ercises. They had a special master to teach them deportment in
all its different branches, and once a week they spent an evening in
Mrs. Clavering's drawing-room, where special guests were invited to see
them.

On these occasions the young girls had to act turn about as hostess,
pouring out tea, receiving the visitors, seeing them out again, and
entering into what was considered in the early seventies polite
conversation. The almost lost art of conversation was as far as
possible revived during the time of Scholarship competition, and in
order to give Kitty, Florence, and Mary greater opportunities of
talking over the events of the day they were obliged to read the
_Times_ every morning for an hour.

Their companions, those of the Upper school, were invited to assemble
in the drawing-room on the occasions of the weekly conversazione, as it
was called, and a special subject was then introduced, which the girls
were obliged to handle as deftly and as well as they could.

As to conduct marks, there was nothing said about conduct, and no one
put down those marks except the head mistress herself. Florence
sometimes trembled when she met her eyes. She wondered if those calm
grey eyes could read through down into her secret soul, could guess
that she herself was unworthy, that she had committed a deed which
ought really to exclude her from all chance of winning the Scholarship.
Then, as the days went on, Florence's conscience became a little
hardened, and she was less and less troubled by what she had done with
regard to Kitty Sharston.

Florence's change in circumstances were much commented upon by the
other girls, and there is no doubt that in her neatly-fitting dress
with her abundant pocket-money she did appear a more gracious and a
more agreeable girl than she had done in the old days when her frock
was shabby, her pinafore ugly, her pocket-money almost _nil_.

One of the first things she did on her arrival at the school was to
present Kitty Sharston with a white work-bag embroidered with cherries
in crewel-stitch, and with a cherry-colored ribbon running through it.
She had spent from five to six shillings on the bag, and had denied
herself a little to purchase it.

Kitty received it with rapture, and used to bring it into Mrs.
Clavering's drawing-room on the company evenings, and to show it with
pride to her companions as Florence's gift.

"She had never had such a pretty bag in her life," she said, and she