once she bestowed the prize upon theessay which seemed to the girls the most crude and unfinished.
"Never mind," she would say, "here is an idea--or at least half an idea.This little bit of composition is original, and not, at best, a poorimitation of Sir Walter Scott or Lord Macaulay."
Thus the girls found a strong stimulus to be their real selves in theselittle essays, and the best of them chose their subject and let itferment in their brains without the aid of books, except for the moretechnical parts.
More than one girl in the school was surprised at Dora Russell exertingherself to try for the prize essay. She was just about to close herschool career, and they could not make out why she roused herself towork for the most difficult prize, for which she would have to competewith any girl in the school who chose to make a similar attempt.
Dora, however, had her own, not very high motive for making the attempt.She was a thoroughly accomplished girl, graceful in her appearance andmanner; in short, just the sort of girl who would be supposed to docredit to a school. She played with finish, and even delicacy of touch.There was certainly no soul in her music, but neither were there anywrong notes. Her drawings were equally correct, her perspective good,her trees were real trees, and the colouring of her water-coloursketches was pure. She spoke French extremely well, and with a correctaccent, and her German also was above the average. Nevertheless, Dorawas commonplace, and those girls who knew her best spoke sarcastically,and smiled at one another when she alluded to her prize essay, andseemed confident of being the successful competitor.
"You won't like to be beaten, Dora, say, by Annie Forest," they wouldlaughingly remark; whereupon Dora's calm face would slightly flush andher lips would assume a very proud curve. If there was one thing shecould not bear it was to be beaten.
"Why do you try for it, Dora?" her class-fellows would ask; but hereDora made no reply: she kept her reason to herself.
The fact was Dora, who must be a copyist to the end of the chapter, andwho could never to her latest day do anything original, had determinedto try for the composition prize because she happened accidentally tohear a conversation between Mrs Willis and Miss Danesbury, in whichsomething was said about a gold locket with Mrs Willis's portraitinside.
Dora instantly jumped at the conclusion that this was to be the greatprize bestowed upon the successful essayist. Delightful idea; how wellthe trinket would look round her smooth white throat! Instantly shedetermined to try for this prize, and of course as instantly the bareidea of defeat became intolerable to her. She went steadily andmethodically to work. With extreme care she chose her subject. Knowingsomething of Mrs Willis's peculiarities, she determined that her themeshould not be historical; she believed that she could express herselffreely and with power if only she could secure an un-hackneyed subject.Suddenly an idea which she considered brilliant occurred to her. Shewould call her composition "The River." This should not bear referenceto Father Thames, or any other special river of England, but it shouldtrace the windings of some fabled stream of Dora's imagination, which,as it flowed along, should tell something of the story of the manyplaces by which it passed. Dora was charmed with her own thought, andworked hard, evening after evening, at her subject, covering sheets ofmanuscript paper with pencilled jottings, and arranging and rearrangingher somewhat confused thoughts. She greatly admired a perfectly roundedperiod, and she was most particular as to the style in which she wrote.For the purpose of improving her style she even studied old volumes ofAddison's _Spectator_; but after a time she gave up this course ofstudy, for she found it so difficult to mould her English to Addison'sthat she came to the comfortable conclusion that Addison was decidedlyobsolete, and that if she wished to do full justice to "The River" shemust trust to her own unaided genius.
At last the first ten pages were written. The subject was entered uponwith considerable flourishes, and some rather apt poetical quotationsfrom a book containing a collection of poems; the river itself hadalready left its home in the mountain, and was careering merrily pastsunny meadows and little rural, impossible cottages, where thegolden-haired children played.
Dora made a very neat copy of her essay so far. She now began to seeher way clearly--there would be a very powerful passage as the riverapproached the murky town. Here, indeed, would be room for powerful andpathetic writing. She wondered if she might venture so far as to hide asuicide in her rushing waters; and then at last the brawling river wouldlose itself in the sea; and, of course, there would not be the smallestconnection between her river, and Kingsley's well-known song, "Clear andcool."
She finished writing her ten pages, and being now positively certain ofher gold locket, went to bed in a happy state of mind.
This was the very night when Annie was to lead her revellers through thedark wood, but Dora, who never troubled herself about the youngerclasses, would have been certainly the last to notice the fact that afew of the girls in Lavender House seemed little disposed to eat theirsuppers of thick bread-and-butter and milk. She went to bed and dreamthappy dreams about her golden locket, and had little idea that anymischief was about to be performed.
Hester Thornton also, but in a very different spirit, was working hardat her essay. Hester worked conscientiously; she had chosen "MarieAntoinette" as her theme, and she read the sorrowful story of thebeautiful queen with intense interest, and tried hard to get herselfinto the spirit of the times about which she must write. She hadscarcely begun her essay yet, but she had already collected most of thehistorical facts.
Hester was a very careful little student, and as she prepared herselffor the great work. She thought little or nothing about the prize; sheonly wanted to do justice to the unfortunate Queen of France. She wasin bed that night, and just dropping off to sleep, when she suddenlyremembered that she had left a volume of French poetry on herschool-desk. This was against the rules, and she knew that MissDanesbury would confiscate the book in the morning, and would not lether have it back for a week. Hester particularly wanted this specialbook just now, as some of the verses bore reference to her subject, andshe could scarcely get on with her essay without having it to refer toShe must lose no time in instantly beginning to write her essay, and todo without her book of poetry for a week would be a serious injury toher.
She resolved, therefore, to break through one of the rules, and, afterlying awake until the whole house was quiet, to slip downstairs, enterthe school-room and secure her poems. She heard the clock strikeeleven, and she knew that in a very few moments Miss Danesbury and MissGood would have retired to their rooms. Ah, yes, that was MissDanesbury's step passing her door. Ten minutes later she glided out ofbed, slipped on her dressing-gown, and opening her door, ran swiftlydown the carpetless stairs, and found herself in the great stone hallwhich led to the school-room.
She was surprised to find the school-room door a little ajar, but sheentered the room without hesitation, and, dark as it was, soon found herdesk, and the book of poems lying on the top. Hester was about toreturn when she was startled by a little noise in that portion of theroom where the first-class girls sat. The next moment somebody cameheavily and rather clumsily down the room, and the moon which was justbeginning to rise fell for an instant on a girl's face. Hesterrecognised the face of Susan Drummond. What could she be doing here?She did not dare to speak, for she herself had broken a rule in visitingthe school-room. She remained, therefore, perfectly still until Susan'ssteps died away, and then, thankful to have secured her own property,returned to her bedroom, and a moment or two later was sound asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY.
"A MUDDY STREAM."
In the morning Dora Russell sat down as usual before her orderly andneatly-kept desk. She raised the lid to find everything in its place--her books and exercises all as they should be, and her pet essay in aneat brown-paper cover, lying just as she had left it the night before.She was really getting quite excited about her river, and as this was ahalf-holiday, she determined to have a good work at it in the aft
ernoon.She was beginning also to experience that longing for an auditor whichoccasionally is known to trouble the breasts of genius. She felt thatthose graceful ideas, that elegant language, those measured periods,might strike happily on some other ears before they were read aloud asthe great work of the Midsummer holidays.
She knew that Hester Thornton was making what she was pleased to term apoor little attempt at trying for the same prize. Hester would scarcelyventure to copy anything from Dora's essay; she would probably bediscouraged, poor girl, in working any longer at her own composition;but Dora felt that the temptation to read "The River," as far as it hadgone, to Hester was really too great to be resisted. Accordingly, afterdinner she graciously invited Hester to accompany her to a bower in thegarden, where the two friends might revel over the results of Dora'sextraordinary talents.
Hester was