he family held it a matter of course that Jessica would
succeed in the examination. It seemed probable that she would have a
place in Honours.

And, meanwhile, the poor girl herself was repenting of the indiscreet
boastfulness with which she had made known her purpose. To come out in
an inferior class would be painful enough; how support the possibility
of absolute failure? Yet she knew only too well that in certain
'subjects' she was worse than shaky. Her Greek--her Chemistry--her
Algebra--

By way of propitiating the stern fates, she began to talk with Lucy and
Amelia Barmby in a tone of diffidence. Half a year ago, she would have
held her head very high in such company; now the simple goodness of the
old-fashioned girls made an appeal to her aching heart, and their homely
talk soothed her exhausted brain.

'It's fearfully difficult,' she said to them one evening, as she sat
in their parlour. 'And I lose so much time with my pupils. Really, you
know, I haven't a fair chance. I was showing Nancy Lord the Algebra
paper set last summer, and she confessed she could hardly do a single
question.'

'She couldn't?' exclaimed one of the sisters in astonishment. 'But we
always thought she was so very clever.'

'So she is--in many things. But she never dreamt of going in for such an
examination as this.'

'And do you really know more than she does?'

Jessica smiled with affected modesty.

'Oh, I have studied so much more.'

It was sweet to gain this triumph over her friend, whose progress in
the school of life she watched with the jealousy of a girl condemned to
sterile passions.

Their talk was interrupted by the entrance of Samuel Barmby, and his
elder sister, addressing him without reflection, said wonderingly:

'Sam, did you know that Nancy Lord couldn't pass the examination that
Miss. Morgan is going in for?'

Jessica blushed, and hastened to extenuate this crude statement.

'Oh, I didn't say that. Only that she would have to study very hard if
she went in for the matriculation.'

'Of course she would,' Samuel assented, largely, as he took his stand
before the fireplace and beamed upon the female trio. 'Miss Lord goes
in for broad culture; that's quite a different thing from studying for
examinations.'

To the hearers, Jessica not excepted, this seemed to argue the spirit of
broad culture in Samuel himself. Miss. Morgan pursued nervously:

'Examinations are nothing. I believe very stupid people often do