"Oh, I wish to work now; if you mean to discuss that point I had better leave the room," said Florence.
"No, no, do stay, Flo; I won't be more than a moment. I want to understand things, that's all," said Kitty. "Please, Mary, say why is the Scholarship of great importance to you."
"Well, for several reasons," replied Mary. "I am not like you, Florence, and I am not like you, Kitty. I have got both a father and mother. My father is a clergyman; there are nine other children besides me--I am the third. It was extremely difficult for father to send me to this expensive school, but he felt that education was the one thing necessary for me. Father is a very advanced, liberal-minded man; he is before his time, so everyone says; but mother does not think it necessary that girls should know too much. Mother thinks that a girl ought to be purely domestic; she is very particular about needlework, and she would like every girl to be able to make a shirt well, and to be able to cook and preserve, and know a little about gardening, and know a great deal about keeping a house in perfect order. But father says, and very rightly, that every girl cannot marry, and that the girls who do not marry cannot want to know a great deal about keeping a house in order, and that such girls, unless they have fortunes left to them, will have to earn their own living. Of course, there are very few openings for women, and most women have to teach, so it is decided that I shall teach by and by. If marriage comes, all right, but if it does not come I shall earn my living as a governess.
"Now, to be a really good governess father wants me to be very well educated, and he is spending the little money that he might have left to me when he died in sending me to this good school. Whether I get the Scholarship or not, I shall remain at the school for three years. I am fifteen now; I shall remain here until I am eighteen. If I do get the Scholarship father means to save the money that the three years' schooling would cost, and he means to send me when I return home at the age of eighteen to a wonderful new College for Women which has been established at a place called Girton. He will spend the money which he would have spent on my education at Cherry Court School in keeping me at Girton, where I shall attend the University lectures at Cambridge, and learn as much as a man learns. It is wonderful to think of it. Mother is rather vexed; she says that I shall be put out of my sphere and cease to be womanly, but I don't think I could ever be that. You see that it is very important for me to win the Scholarship, and I mean to try very, very, very hard."
