herry Court School. While there I was assailed by a very
great temptation. The patron of the school, Sir John Wallis, offered a
prize on certain conditions to the girls. The prize meant a great deal,
and covered a wide curriculum.

"It was a great opportunity, and I struggled hard to win; but Sir John
Wallis, although he offered the prize to the school, in reality wanted a
girl called Kitty Sharston, who was the daughter of his old friend, to
get it.

"Kitty Sharston was supposed to be most likely to win the prize, and she
did win it in the end; but let me tell you how. In the school was a girl
as pupil teacher, whose name was Bertha Keys."

"What!" cried Mrs. Trevor: "the girl who has been companion to Mrs.
Aylmer: whom my son has so often mentioned?"

"The very same girl. Oh, I don't want to abuse her too much, and yet I
cannot tell my terrible story without mentioning her. She tempted me;
she was very clever, and she tempted me mightily. She wrote the essay
for me, the prize essay which was hers, not mine. Oh, I know you are
shocked, I feel your hand trembling; but let me hold it; don't draw it
away. She wrote the essay, and it was read aloud before all the guests
and all the other girls as mine, and I won the Scholarship; yes, I won
it through the essay written by Bertha Keys."

"That was very terrible, my dear. How could you bear it? How could you?"

"I went to London. You remember how I came to see you. I had very little
money, just twenty pounds, and mother, who had only fifty pounds a year,
could not help me, and I was so wretched that I did not know what to do.
I went from one place to another offering myself as teacher, although I
hated teaching and I could not teach well; but no one wanted me, and I
was in despair, and I used to get so desperately _hungry_ too. Oh, you
cannot tell what it is to want a meal--just to have a good dinner, say,
once a week, and bread-and-butter all the rest of the days. Oh, you do
feel so empty when you live on bread-and-butter and nothing else! Then I
had a letter from Bertha, and she made me a proposal. She sent with the
letter a manuscript. Ah! I feel you start now."

"This is terrible!" said Mrs. Trevor. She stood up in her excitement;
she backed a little way from Florence.

"You guess all, but I must go on telling you," continued the poor girl.
"She sent this manuscript, and she asked me to use it as my own. She
said she did not want any of the money, and she spoke sp