In the case of the prize essays, no help of any sort was to be given; but in the case of the recitations Mrs. Fleming altered her plan. The time to learn and to recite was somewhat short, and each girl who wished was allowed to consult with Miss Henrietta Greene, the most dignified and the most intellectual teacher in the school. Miss Greene might offer suggestions, and on a certain day the girls were to assemble in the big schoolroom and recite for her benefit. She was permitted to listen and to correct any startling inconsistencies, but she was not in any way to praise the young reciters. Nevertheless, a great deal can be learnt from the human face, and these girls were sharp enough to be able to judge a good deal by Miss Greene’s expression of countenance. The rehearsal took place one day before the essays were to be sent in. Peggy was much excited, and could scarcely keep her excitement to herself. To Peggy, verse was like music, rhythm was to her pure ecstasy; a ballad was indeed a story into which she could throw herself and live. All her life long the child had this special gift, and many and many were the verses she recited to the children in the old country, to her grandparents, and to her foster-parents, the O’Flynns. Peggy chose Ireland, and always Ireland, as her theme; with the Irish ballad she could give herself away, and show what a maiden of Ireland might achieve. Her action was absolutely natural, full of fire and without effort; it came to her as easily as did the breath that she drew. She was in the picture, she was there herself, going through the agony or the joy. The smile that came and went on her lovely face, the look of exultation which filled her sapphire eyes, all showed her true and real appreciation. When Peggy recited she forgot herself absolutely. Hitherto her great piece had been the very well-known recitation called “Fergus O’Flynn;” this, of course, would not do for the present occasion, and after a little study she suddenly announced that the piece she would recite was called “The Fairies’ Passage,” and was by James Clarence Mangan. Molly Wyndham chose “The May Queen,” but was told that it was a little too long, and she must only recite the two first parts, another girl selected Tennyson’s most touching “Children’s Hospital,” and another again chose part of Mrs. Hamilton King’s well-known “Story of the Irish Famine.”

The recitations were to take place in the afternoon, and Peggy entered the room accompanied by the other girls, who sat round in a row. One by one they went through their verses, and at last it was Peggy’s turn. The colour rushed into her cheeks, for a minute her eyes shone. Kitty, who was watching her intently, perceived at that moment that Peggy was absolutely lost to her presence; that she, Kitty, was nothing at all to the girl; the girl was away in the scene which she had conjured up.

Peggy’s voice came mellow, clear, with the exquisite touch in it which only an Irish voice possesses. She stood a little apart, a curious light filled her eyes.

“Now, Peggy, now,” said her mistress.

The girl started, just as though something had awakened her from a dream, then she began:

The girls listened in perfect amazement, for Peggy, as she warmed to her work, really had a sort of witchery about her. She forgot her audience, she was first the Ferryman, she was then the little people, she was everything she described; her voice rose and fell, her eyes danced, her voice danced to the music of her thoughts. Now and then she stopped to laugh, and her laugh was uncanny. At last her trial was over. There was a dead silence in the room, no words were allowed to be said; but when she sat down again, and the other girls followed suit, it seemed, both to Miss Greene and to the girls themselves, that all the other verses wanted in tone, in flash, in spirit, compared with the magnificent rendering of the “Fairies’ Passage.” Miss Greene afterwards went away to Mrs. Fleming.

“Well, my dear,” said that good lady, “you have heard the recitations?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Fleming looked at her. “Have you anything to say?”

“Well, of course,” said Miss Greene, “there’s no doubt whatever. The girls have chosen with care, and they will do their work admirably; but Peggy——”

“Yes, what of Peggy?”

“Peggy ought to go on the stage some day; and yet, do I want such a life for her? She is wonderful. I won’t tell you anything about what she is going to recite. I never heard the verses myself before; rendered by Peggy, I can only tell you that they take one’s breath away. They have a slight resemblance to Browning’s ‘Pied Piper’; I almost think that Browning must have read them and copied the style, for they are, of course, much older. I asked the child afterwards, and she said that her ‘gaffer,’ as she used to call old O’Flynn, often said them to her on a winter evening, when the ‘little people,’ as she expressed it, were about. I asked her then if she believed in the little people, and she said, ‘Of course I do.’ Really, that child—there’s something magical about her.”

