LASS II. A," read out the sonorous voice of the clergyman who was presiding over the breaking-up of the school—"Prize for mathematics, Ellen Naylor."
A girl from the middle of the back form stood up with a jerky motion, crushed herself as flat as possible to make her way in front of the knees of the seat, and advanced to the book-laden table with the quick, ungraceful progress of the self-conscious school-girl all the world over.
"English prize, Alice Edwards."
A rather fat girl in stiff white muslin giggled as she worked her way out of her place. Then she came down with her face very red and one shoulder stuck higher than the other out of pure nervousness. When the girls clapped she giggled again and tumbled back to her seat, leaving the handsome book in the hands of a favourite friend a few seats away.
"Prize for Latin, Una Gilbert."
A thin, sallow little girl stepped down this time; her forehead was good, her eyes intellectual, but a doctor would have wanted to take her books away and make her run wild in the country. A very observant visitor might have noticed a faintly cynical smile on her young lips whenever the speechifying grew tiresome, or when a would-be humorous speaker attempted a pun.
She had been over the Alps with Hannibal and through all manner of battles with Cæsar, but she was so nervous when she went to take her prize from the hands of the harmless clergyman that she actually forgot to say "Thank you," and merely scurried back to her seat like a little frightened rabbit.
A visitor at the end of the row of chairs yawned slightly, and so contagious was the act that nearly all the kid-gloved hands in the room began to fumble at veils or feign to rub irritable upper lips. Such a close, sultry morning it was, and such an interminable prize and certificate list to be gone through. To those not interested in the achievements of any particular girl the proceedings seemed to resolve themselves into an endless repetition of girls in white muslin struggling out of their seats, plunging down to the prize table with their chins stuck out, mumbling their thanks with red faces, and plunging back amid the tireless applause of their fellows. Occasionally a girl bore herself gracefully, bowed with the self-possession of a woman, and went back well pleased with herself. Occasionally a particularly pretty face excited the admiration of the visitors. But twelve to seventeen is a girl's awkward, unbeautiful age, in eight causes out of every ten, and there being no one so entirely conscious of it as the girl herself, for the most part the ceremony was marked by a lack of grace that obtruded itself painfully.
The end of the regular list was reached at last, and a faint sigh of relief went up from the visitors. There were only three "extra special" prizes to be awarded, then the proceedings would be at an end. A slight ripple of interest ran over the assembled girls; the former results had been known to them for two or three days, but with these three, though many conjectures had been made, no one knew precisely to whom they would fall.
The prize for "public spirit" was awarded to a bright, sweet-faced girl amid a storm of clapping that clearly proclaimed a favourite.
The swimming prize, a particularly desirable tennis racquet, was carried off by a brown-cheeked elf who, besides out-distancing her compeers at the baths, had managed to write the best paper on "Methods of Life-saving." Last of all came the award of the prize which a distinguished visitor had offered at the beginning of the year, for the pupil displaying the best knowledge of history.
Class I. A, the principal said, had been left behind in this subject by II. A, in which two girls had worked exceedingly hard for the prize all the year. And now a great difficulty presented itself. In the three examinations which had been held, both girls had obtained full marks, and when the year marks had been added up it was found that they had precisely the same number, three hundred and forty-six each. What was to be done?
"Will Una Gilbert and Chrissie Young kindly stand up in their places?" said the clergyman. Una Gilbert stood up in the far-away back seat of Class II. A, and in the second front one Chrissie Young, a brown-eyed, calm-faced slip of a girl, rose to her feet.
The clergyman looked at them in perturbation. "I really don't know what to do," he said. "It would be a pity to divide the books, would it not, for the set would be broken for both of you; and it seems no use to set you written examinations, does it?"
Then the distinguished visitor spoke, and he was so very distinguished that everyone listened with deference to his suggestion.