Under the coaching of Miss Goodson the Sixth Form had settled down to grim work. Twelve girls were to present themselves for examination for entering Dunningham University, and though the teacher naturally concentrated her greatest energies on this elect dozen, the rest by no means slipped through her intellectual net. There were stars among the candidates of whom she might feel moderately certain, and there were also laggers whose success was doubtful. In this latter category she classed Winona. Poor Winona still floundered rather hopelessly in some of her subjects. A poetic imagination may be a delightful inheritance and a source of infinite enjoyment to its owner, but it does not supply the place of a good memory. Examiners are prosaic beings who require solid facts, and even the style of a Macaulay or a Carlyle would not satisfy them unless accompanied by definite answers to their set questions. By a piece of unparalleled luck, Winona had secured and retained her County Scholarship, but her powers of essay writing were not likely to serve her in such good stead again. She often groaned when she thought of the examinations. Miss Bishop, Aunt Harriet, and her mother would all be so disappointed if she failed, and alas! her failure seemed only too probable.[Pg 237]
"Miss Goodson doesn't tell me plump out that I'll be plucked, but I can see she thinks so!" confided Winona to Garnet one day.
"Then show her she is wrong!"
"Not much chance of that, I'm afraid, but I'm doing my level best. I get up at six every morning, and slave before breakfast."
"So do I, but I get such frightful headaches," sighed Garnet. "I've been nearly mad with them. My cousin took me to the doctor yesterday. He says it's my eyes. I shan't be at school to-morrow. I have to go to Dunningham to see a specialist."
"Poor old girl! You never told me about your headaches."
"You never asked me! I've seen so little of you lately;"
Winona's conscience smote her. She had rather neglected Garnet since they had entered the Sixth Form. During their year in V.a. they had been fast friends. As new girls together and scholarship holders, a close tie had existed between them, and they had shared in many small excitements and adventures. When Winona was chosen Games Captain, however, their interests seemed to separate. Garnet was not athletic, she cared little for hockey or cricket, and preferred to devote her surplus energies to the Literary Society or the Debating Club. Almost inevitably they had drifted apart. Winona, wrapped up in the supreme fascinations of hockey matches and gymnasium practice, had chummed with Marjorie Kemp, Bessie Kirk, and Joyce Newton, who shared her enthusiasm for games. She remem[Pg 238]bered with a pang of self-reproach that she had not walked round the playground with Garnet once this term. Winona admired fidelity, but she certainly could not pride herself upon having practiced that virtue of late.
Garnet was absent from her desk next day, but when she returned to the school on Thursday, Winona sought an opportunity, and bore her off for a private talk. Garnet was looking very pale.
"I'm dreadfully upset," she confessed. "I told you I had to see a specialist about my eyes? Well, yesterday we went to Dunningham, to consult Sir Alfred Pollard. He says there's very serious trouble, and that if I'm not careful, I may ruin my sight altogether. He absolutely forbids any home work in the evenings."
"Forbids home work!" gasped Winona.
"Yes, utterly! Just think of it! With the examinations only six weeks off! I begged and implored, but he said I might choose between my sight and my exam. I suppose I shall have to fail!"
"Oh, Garnet!"
"Yes," continued her friend bitterly, "to fail at the very end, after all my work! And I have worked! When other girls have been getting all sorts of fun, I've sat in my bedroom with my books. Oh, it's too cruel!... Don't think me conceited, but I thought I might have a chance for the Seaton Scholarship. It was worth trying for! If you knew how I long to go to College! It would be so glorious to write B.A. after one's name! Besides, I must do something in life. All my sisters have chosen[Pg 239] careers, and I had, quite decided to take up teaching as a profession. I talked it over with Miss Goodson one day. She was so nice about it, and strongly advised me to go to College if I could possibly get the opportunity. Well, I suppose that dream's over now! Not much chance of a scholarship with one's prep knocked off!"
"Oh, Garnet, I'm so sorry! Will the doctor let you take the exams, at all?"
"Yes, I may attend school as usual, and go in for the exam., but I'm not to look at a book after 4 p.m. or before 9 a.m., so it's a very empty permission. How I shall rage all the evenings! I wish I had a gramophone to howl out my work into my ears, as I mayn't use my eyes!"
"Would that help you?" asked Winona eagerly.
"Of course it would! It isn't my brain that's wrong, only my eyes. I asked my cousin to read my prep. to me one evening, but it was beyond her, and we only got into a muddle. Oh dear, I could cry! To have worked to within six weeks of the exam., and then to have to slack like this! I'm the unluckiest girl in the world!"
