ach, so it is decided that I shall teach by and by. If marriage
comes, all right, but if it does not come I shall earn my living as a
governess.

"Now, to be a really good governess father wants me to be very well
educated, and he is spending the little money that he might have left
to me when he died in sending me to this good school. Whether I get
the Scholarship or not, I shall remain at the school for three years.
I am fifteen now; I shall remain here until I am eighteen. If I do get
the Scholarship father means to save the money that the three years'
schooling would cost, and he means to send me when I return home at the
age of eighteen to a wonderful new College for Women which has been
established at a place called Girton. He will spend the money which he
would have spent on my education at Cherry Court School in keeping me
at Girton, where I shall attend the University lectures at Cambridge,
and learn as much as a man learns. It is wonderful to think of it.
Mother is rather vexed; she says that I shall be put out of my sphere
and cease to be womanly, but I don't think I could ever be that. You
see that it is very important for me to win the Scholarship, and I mean
to try very, very, very hard."

When Mary had finished her little speech she drooped her head once
again over her desk. When at last she raised her eyes she encountered
the bold black ones of Florence Aylmer, and the soft, lovely, dilated
eyes of Kitty Sharston.

"And I want to win the Scholarship," said Kitty, taking up the theme,
"because it means staying on here and being happy and being well
educated for three years. It means getting the best lessons in music,
and the best lessons in singing, and the best lessons in art, and it
means also getting the best instruction in modern languages, and in all
those other things which an accomplished woman ought to know. Then at
the end of three years if all is well and father gets promoted to the
hill station, I shall go out to join him in Northern India, and I want
to be as perfect as possible in order to be father's friend as well as
daughter, his companion as well as child."

"And if you don't get the Scholarship, what will happen?" said
Florence, in a low, growling sort of voice.

"Why, then I am going to live with a lady whom I don't love; her name
is Helen Dartmoor; she is a Scotchwoman, and a cousin of my mother's.
She is not the least like my dear mother, and I never loved her, and I
kn