“She is very, very lovable,” said Mrs. Fleming. “But, all the same, my dear kind friend, I would much rather she did not get the miniature.”

“She will get it as far as the recitation is concerned.”

“There are so many other things to be considered,” said Mrs. Fleming.

“Yes, that is true.”

“I am almost sorry,” continued Mrs. Fleming, “for Peggy’s sake, that the people in London have insisted on recitations; however, there is no help for it now, and Peggy shall not be discouraged, she shall do her very best. Before she leaves this school I can promise one thing, that she will get the Howard miniature; but I don’t want to spoil the darling by giving it to her this year.”

“I know a girl,” said Miss Greene, “who is trying for it desperately hard.”

“Who is that, my dear?”

“Kitty—Kitty Merrydew. She is a good deal altered; don’t you think so?”

“Do you think she is altered in spirit, dear?”

“Ah, that I can’t say.”

“It is very sad,” continued Mrs. Fleming, after a pause, “that Hannah and Sophy are not competing; there are no girls in this school who want the prize more than they do. However, they are quite determined, and I must not say a word. I think they both look very, very sad; they keep together a great deal, and don’t talk much to the others. Haven’t you noticed that, dear Henrietta?”

“Well, no, being in the Upper School, I don’t see so much of them as Julia does,” was Henrietta’s answer. “Yes, I’m sorry they’re not competing; but, after all, they can have another trial.”

By this time it was whispered all over the school, both in the Upper and Lower School, that beyond any doubt whatsoever, Peggy would come out first in the recitations. There was a great deal of indignation on the part of the few girls who did not like her. It is true that these girls were very few in number; they consisted, in fact, only of Kitty and the two Dodds. There was another girl in the Upper School who did not greatly take to her, but she has nothing to do with this story, and need scarcely be mentioned by name. She was not trying for the prize, she was a rich girl and had little or no ambition in her character. She, as well as Alison Maude, was to leave at the end of the present term. Alison was in perfect raptures over Peggy’s recitation; she went to the little girl’s room that evening and said to her: “My dear, I have come with a request.”

“What is that?” asked Peggy.

“You must say part of that rollicking verse over again; I can’t get it out of my head.”

“Oh no; please don’t ask me.”

“Do, do, please say a little bit of it over again. I am perfectly mad about it. Just those queer sounds at the end, you know—‘Ha! ha! ha! ha!’”

Peggy laughed, then she said quickly:

“Oh, Peggy, how you say it! And how could any man ever think of anything so funny?”

“It is rather funny,” said Peggy. “Perhaps it is scarcely fair of me to choose those verses for my recitation; and, do you know, I haven’t a single copy of them, I just remembered them. They’ve been so often repeated to me by my grandad, when he was alive, and afterwards by the O’Flynns, I just know them by heart. Suppose I were to forget!”

“Well, if I were you, Peggy, I’d write them all out while I remembered them.”

“I don’t think I will do that, Alison, thank you so much, because, somehow, they’re part of me by this time. To say them properly you ought to be in an Irish cottage, Alison, with the sea breaking on the rocks just below your house, and the little hens—I say it properly now—roosting close by you, and the turkeys and the geese and the ducks, belike, all waiting for the dawn, and the bit of a calf wanting his drink of milk, and the little pigeens all snoring in their soft bed of hay. Ah, there’s no place like Old Ireland! Did you ever see real Irish moss, Alison?”

“No.”

“You don’t have it in this country,” continued Peggy. “I have looked for it and looked for it. You don’t know what the moss is in Ireland, in the damp month of February, when it fructifies, and is all over little delicate flowers, a sort of faint pink, you know; and then there’s another kind of dainty, dainty leaves, like tiny fern-leaves. I can’t tell you how beautiful it is! I wish Daddy O’Flynn would send me a box over, so that you could see for yourself.”

