“Hello, Tiddleywinks!  You’ve lost the starch out of you!” Percy greeted her.  “Did they say they wouldn’t have you at any price?”

“The result won’t be out till the fifteenth, but I expect I’ve failed,” answered Winona gloomily.

“Buck up, young ’un!  Look at yours truly!  I fail nine times out of ten, and do I take it to heart?”

Winona laughed in spite of herself.  Percy’s complacency over small achievements was proverbial.  But she had higher ambitions, and the cloud of depression soon settled down again.  Her temper, not always her strong point, displayed a degree of irritability that drove her family to the verge of mutiny.

“Really, Winona, I don’t remember you so fractious since you were cutting your teeth!” complained her much-tried mother.

The days dragged slowly by.  Winona had never before realized that each hour could hold so many minutes.  On the morning of the 15th she came down to breakfast with dark rings round her eyes.

“I shall be glad to be put out of my misery!” she thought, as the postman’s rap-tap sounded at the door.

Mamie made a rush for the letter-box, and returned bearing a foolscap envelope addressed to: 

MissWinona Woodward,
Highfield,
Ashbourne,
nr.  Great Marston.

Winona opened it with trembling fingers.  But as she read, her face flushed and her eyes sparkled.

“I have much pleasure in informing you” (so ran the letter) “that the Governors of the Seaton High School have decided to award you a Scholarship tenable for two years....”

In silence she passed the paper to her mother.

“Congratulations, dear child!” cried Mrs. Woodward, clapping her hands.  “It’s the unexpected that happens!”

“Oh, my goodness!” ejaculated Percy.  “You never mean to tell me that
Tiddleywinks has actually been and gone and won!”

CHAPTER III

Seaton High School

The autumn term at Seaton High School began on September 22nd.  On the 21st Winona set forth with great flourish of trumpets, feeling more or less of a heroine.  To have been selected for a scholarship among twenty-one candidates was a distinction that even Aunt Harriet would admit.  In the brief interval pending her departure, her home circle had treated her with a respect they had never before accorded her.

“I hope you’ll do well, child,” said her mother, half proud and half tearful when it came to the parting.  “We shall miss you here, but when you get on yourself you must help the younger ones.  I shall look to you to push them on in life.”

There is a certain satisfaction in the knowledge that you are considered the prop of the family.  Winona’s eyes glowed.  In imagination she was already Principal of a large school, and providing posts as assistant mistresses for Letty, Mamie and Doris, that is to say unless she turned her attention to medicine, but in that case she could be head of a Women’s Hospital, and have them as house surgeons or dispensers, or something else equally distinguished and profitable.  It might even be possible to provide occupation for Godfrey or Ernie, though this was likely to prove a tougher job than placing the girls.  With such a brilliant beginning, the future seemed an easy walk-over.