The Luckiest Girl in the School | Page 9

was so irksome to write pages of Latin or French verbs; she had to summon all her courage to make herself do it. The last hour seemed an interminable penance.
At half-past four, twenty-one rather dispirited candidates filed from the room.
"Well, thank goodness it's over! I never want to write another word in my life. My hand's stiff with cramp!" exclaimed the girl with the red hair-ribbon to a sympathetic audience in the passage.
"It was awful! I didn't answer half the questions. My swastika isn't worth its salt. I shall give it away!" mourned the owner of the mascot.
"They expected us to know so very much; we should be absolute encyclopaedias if we had all that pat off at our fingers' ends!" sighed the girl with the fair pigtail.
"How did you get on?" Winona asked the ruddy-haired girl, who was wiping her spectacles nervously.
"Oh, I don't know. It's so hard to tell. I answered most of the questions, but of course I can't say whether they're right or wrong. Wasn't the Latin translation just too horrible? I yearned for a dictionary. And some of the French grammar questions were absolute catches!"
"We went on too long," said Winona. "It would have been much better to spread the exam, over two days."
"Do you think so? I'd rather have 'sudden death' myself. It's such a relief to feel it's finished. It would be wretched to have to begin again to-morrow. I hardly slept a wink last night for thinking about it. I'm going to try and forget it now."
Winona nodded good-by to her fellow candidates, and took her leave. How many of them would she see again, she wondered, and which among all the number would have the luck?
"Certainly not myself," she thought ruefully. "I know my papers weren't up to standard. I believe that red-haired girl will be one. She looked clever!"
Winona had spent the preceding night with Aunt Harriet, who offered to keep her until the result of the examination should be published, but the prospect of spending a week of suspense at Abbey Close was so formidable, that she had begged to be allowed to return home, excusing herself on the plea that she would like to be with Percy during the remainder of his holidays. It was a very subdued Winona who reached Highfield next afternoon.
"Hello, Tiddleywinks! You've lost the starch out of you!" Percy greeted her. "Did they say they wouldn't have you at any price?"
"The result won't be out till the fifteenth, but I expect I've failed," answered Winona gloomily.
"Buck up, young 'un! Look at yours truly! I fail nine times out of ten, and do I take it to heart?"
Winona laughed in spite of herself. Percy's complacency over small achievements was proverbial. But she had higher ambitions, and the cloud of depression soon settled down again. Her temper, not always her strong point, displayed a degree of irritability that drove her family to the verge of mutiny.
"Really, Winona, I don't remember you so fractious since you were cutting your teeth!" complained her much-tried mother.
The days dragged slowly by. Winona had never before realized that each hour could hold so many minutes. On the morning of the 15th she came down to breakfast with dark rings round her eyes.
"I shall be glad to be put out of my misery!" she thought, as the postman's rap-tap sounded at the door.
Mamie made a rush for the letter-box, and returned bearing a foolscap envelope addressed to:
MISS WINONA WOODWARD, Highfield, Ashbourne, nr. Great Marston.
Winona opened it with trembling fingers. But as she read, her face flushed and her eyes sparkled.
"I have much pleasure in informing you" (so ran the letter) "that the Governors of the Seaton High School have decided to award you a Scholarship tenable for two years...."
In silence she passed the paper to her mother.
"Congratulations, dear child!" cried Mrs. Woodward, clapping her hands. "It's the unexpected that happens!"
"Oh, my goodness!" ejaculated Percy. "You never mean to tell me that Tiddleywinks has actually been and gone and won!"
CHAPTER III
Seaton High School
The autumn term at Seaton High School began on September 22nd. On the 21st Winona set forth with great flourish of trumpets, feeling more or less of a heroine. To have been selected for a scholarship among twenty-one candidates was a distinction that even Aunt Harriet would admit. In the brief interval pending her departure, her home circle had treated her with a respect they had never before accorded her.
"I hope you'll do well, child," said her mother, half proud and half tearful when it came to the parting. "We shall miss you here, but when you get on yourself you must help the younger ones. I shall look to you to push them on in life."
There is a certain satisfaction in the knowledge that you are considered the prop of