“When you are older, Peggy, you must go back to Ireland and see the Irish moss and all the Irish things again.”

“What’s that ye’re saying, Alison?”

“You must go back to Ireland to see——”

“Is it me to hear you talk as though it were a visit? Do you think when I’m grown up I’ll ever leave the place? Not me, it’s to live there and die there I want. The Irish shamrock and the Irish harp; and, oh, the Irish land! and—and the Irish people! Don’t talk to me, Alison, it’s me heart is broke when I think of them!” The excited child burst into tears, and Alison tried to comfort her for a few minutes.

Presently Peggy started up. “I must go to write that essay,” she said; “I can’t get round it at all, at all. Know yourself—it’s a horridly difficult thing to know yourself, isn’t it, Alison?”

“That is true; but just say what you feel, take all the things you love, those things that excite and interest you. There, perhaps I oughtn’t to say that much.”

“Thank you, Alison, you have given me a bit of a clue; but you won’t mind if I use it? I’m certain to write a bad essay, for my spelling ain’t none of the best. I’m sorry for meself, that I am.”

The news of the recitation, delightful to some of the girls, was the reverse of delightful to others; and Kitty thought it well to have a conference with her chosen friends on the subject. “There, now,” she said, “I know exactly what is going to happen. There’s one girl in the school to whom that prize means salvation, and she has no more a chance of it than if she wasn’t in the school at all.”

“Who are you talking about, Kitty?” asked Grace.

“Well, now, Grace, who do you think I am talking about?”

“I’m afraid it’s yourself,” answered Grace.

“Of course it is myself. You don’t know how badly I want that prize, you don’t know what life will be to me when I leave this school.”

“There’s one thing, Kitty, which does astonish us,” said Anne Dodd.

“What is that?”

“The marvellous way in which you have come round father.”

Kitty laughed.

“How did you do it, Kitty? I wish you’d tell us.”

“I’m not likely to,” replied Kitty.

“You might tell us, Kitty—you really might.”

“No,” answered Kitty.

“Well, you have done it, anyhow, and when father takes even a sort of fancy to a girl he’s always good to that girl as long as she lives, so you may be certain on that point; he’ll never let you really want.”

“But if I got the prize,” pursued Kitty, “I needn’t be beholden to any one. You don’t know how—how it hurts me somehow, for I may have a little bit of pride in me when all’s said and done.”

“I have never specially remarked it,” said Anne.

“Haven’t you, Anne? Well, I’m sorry, but I have pride, all the same.”

Anne made no response.

“How are you getting on with your essays?” was Kitty’s next remark.

“Very badly. I know I haven’t a chance of the prize,” said Anne. “What’s the good of trying?”

“We must try,” said Grace, “it would please daddy so tremendously if we won.”

“But it would have been much better for us not to have tried,” said Anne; “that’s my opinion. For if we hadn’t tried he would not have been disappointed, now he will be—of course he will—when he knows that we both have failed.”

The girls now began to whisper in low tones with regard to the person who was likely to win the prize essay.

Grace sat down in a dejected way and folded her arms. “I’m sick of writing!” she said. “Where’s the good? I’m absolutely certain to fail. Alison will get the prize. I don’t see the use of going on.”

Kitty had been sitting very still, her eyes were wonderfully bright. Suddenly she spoke. “Grace,” she said, “if you get the miniature, what will your father do for you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Grace. “What do you mean?”

“Well, now, listen,” said Kitty. “I have a plan in my head. No one can say a word against you, Gracie, with regard to conduct, and I’m sure your face looks the essence of good-temper. Now, if your father gives you a handsome present, supposing you win the miniature, will you share it with me?”

Grace gave a big sigh. “You’re always wanting me to share things with you, Kitty,” she said. “I am sure Anne and I often feel that we can scarcely call our souls our own. I haven’t a chance of the miniature, so what’s the good of thinking about what dad will give me?”

