_seem_ so, Rhoda, I know I do, but it is only seeming. In reality
I'm just longing to help you, but, as you say, you think one thing and I
think another, so we are at cross purposes. Come and spend Sunday
afternoon with me in my den, dear, and I'll promise not to preach. I'll
make you so comfy, and show you all my photographs and pretty things,
and lay in a stock of fruit and cakes. Do; it will do you good!"

But Rhoda hesitated, longing, yet fearing.

"I'd love it; it would be splendid, but--there's my Scripture! I want
to cram it up a little more, and Sunday afternoon is the only chance.
I'm afraid I can't until after the exam., Evie, dear. I need the time."

"A wilful lass must have her way!" quoted Miss Everett with a sigh, and
that was the last attempt which she made to rescue Rhoda from the result
of her own rash folly. Henceforth to the end the girl worked
unmolested, drawing the invariable "list" from her pocket at every odd
moment, and gabbling in ceaseless repetition, nerved to more feverish
energy by the discovery that her brain moved so slowly that it took
twice as long as of yore to master the simplest details. She felt
irritable and peevish, disposed to tears on the slightest provocation,
and tired all over, back and limbs, aching head, smarting eyes, weary,
dissatisfied heart. Did every ambition of life end like this? Did it
always happen that when the loins were girded to run a race, depression
fell like a fetter, and the question tortured: "Is it worth while? Is
it worth while?" What was the "right motive" of which Evie had spoken?
What was the Vicar's meaning of "success"? They, at least, seemed to
have found contentment as a result of their struggles. Rhoda groped in
the dark, but found no light, for the door was barred by the giant of
Self-Will.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE EXAMINATION.

Four o'clock on the morning of Examination Monday. The clock on the
wall chimed the hour, and Rhoda awoke with a start, and sat up wearily
in bed. The pale, grey light already filled the room, and the birds
clamoured tumultuously in the trees outside. Three hours before the
gong rang--the last, the very last chance of preparing for the fray!

She slipped noiselessly out of bed, sponged her face with cold water,
seized the eau-de-Cologne in one hand and a pile of books in the other,
and settled herself against a background of cushions. There was silence
in the room, broken only by fitful cries f