me class in school, and up to the date
of the offering of the Scholarship had been excellent friends. They
were still friends as far as Kitty was concerned, for she was a
generous-hearted girl, and although the winning of the prize meant
everything almost in her life, did another girl take it from her fairly
and honorably in open fight, she would resign it without a trace of
ill-will or any sore feeling towards the winner. But there were things
in Florence's life which made her now look aloof at Kitty. She had
been receiving letters from her mother, and the mother had been asking
the girl strange questions, and Mrs. Aylmer was not a woman of lofty
principle nor of strong courage, and some of the jealous thoughts in
Florence's heart had been fanned into flame by her mother's injudicious
words. So on the day of the great Cherry Feast she awoke with a
headache, and, turning away from Kitty, who looked at her with anxious,
affectionate eyes, she proceeded to dress quickly and hurried off to
the school-room.

The dormitory in which Kitty slept was a long, low room with a sloping
roof. It ran the whole width of the house, and was occupied by Kitty
herself, by Mabel and Alice Cunningham, by Edith King, and by Florence
Aylmer. Each girl had her little cubicle or division curtained off
from her fellows, where she could sleep and where she could retire, if
necessary, into a sort of semi-solitude. But one-half of the dormitory
was open to all the girls, and they often drew their curtains aside and
chatted and talked and laughed as they dressed and undressed, for Mrs.
Clavering, contrary to most of the school-mistresses of her day, gave
her girls a certain amount of liberty. They were not, for instance,
required to talk French in the dormitories, and they were always
allowed, provided they got into bed within certain limits and dressed
within certain limits, to have freedom when in their rooms. They never
dreamt of abusing these privileges, and better, healthier, brighter
girls could not be found in the length and breadth of England.

"Well, I am glad the day has come at last," said Edith, as she rose
that morning with a yawn. "Oh, dear, and it's going to be splendid,
too. Kitty, what dress are you going to wear at the festival to-night?"

Kitty replied with a smile that she meant to wear her Indian muslin.

"And have you got your cherry-colored ribbons?" said Edith; "we all
wear bunches of cherry ribbons in the front