school.  I know I am a foundationer and my education is free; but there are other small expenses that have to be met.  Even for me to live at home is almost more than they can compass.  You can therefore imagine the great and wonderful delight of being able to secure a scholarship of sixty pounds a year.  I could scarcely have managed it without this help.  It was noble of Cassandra to offer it, and I—­I accepted it, Miss Ravenscroft.  After that, of course, I couldn’t remain in Kathleen’s society, for Kathleen and Cassandra hate each other, and I couldn’t be one moment with one girl and another with the other; so I gave up the society and joined Cassandra.  But I can’t now betray those who were my friends.  I have made up my mind; I can’t.”

“You have really made up your mind?”

“Quite—­quite; indeed I cannot.”

“Do you know what this means?”

“I can guess.”

“We shall be obliged to call a meeting of the governors.  You will be had up before them.  If you still persist in keeping your knowledge to yourself they will be obliged to strike your name off the school roll.  You will not then be able to get the Ayldice Scholarship.  You are a clever girl, Ruth.  My dear child, the whole thing is a mistake.  You do wrong to conceal insurrection.  I can tell your special friend Kathleen, who will no longer be queen of the Wild Irish Girls, to-morrow morning, that I have forced this confession out of you.  She will not hate you; she will forgive you.  She will understand.  My dear, why should you sacrifice everything for the sake of this naughty Irish girl?”

“Because I love her, and because it would be mean,” answered Ruth, and now she burst into tears.

Miss Ravenscroft talked to her a little longer, but Ruth was firm.  When she left the head-mistress’s presence she felt a certain sense almost of elation.

“Now I don’t feel so absolutely horrible,” she said to herself.  “Of course I will face the governors.  I will just say that I know but that I can’t tell.  Yes, I believe I have done right.  Anyhow, I don’t feel quite so bad as before I went to see Miss Ravenscroft.”

Meanwhile Susy Hopkins was having a busy time.  She went to school in the morning, but as soon as ever lesson hours were over she flew back to her mother’s shop.  There Mrs. Hopkins awaited her with a tray full of good things.

“Now, Susy,” she said, “Tom will help you, for I have got him to promise.  He will borrow a wheelbarrow, and all the things can be stacked away tidily into it, and he will take them straight off to Aunt Church’s house with you immediately after dinner.  You had best spend the afternoon with the old lady and encourage her all you can.  It is a blessed relief to have two months of that debt wiped out, and I am very much obliged to you, child, and I will help you all I can.”