The genteel family knew nothing of these expedients.  Mrs. Morgan talked dolorously to her friends of ‘commercial depression,’ and gave it to be vaguely understood that her husband had suffered great losses because he conducted his affairs in the spirit of a gentleman.  Her son was in an office;’ her elder daughter was attempting the art of fiction, which did not promise to be lucrative; Jessica, more highly educated, would shortly matriculate at the University of London—­a consoling prospect, but involving the payment of a fee that could with difficulty be afforded.

Every friend of the family held it a matter of course that Jessica would succeed in the examination.  It seemed probable that she would have a place in Honours.

And, meanwhile, the poor girl herself was repenting of the indiscreet boastfulness with which she had made known her purpose.  To come out in an inferior class would be painful enough; how support the possibility of absolute failure?  Yet she knew only too well that in certain ‘subjects’ she was worse than shaky.  Her Greek —­her Chemistry—­her Algebra—­

By way of propitiating the stern fates, she began to talk with Lucy and Amelia Barmby in a tone of diffidence.  Half a year ago, she would have held her head very high in such company; now the simple goodness of the old-fashioned girls made an appeal to her aching heart, and their homely talk soothed her exhausted brain.

‘It’s fearfully difficult,’ she said to them one evening, as she sat in their parlour.  ’And I lose so much time with my pupils.  Really, you know, I haven’t a fair chance.  I was showing Nancy Lord the Algebra paper set last summer, and she confessed she could hardly do a single question.’

‘She couldn’t?’ exclaimed one of the sisters in astonishment.  ’But we always thought she was so very clever.’

’So she is—­in many things.  But she never dreamt of going in for such an examination as this.’

‘And do you really know more than she does?’

Jessica smiled with affected modesty.

‘Oh, I have studied so much more.’

It was sweet to gain this triumph over her friend, whose progress in the school of life she watched with the jealousy of a girl condemned to sterile passions.

Their talk was interrupted by the entrance of Samuel Barmby, and his elder sister, addressing him without reflection, said wonderingly: 

’Sam, did you know that Nancy Lord couldn’t pass the examination that Miss.  Morgan is going in for?’

Jessica blushed, and hastened to extenuate this crude statement.

’Oh, I didn’t say that.  Only that she would have to study very hard if she went in for the matriculation.’

‘Of course she would,’ Samuel assented, largely, as he took his stand before the fireplace and beamed upon the female trio.  ’Miss Lord goes in for broad culture; that’s quite a different thing from studying for examinations.’