor girl to
Stoneley Hall. Mother, there is such a thing as lowering yourself in
your own eyes, and I feel bad, bad about this."

Florence made these remarks on the evening the box arrived. The box
was in the tiny sitting-room still unopened. Mrs. Aylmer was regarding
it with flushed cheeks, and now after Florence's words she suddenly
burst into tears.

"You try me terribly, Flo," she said, "and I have struggled so hard for
your sake. This is such a splendid chance: all your future secured and
I, my darling, relieved of the misery of feeling that you are
unprovided for. Oh, Flo, for my sake be sensible."

"I will do anything for you, mother," said Florence, whose own eyes had
a suspicion of tears in them. "It was just a passing weakness, and I
am all right now. Yes, I will get the Scholarship, and I will stoop to
Aunt Susan's ways--I will cringe to her if necessary; I will do my best
to propitiate Sir John Wallis, and I will act like a snob in every
sense of the word. There now, Mummy, I see you are dying to have the
box opened. We will open it and see what it contains."

"First of all, kiss me, Florry," said Mrs. Aylmer.

Florence rose, went up to her mother, took her in her arms, and kissed
her two or three times, but there was not that passion in the embrace,
that pure _abandon_ of love which Florence's first kiss when she
arrived at Dawlish had been so full of.

"Now, then," she said, in a hasty voice, "let us get the screwdriver
and open the box. This is exciting; I wonder what sort of taste Aunt
Susan's dressmaker has."

"Exquisite, you may be sure, dear. There, there, I am all trembling to
see the things, and Sukey must have a peep, mustn't she, Flo?"

"If I acted as I ought," said Florence, "I would take this box just as
it stands unopened to Cherry Court School to-morrow."

"Oh, no, my dear; you could not think of doing such a thing; it would