wn mother had been educated at Cherry Court School, and
how he thought there was no school like it in the world, and then he
said that he was anxious, now that he had returned home to live and was
growing an old man himself, to do something for the school, and he
proposed there and then to offer it a Scholarship.

"Do you know what a scholarship is, father? I thought only men won
scholarships. Well, anyhow, he did offer a Scholarship, such a
magnificent one. It was to be held by the girl who was best in
conduct, best in deportment, and best in her educational work, in the
following October, and she was to hold it for three years, and what do
you think the scholarship was?

"Oh, was there anything so splendid! A lovely, lovely gold locket with
a ruby cherry on the right side and a wonderful inscription on the left
side, and a parchment scroll, father, in which the full particulars of
the great Scholarship were written down, and besides that, a purse of
money. Oh, father, a girl would not mind taking money in that way,
would she?--and what was the money for?--it was to pay all her fees for
a year.

"Every expense connected with the school was to be met by this
wonderful purse of money; she was to be educated and called the Cherry
Court Scholarship girl, and it was to be a wonderfully proud
distinction, I can tell you, and at the end of the year Sir John Wallis
was to give another purse of money, and at the end of that year another
purse of money, so that the lucky girl who won the Scholarship was to
be educated free of expense for three whole years.

"Oh, father, father! I mean to try for it--I mean to try with all my
might and main. I don't suppose I'll succeed, but I shall have such a
fit of trying--you never knew anything like it in your life. But do
you know, perhaps, that what Kitty tries for with all her might and
soul she generally wins.

"Oh, dear father, this has made me quite happy and has taken off the
worst of my great pain. I feel now that there is hope, for at the end
of three years I shall be a well-educated girl--that is, if I win the
Scholarship, and then perhaps you will allow me to come out to you to
India. I am not without hope, now, but I should be utterly and
completely devoid of it if I had to go and live with Helen Dartmoor.

"Your loving and excited daughter, KITTY."

CHAPTER V.

FLORENCE.

It began to be whispered in the school--at first, it is true, in very
low tones