e County Scholarship, she was among the
rejected candidates. In her heart of hearts she had always marveled how
her indifferent papers could have scored such a success. She wondered
this explanation had never occurred to her before. All this time she had
been wearing another girl's laurels. What was going to happen next? She
supposed the scholarship would be taken from her, and given to its
rightful owner. And herself? She would probably be packed home, as Percy
had prophesied, "like a whipped puppy." Possibly Aunt Harriet might
offer to pay her fee as an ordinary pupil at the High School, but in
either case the humiliation would be supreme.

Winona dreaded returning home. In spite of the difficulty of the work,
the High School had opened a fresh world to her. She could never again
be content with the old rut. Miss Harmon's dull lessons would be
intolerable, and life without Garnet's friendship would seem a blank.
The companionship of her three little sisters was totally inadequate for
a girl who was fast growing up. She shrank from speculating how her
mother would receive the bad news. Mrs. Woodward was one of those
parents who expect their children to gain the prizes which they were
incapable of winning for themselves. She had claimed a kind of
second-hand credit in her daughter's triumph. Winona knew from past
experience that so keen a disappointment would involve a string of
reproaches, regrets and fretting. She would probably never hear the
last of it. The family hopes had been pinned upon her success, and to
frustrate them was to court utter disgrace. For the present she must
live with this sword of Damocles hanging over her head, but she hoped
the Governors would decide the matter speedily, and put her out of her
misery.

There is one virtue in a supreme trouble--it dwarfs all minor griefs.
Percy's secret, which had been felt as a continual burden, seemed to
sink into comparative obscurity, and the worry of school work and the
dread of Miss Huntley's sarcasm were mere flies in the ointment. Winona
never quite knew how she got through the week that followed. It stayed
afterwards in her memory as a period of black darkness, a valley of
humiliation, in which her old childish self slipped away, and a new,
stronger and more capable personality was born to face the future. She
had resigned herself so utterly to the inevitable, that when at last
Miss Bishop's summons came, she was able to walk quite calmly into the
st