“Well, Gracie, listen. Write your very best, your very, very best, and there’s no saying—there’s no saying at all. But do just promise, for the fun of it, that you’ll give me half of whatever your father sends to you.”

“The worst of it is this,” said Grace, “that father and mother are both going to be present when the prize is given. I’m ever so sorry. I wish to goodness they’d stay away.”

“I’m not sorry,” said Kitty. “I’m very glad. You write very good English, you know, Grace; I’ve often noticed it and so have we all. Just make me that little promise, won’t you, like a duck?”

“Oh very well, I’ll make it fast enough.”

“You’ll give me half?”

“Yes, yes, but it’s too ridiculous.”

“But you and Anne will never tell?”

“Of course not—of course not. You’d better run away now, Kitty, you’re only disturbing us, and we have no time to lose.”

Kitty went out of the room, still with that glow in her cheeks and that light in her eyes. She was desperate. Somehow or other, she must secure fifty pounds, in no other possible way could she keep Miss Weston quiet. A desperate girl, devoid of principle, will go a long way. That moment Kitty, whose own essay, for what it was worth, was finished, sat down and wrote the following letter to Mr. Dodd:

“Dear Kind Friend—You said I might do it, and I am taking you at your word. I do want just a pretty simple little frock to wear on the Howard miniature prize day, something very simple. I could get it for five pounds. Of course, if you can’t spare the money I can easily manage; but it would be nice. All the girls are to be in white, the girls of the Upper School are to wear white embroidered muslins with violet sashes, and the girls of the Lower School are to be dressed like them, with rose-coloured sashes. Anne and Grace have ordered their dresses; and if you won’t help her, poor Kitty must manage with an old frock. But never mind, dear, kind sir; it is only a bit of vanity in Kitty, and perhaps it ought not to be encouraged. Now I’m going to tell you something which is very important. Grace is making such a try for the prize. The essay is very difficult; but she is taking such pains with it—oh, I must not say more, but I wonder, and I—I hope. As to poor little me, well, I haven’t the ghost of a chance, but I should be almost as happy if Grace got it as if I got it myself.

“Now, my dear sir, I am doing a very bold thing. I want to suggest to you that you might stimulate Grace by promising her something, something really big, if she gets the prize. It seems horrid to suggest money, but I do think she would like that best, for she has several plans in her head for spending her money, and they are all very good and great plans, that I can assure you. Now, sir, if you can, give Gracie a little fillip, will you? If not, please forget that Kitty has written.”

On the morning of the day when the prize essays were to be put on Miss Greene’s desk, Grace received a letter from her father which astonished her a good deal:

“My Dearest Child—I’m a silly old man to wish you to gain the Howard miniature prize; but there, my child, I should be that proud, and now I’ll tell you why—for I should recognise in my Grace a chip of the old block. I should feel that by and by my girl would worthily spend the riches which will be hers, that she would not waste them, but would turn them to account, like the faithful servant who did not wrap his talent in a napkin, but put it out to usury so that it gained more. That is what we have to do with all our talents, my Gracie, and if you gain the Howard miniature I’ll give you a hundred pounds just to do what you think best with, for I know you will not spend it contrary to your father’s wishes. By the way, child, give the enclosed post-office order to Kitty Merrydew. I hope the lass is improving.”

Kitty changed colour once or twice as Grace was reading this amazing letter.

“Poor daddy!” Grace said, when she had finished, “I hope to goodness, Kitty, that you haven’t been putting it into his head that I am likely to get that prize, when you know perfectly well that I haven’t the ghost of a chance of it. Here’s a post-office order for you, anyhow. Have you been asking daddy for money?”

Kitty coloured and then turned pale. “You need not be so unkind to me,” she said. “I’m sure I’d do anything in the world for you, and your father is always nice to me.”

“Well, you’ll be a rich girl if I do get the prize,” said Grace, “for dad says he’ll give me a hundred pounds. What can have put it into his head? But don’t rely on it, Kitty, for I have no more chance of the prize than you have, nor as much.”

