“In a jiff,” replied Kathleen.

She ran up to Susy.

“This is what I promised,” she said; “and there is a note inside.  Read it, and give me the answer where I have asked you.”

Susy Hopkins, a most ordinary little girl, who had no position of any sort in the school, colored high with delight.  Some of the paying girls looked at her in astonishment.  Susy walked into the school with her head high in the air; she quite adored Kathleen, for she was making her a person of great distinction.

“We are going to have a glorious time,” whispered Susy to Kate Rourke as they made their way to their respective classes.

Susy was small, rather stupid, and absolutely unimportant.  Kate was big, black-eyed, impudent.  She was jealous of the paying girls of the school; but she treated Susy as some one beneath contempt.

“Don’t drag my sleeve,” she replied crossly.  “And what you do mean by a glorious time?  I don’t understand you.”

“You will presently,” said Susy.  “And when all is said and done, you will have to remember that you owe it to me.  But I have no time to talk now; only meet me, and bring as many of the foundationers as you can collect into the left-hand corner of the playground, just behind the Botanical Laboratory, at recess.”

Kate made no answer, unless a toss of her head could have been taken as a reply.  Her first impulse was to take no notice of Susy’s remarks—­little Susy Hopkins, the daughter of a small stationer in the town, a girl who had scarcely scraped through in her examination.  It was intolerable that she should put on such airs.

The work of the school began, and all the girls were busy.  Kate was clever, and she meant to try for one of the big scholarships.  She would get her forty pounds a year when the time came, and go to Holloway College or some other college.  She was not a lady by birth; she had not a single instinct of a true lady within her; but she was intensely ambitious.  She did not care so much for beauty as for style; she made style her idol.  The look that Cassandra wore as she walked quietly across the room, the set of her dress, the still more wonderful set of her head as it was placed on her queenly young shoulders—­these were the things that burnt into Kate’s soul and made her restless and dissatisfied.  She would willingly have given all her father’s wealth—­and he was quite well-to-do for his class—–­ to have Cassandra’s face, Cassandra’s voice, Cassandra’s figure.  Cassandra was not at all a pretty girl, but her appearance appealed to all the wild ambitions in Kate’s soul.  She had a jealous contempt of Ruth Craven, who, although a foundation girl, managed to look like a lady; but her envy was centered round Cassandra.  As to the Irish girl, she had scarcely noticed her up to the present.