can't deny it. I worked harder.
I was before her always, in every class, in every exam. Oh, it's mean,
it's mean that they should have put her before me!"

The tears streamed down her face, for this was perhaps the bitterest
moment she had known. To be beaten by Kathleen, and Irene, was
bearable, but--Dorothy! Easy-going, mediocre Dorothy, who had so little
ambition that she could laugh at her own shortcomings, and contentedly
call herself a "tortoise." Well, the tortoise had come off victor once
more, and the poor, beaten hare sat quivering with mortified grief.
Miss Everett looked at her with perplexed, anxious eyes.

"You will probably find when the full report comes out that you have
done better in most respects, but that it is the preliminaries which
have caused your failure. But Rhoda, Rhoda, how would it help you to
know that another poor girl had failed, and was as miserable as
yourself? Would you be _glad_ to hear that Dorothy was sitting crying
at home, and Kathleen bearing her parents' grief as well as her own?
You could not possibly be so selfish. I know you too well. You are far
too kind and generous."

"I'm a pig!" said Rhoda contritely, and the tears trickled dismally off
the end of her nose, and splashed on to the wooden table. "I should
like to be a saint, and resigned, and rejoice in the good fortunes of my
companions like the girls in books, but I can't. I just feel sore, and
mad, and aching, and as if they were all in conspiracy against me to
make my failure more bitter. You had better give it up, Evie, and leave
me to fight it out alone. I'll come to my senses in time, and write
pretty, gushing letters to say how charmed I am--and make funny little
jokes at the end about my own collapse. This is Monday--perhaps by
Wednesday or Thursday--"

"I expect it will be Tuesday, and not an hour later. You are letting
off such an amount of steam that you will calm down more quickly than
you think. And now, hadn't we better go indoors, and bathe those poor
red eyes before lunch? Your mother will think I have been scolding you,
and I don't want to be looked upon as a dragon when I'm out of harness,
and posing as an innocent, unprofessional visitor. Come, dear, and
we'll talk no more of the horrid old exam., but try to forget it and
enjoy ourselves!"

Rhoda's sigh was sepulchral in its intensity, for, of course, happiness
must henceforth be a thing of the past, so far as she was concerned;