Kitty made no reply; but that morning, which happened to be a whole holiday in the school, she begged of Miss Smith to walk down with her to the village in order that she might see Miss Weston. Miss Smith’s name has not often appeared in these pages, but she was one of the most good-natured and kindest of women, and all the girls adored her. Kitty and she were soon tramping off to the village, and Miss Smith allowed Kitty to visit Miss Weston alone. Kitty was very triumphant and excited, and paid in advance for her white muslin frock.

“I ’ear, miss, it’s to be for a very great occasion,” said the dressmaker. “I’m ’aving orders from most of the school. This ’as revived me a little, miss, and not made me feel so bitter against that King woman. Set ’er to cut a delicate Indian muslin, indeed! A nice show she’d make of it! What a wonderful prize you’re all competing for, miss; it’s the talk of Gable End. One of the servants was down ’ere yesterday, bringing an order from Miss Alison Maude; they all say that she’s to be the lucky competitor. Kate, who brought ’er message, left me a letter with full directions on it. Miss Maude is most particular about the cut of ’er dress, miss; nearly as much so as you are. Oh my! the orders I ’ave!”

“I wish I could see them, Miss Weston. You might show them to me, you really might.”

“Well, miss, I don’t like to refuse, but it really isn’t done.”

“Still you know, Miss Weston, I am doing a lot for you; but for me I don’t suppose you’d have got the orders for the prize dresses, and I do want mine to be just as nice as Miss Maude’s. You really might let me run my eye over her directions.”

“Very well, miss, I don’t suppose it can do any ’arm; but you’ll be careful not to mention it, Miss Merrydew?”

“Certainly I shall be careful.”

Accordingly Miss Weston went to her desk and took out a letter which she put into the girl’s hand. Eagerly Kitty’s dark eyes appeared to absorb the contents, in reality she was not thinking about them, her eyes were fixed on a small mark which was made in one corner of the paper—it was, in fact, the graceful tracing of a flower, and the flower, beyond doubt, was the bluebell. Without a word Kitty handed back the letter.

“Thank you, I’ll never speak of this,” she said, and then she returned to the school. She had got far more than she had hoped, than she had dared to hope. She really wished to have a good look at Alison Maude’s handwriting, for it was her impression that it almost exactly resembled the handwriting of Grace Dodd. Grace wrote an excellent hand, firm, upright, sensible. Kitty was right in her surmise, Alison wrote exactly like Grace; but Kitty had learnt a great deal more than the fact which she was already acting upon—that the two girls wrote like each other; she was positive that she had found out by an accident the pseudonym that Alison meant to take. She would call herself “Bluebell.”

During the whole of the rest of that day Kitty was lively of the lively, and most obliging. Towards the evening fortune seemed to favour her projects, for Grace had a bad headache and Anne did not like to leave her sister.

“Why should you?” said Kitty. “I am going across to the Upper School now to put my essay on Miss Greene’s writing-desk, and you can give me yours. I suppose they’re all ready.”

“Yes, quite,” said Anne. Grace did not speak, her head was aching severely. She did not like that letter of her father’s. She meant to write to him on the following day to tell him that she had no chance of winning the prize, and that in no case would she accept one hundred pounds from him. She and Anne had consulted over this letter, but resolved to say nothing to Kitty.

“Where shall I find the essays?” asked Kitty now.

Anne went to a drawer and took them out. All directions had been carefully followed. Each essay had been folded in three and slipped into a long envelope, which was gummed down. On the back of each envelope was neatly written the words: “Prize Essay for the Howard Miniature.” Fastened to the long envelope, according to directions, was a small, ordinary envelope, which was secured by a hole which had been made in the long envelope and also in the little one; through these two holes a ribbon was strung, which was tied now in a neat little bow. Grace’s ribbon was rose colour, Anne’s was cherry red. The pseudonyms of each girl were put on the small envelope.

“What is your pseudonym, Kitty?” asked Grace, raising her flushed face now and looking at Kitty. “We thought ‘Rosebud’ and ‘Cherry Blossom’ so pretty.”

