Thequarterly exhibition was drawing near. It was a great day at the school.
All the friends of the institution in town, and many from out of town, were present on these occasions.
It was a sort of examination of the school; and prizes for scholarship, declamation and composition were awarded by the principal.
There was no little emulation and rivalry among the pupils with regard to the prizes; but it was generally conceded by all that the composition-prize, which ranked first, would be gained by Susan or Florence.
Both wrote remarkably good compositions; and it was a disputed point which was the superior writer.
On this occasion both seemed determined todo their very best; and not only they, but the whole school, felt deeply interested in the contest.
It was the night before the exhibition.
Florence’s essay, neatly copied and tied together with blue ribbon, lay on the table before her; and, at the request of a large number of the girls who were in the room, she read it to them.
It was warmly applauded, and pronounced the very best thing she had ever written.
Susan had listened to its reading attentively.
“It is certainly very fine,” she said at its close.
“Read your’s now,” was the unanimous request; and she was about to do so, when the signal for retiring was given.
“You must wait till to-morrow, girls,” she said, pleasantly, as they left the apartment.
It was a bright and beautiful morning that dawned on the day of the exhibition.
The girls were all absorbed in their preparation. White muslins were to be in requisition,trimmed with different-coloured ribbons, according to the various classes of which their wearers were members.
There was little enough time for dressing after breakfast; and all were so much engaged in their preparations that the compositions were quite forgotten.
It was not until the first bell rang for school that Florence gathered up her books and papers for the day.
“Where is my composition?” she asked, rummaging over the table-drawer into which she had thrown it the night before.
“Have you seen my composition, girls?” she inquired of her room-mates. “Where can it be? It is strange enough where it can have gone!”
Strange enough it was; for, though several of her schoolmates remembered seeing her put it in the drawer, it was not there.
Mr. Worcester was informed of the loss, and gave Florence permission to be excused from school-duties for a while, that she mightfind it; but, after a thorough examination of the room, she was obliged to give it up in despair.
Where it had gone nobody could even guess; but that it had disappeared past recovery was certain.
Unfortunately Florence had not even the first rough draft of her essay. After having copied it she had torn it up and thrown it away.
Her schoolmates sympathized with her in her loss; but all their regrets did not restore the missing paper.
To lose that essay on which she had worked so hard and which was to have gained for her so much applause! What a trial.
It was a terrible disappointment; and it required all her self-control to keep back her tears when her rival read her composition.
Florence knew that her’s was a better one, and so all the girls felt who had heard it. So also Susan knew; and when Mr. Worcester pronounced that the prize had been awardedto her by the decision of the committee on essays, and bade her come forward to receive it, she said, as she approached him, in a voice so low that it reached his ear alone,—
“Mr. Worcester, if you please, I had rather not take it. I heard Florence read her’s last night, and I know it was better than mine. Please give the prize to her!”
Mr. Worcester looked at her admiringly.
“Your proposition does you honour,” he said: then, turning to the audience, he continued:—
“In justice to Miss Florence Anderson, I must say a few words.”
He then told of her loss and of her school-mate’s generous proposal. He paid Florence a just compliment on the excellence of her usual compositions, and regretted her misfortune. “Yet, Miss Susan,” he concluded, “the committee are obliged to decide on the merits of the articles submitted to them; and, however much we regret that Miss Florence’s was not among the number, the prize is fairly your’s.”
He threw a pretty gold chain around her neck as he spoke, and she took her seat amidst murmurs of approval from all the audience.
Susan had gained what she had been striving for so long. The prize was her’s; but all her enjoyment in it was gone.
At recess, the girls crowded round Florence to condole with her; and, though some few spoke of Susan’s proposal as a very generous one, most of them treated it with contempt.
“Fine words cost nothing,” said Florence. “She knew of course that Mr. Worcester would never give me the prize without reading my piece.”
Her listeners agreed to this sentiment, and, “It’s very strange where the composition can have gone,” was re-echoed again and again by one and another. “Such things don’t go without hands!” said some, with significant glances at each other and Susan.
Poor Susan! Her day of triumph was a most wretched one!
She gained some other prizes,—as did Florencealso; but at night, when she went to her room to put them away, she shed bitter tears over her honours.
The suspicions of her schoolmates with regard to the share she had in the betrayal of her cousin’s secret were just beginning to be forgotten; and now she felt that a second time she was exposed to a similar trial.
Cold looks, sneering remarks, neglect and dislike were again to be her bitter portion. And, as she had foreseen, all this came upon her.
Days and weeks passed on, and nothing had been heard of the missing essay. Wretched days and weeks were those to poor Susan.
In the midst of her schoolmates she lived almost alone. She was too proud to assert her innocence or to seek for sympathy from those who had suspected her. She was too proud, too, to show how much she suffered.
In public she was as calm and quiet as ever,—to all appearance the same; but many a night her pillow was wet with her tears.
Florence treated her with the utmost contempt, hardly deigning to speak to her; and Carrie, she felt, distrusted her: this last affair had shaken her confidence in her relative. She said nothing when Susan was spoken of; and this silence cut her cousin to the heart.