United States or Finland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He looked again at the pair by the piano, and then across the long room to Colonel Sharston. Colonel Sharston was absorbed in a game of chess with Bertha Keys. He was noticing nothing but the intricacies of the game. "All the same," added Sir John, "her father and I are in no hurry to see Kitty settled in life. She is most precious to us both; we should scarcely know ourselves without her."
There is a girl whom I have heard of whom I have, I believe, some years ago seen a very sweet, very graceful, very pretty girl. Her name is Miss Sharston. She was poor, but I have lately heard that Sir John Wallis, the owner of Cherry Court Park, in Buckinghamshire, is going to make her his heiress. She is coming on a visit here.
Their names were Mabel and Alice Cunningham, two handsome dark-eyed girls, aged respectively seventeen and fifteen; Florence Aylmer, who was also fifteen and the romp of the school; Mary Bateman, a stolid-looking girl of fourteen; Bertha Kennedy, who had only lately been raised to the rank of the Upper school; Edith King, a handsome, graceful girl, who competed with Mabel for the honors of the head of her class; and Kitty Sharston, who had only lately come, and who had some Irish blood in her, and was very daring and very much inclined to break the rules.
"What, my dear, darling pet what?" "Well, for instance, there are two other girls." "Oh, girls," said Mrs. Aylmer, in a contemptuous voice. "I am not going to be frightened by girls. My Florence is equal to the best girl that ever breathed." "Yes, but mother, you cannot quite understand. There's Kitty Sharston, for instance." "Kitty Sharston," said Mrs. Aylmer; "what about her?"
Kitty Sharston was too new a scholar to expect to get any reward in the ordinary sense of this term, but, all the same, she had worked fairly well, and during the last three weeks had tackled her studies and regulated her conduct like a veritable little Trojan. Every moment of Kitty's day was now marked out.
I respect, I admire, I reverence Miss Sharston; but I do not love her, nor does she love me. It is sacrilege to talk of a marriage between us. If I offered she would refuse; it is not to be thought of; besides " "Why do you stop? Go on. It is just like your gratitude. How true are the poet's words: 'Sharper than serpent's tooth! But what is your intention in the future?" "Justice," he replied.
She saw her father, uttered a cry half of rapture, half of pain, and the next instant was clasped in his arms. Florence saw the Major's arms fold around Kitty, and a queer lump rose in her throat and she went away all by herself. Somehow, at that moment she felt that she shared Mrs. Clavering's wish that Kitty Sharston should get the prize.
"It is perfectly true that I should like her to get it," said Sir John, instantly, "but the prize shall be bestowed upon the girl who comes out best in deportment, best in conduct, and best in learning, whether she is Kitty Sharston or another. Now, that is all, Florence Aylmer. I have spoken. Don't, I beg of you, say a word of what you have just said to me to Kitty herself.
I don't suppose for a single moment my cousin, Catherine Sharston, will get the Scholarship; but seeds of envy and discontent will be sown in her heart, and I shall have some trouble in bringing her into a proper frame of mind when she joins me in Scotland." "I pity you," said Mrs. Aylmer, in reply to this speech, "but the girl looks well-meaning and easily influenced."
"Yes, I am glad," he replied. "Is that your daughter?" he continued, as if he wished to turn the conversation. "That is my dear daughter Florence." Mrs. Aylmer spoke excitedly. Florence and Kitty Sharston were seated on the edge of a rock. Kitty was poking with her parasol at some sea-anemones which were clinging to the rock just under the water.
Word Of The Day