“Oh, I?” said Kitty. “I have called myself ‘Pansy.’ Well, I’ll take the papers across now.”

Kitty lingered for some time in the passage outside Miss Greene’s private room. It was quite dark, the lights were not yet turned on; girls came and went rapidly, and no one noticed Kitty in her dark dress, standing in the shadow. She counted the girls as they went by. They entered Miss Greene’s room quickly and came out again almost at once. She felt certain now that all who were about to compete had left their papers on Miss Greene’s desk. It was now her turn to enter. Quick as thought, she opened the door and shut it behind her. There was a small lamp burning on the desk, the rest of the room was in shadow. Quickly Kitty approached the table. Staring her in the face was the long envelope in that neat writing so exactly like Grace’s—“Prize Essay for the Howard Miniature,” and on the small envelope, fastened to it with a piece of blue ribbon, was the pseudonym “Bluebell.”

In a flash, yet with firm fingers, Kitty untied Alison’s small envelope, she also untied Grace’s, then she changed the two envelopes, putting Grace’s on Alison’s paper and Alison’s on Grace’s. The deed was done. She gave a quick sigh of delight. “Ah! I am clever,” she said aloud.

“No, you are not. You’ve got to change that,” said a voice, strong, brave, passionate; and Kitty looked into Peggy’s eyes.

For one minute Kitty turned perfectly white, as white as death; there was no way out of it. Even her genius could not discover any. She had planned for this, she had worked for it. From the moment that Peggy had recited in her spirited and brilliant way, Kitty had known down deep in her heart that the Howard miniature was not for her. The best she could not win, but how about the second best? Could she so arrange matters that her friend should get the prize? How noble then would Kitty look, rejoicing in the good fortune of another; how splendid would be her appearance on the day of the prize-giving, when with her little face all aglow, she had kissed Grace and congratulated her. And there was really no fear of discovery, for the prize essay was not to be read aloud, the judges were to decide, and the essay itself was to be put away in the Howard archives; and the essays that were failures were to be destroyed, they were not to be returned to the luckless writers. All these things Kitty had taken into account when she laid her plans. Startling and great was the similarity between Grace’s handwriting and Alison’s! She had meant to be guided by that on the day when she changed the papers, but Fate seemed truly in her favour when that little sketch of the bluebell had given her the clue to Alison’s pseudonym. How Mr. Dodd would love her! how kindly he would think of the girl who had felt so sure of his girl’s success. Oh yes, yes, she had reason to be happy!

But, just at the moment of success there came the crash, the fall, the hopeless despair. For Kitty recognised in the sapphire-blue eyes of Peggy Desmond one who would not be trifled with, and who would not relent. She had begun by hating and despising Peggy; but although she feared her awfully she did not despise her now.

“Peggy, Peggy,” she said, “Peggy, Peggy, have mercy!”

“I don’t intend to have mercy,” replied Peggy; “there’s been too much mercy shown to ye, bedad, and I’m not going on with it. Ye’ll just do what I wish now. Untie that ribbon and be quick, or Miss Greene will come into the room.”

Kitty, with trembling fingers, did what Peggy demanded; her little hand shook, she could scarcely form a knot. Peggy stood stately and silent near her. She did not help her in the very least, there was a glow of triumph in her eyes. Was this the girl whom Kitty had resolved to humble? Was this the girl whom Kitty had hurt, had trampled on? Was this the girl whose leg had been broken because of Kitty and her satellites? She stood there now like a sort of avenging angel, gloriously strong and beautiful, but with no compassion about her—none whatsoever. Those tender and gracious lips had no kindly curves for Kitty, those glorious blue eyes were firm, defiant, slightly mocking, a little revengeful. Was this indeed the girl who was loved by all the Upper School, the creature of storm and sunshine, of love and pity, of sympathy, of that tender, tender compassion which would make her ever deny herself to help others?