Winona comforted her poor friend as best she could. She had an idea at the back of her mind, but she did not venture to confide it to Garnet until she had first consulted Aunt Harriet about it. It was no less a proposal than that they should do their preparation together, and that by reading the work aloud she could act eyes for her chum. It. would be difficult, no doubt, but not an utter impossibility, and it was absolutely the only way in which Garnet could[Pg 240] receive help. It would necessitate their spending many hours daily in each other's company, and to arrange this seemed to be the difficulty. She explained the situation to Miss Beach, with some diffidence and hesitation. She was terribly afraid of receiving a snubbing, and being told that her own work was more than sufficient for her, without taking up her friend's burdens. To her surprise, however, Aunt Harriet proved sympathetic, and heartily acquiesced in the scheme. She indeed made the very kind proposal that for the six weeks until the exam. Garnet should sleep with Winona at Abbey Close, so that they might have both the evening and early morning preparation together.
Winona carried her friend to a quiet corner of the gymnasium to communicate her thrilling news.
"Win! You don't really mean it? Oh, you're big! I didn't think any one in the world would have done that for me. Do you realize what you're undertaking? It's the one thing that can save me! And only a girl who's in my own Form, and going in for the exams. herself, could do it. Nobody else understands exactly what one wants. Win! I'm ready to worship you!"
"Will your cousin let you come to stay with us?"
"I've no fear of that. She'll be as grateful to you as I am!"
Without any further loss of time, Garnet was installed at Abbey Close, and the friends began their joint preparation. Garnet, by the doctor's orders, sat with a black silk handkerchief tied over her eyes, so as to give them all the rest which was possible.[Pg 241] Her brain was very alert, however, and her excellent memory retained most of what Winona read to her. At first there were many difficulties to be overcome, for each had had her own way of studying, but after a while they grew used to their united method, and began to make headway with the work. They thoroughly enjoyed being together. To Winona it was almost like being back at the hostel to have a companion in her bedroom, and her many jokes and bits of fun kept up Garnet's spirits. They set their alarm clock for 5.30, and began study promptly at six each morning, after eating the bread and butter and drinking the glasses of milk which, by Aunt Harriet's orders, were always placed in readiness for them. These early hours, when the day was cool, and a fresh breeze blew in through the open window, seemed the most valuable of all; their brains felt clearer, and they were often able to grasp problems and difficult points which had eluded them the evening before.
Except for the ordinary practices which formed part of the school curriculum, Winona was obliged for the present to appoint Bessie Kirk as her deputy-Captain. She had no time herself to train juniors, to act referee, or to stand watching tennis sets. It meant a great sacrifice to relinquish these most congenial duties, but she knew Miss Bishop and Miss Goodson approved, and she promised herself to return to them all the more heartily when the examination should be over. She would ask Bessie wistfully for reports of the progress of various stars who were in training, and managed to keep in touch[Pg 242] with the games, though she could not always participate in them.
"Wait till June's over, and I'm emancipated! Then won't I have the time of my life!" she announced. "Thank goodness the match with Binworth isn't till July 21st!"
The weeks of strenuous work passed slowly by. The weather was warm and sultry, with frequent thunderstorms, not a favorable atmosphere for study. Garnet flagged palpably, and lost her roses. To Winona the time seemed interminable. The task she had undertaken of helping her friend was a formidable one. It needed all her courage to persevere. Sometimes she longed just for an evening to throw it up, and go and play tennis instead, but every hour was important to Garnet, and must not be lost. Winona often had to set her teeth and force herself to resist the alluring sound of the tennis in the next-door garden, where she had a standing invitation to come and play, and it took all the will power of which she was capable to focus her attention on the examination subjects. She tried not to let Garnet see how much the effort cost her; the latter was sensitive, and painfully conscious of being a burden. Miss Beach dosed both the girls with tonics, and insisted upon their taking a certain amount of exercise.
"Work by all means, but don't over-work," was her recommendation. "There's such a thing as bending a bow until it breaks. I don't like to see such white cheeks!"
The examination was for entering Dunning[Pg 243]ham University, and must be taken at that city. The Governors of the Seaton High School had offered a scholarship, tenable for three years, to whichever of their candidates, obtaining First Class honors, appeared highest on the list of passes. They had arranged with the examiners to place the names of the successful candidates in order of merit and on the receipt of the results they would award their exhibition. If no one obtained First Class honors, the offer would be withdrawn, and held over until another year.
Several of the girls were well up in their work, and seemed likely to have a chance of winning. Linda Fletcher had the advantage of two years in the Sixt............