Kitty, having at last finished her work of restoring the altered envelopes to their original position, now looked at Peggy. “I’ve done it,” she said. “You have stopped me and ruined me. I suppose I can go now,”

“Why, then, no.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Ye have got to come along with me to Mrs. Fleming, bedad.”

“Peggy! Oh you can’t be so cruel!”

“Cruel, is it? Why, then, it’s meself don’t see that at all. It’s you that has been cruel, Kitty Merrydew.”

“I—I—oh let me go, let me go! Have mercy, have pity! I’ll go on my knees to you. Have mercy! Peggy, Peggy, have mercy!”

“Get up again on to your legs. I can’t stand people making mollycoddles of themselves. You’re in a fright now, for you think you’re in my power, and you be in my power, Kitty Merrydew! I did wrong, bitter wrong, to promise I wouldn’t tell when you and those girls you were colloguing with let out a hit at me leg and broke it; but I’m tired of shielding ye, and what’s more, I’ll not do it, Kitty Merrydew. There are two girls in the school, and they’re frightened out of their lives at ye. One of them is Sophy Marshall and the other is Hannah Joyce. They couldn’t try for the prize just because of ye. Well, now, I promised that I’d not tell, and bitter sore have I felt about that said promise; but a promise with me is a promise, and I kept it, though me heart was bleeding, bleeding; but I never said I’d keep this, and I don’t mean to, so we’ll just come along and have our collogue with Mrs. Fleming, the crature. She’ll be mighty interested at the clever way ye did it, Kitty, altering the bits of envelopes and all. My word! it will be a fine story for her to listen to, and the sooner she hears it the better.”

“But do you know, can you guess, what this will mean to me?”

“Why, then, I’m not thinking of ye at all; it’s those two poor wans left out in the cold that me heart is aching for. Ah, to be sure, it’s pity I feel for them, poor colleens; but for ye, never a bit, so come along and get it done.”

“You’re the cruellest, wickedest, most horrible girl in the world!”

“Ah, to be sure, now that don’t hurt me at all; ye can’t come round me that way.”

“Peggy, is there any way in which I could beseech of you to have pity?”

“Niver a wan. Come along now, Kitty; it’s my turn at last.”

“Oh if I’d only left you alone!”

“To be sure, ye’d have been happier to-night if ye had.”

“Do you know what will happen if you have your wish, you horrible girl?”

“Why, to be sure, Hannah and Sophy will be put out of their misery. Maybe there’ll be a bit of a consolation prize given to them, poor colleens!”

“But what about me—me! I have no home, I am an orphan, I have only an aunt too poor to support me. Can you turn me out into the cold world?”

“’Tisn’t meself that’s doing it, Kitty; ’twas you, when you listened to the promptings of the wicked wan. There’s no saying where he’ll lead you.”

“Oh, oh, oh! I can’t!—I can’t bear it!”

Just then there was a noise heard in the passage outside, and Miss Greene, accompanied by two of the girls, entered the room. She looked with astonishment at Peggy, who was standing very upright, not a scrap of fear in her manner, but a great deal of proud resolution. Then Miss Greene glanced at Kitty, who was crouching into the darkest shadow of the room. Kitty’s heart began to beat furiously, she backed away and away, nearer and nearer to the window, which stood open.

“What are you two doing here?” said Miss Greene, who read disturbance in the air.

“Having a little bit of a tiff, no less,” said Peggy. “We thought we’d lay the matter before Mrs. Fleming.”

Miss Greene was about to interfere, for she knew that Mrs. Fleming was very tired; but there was something about Peggy’s attitude which stopped her.

“Miss Greene,” said Peggy, “ye’d best be collecting the prize essays, they’re all on your desk safe and sound. Now, then, Kitty, come along. Why, wherever——Have you seen her?” she asked, turning to one of the girls.

“Do you mean Kitty Merrydew?” asked Prissy, for it was she. “I saw her step out of the window a minute ago. I suppose she has gone back to the Lower School.”

“My word!” said Peggy. She turned and also left the room.