ripping of you. But you see it hasn't made much difference."

"How, not made much difference?"

Richenda glanced at the tree, and from the tree to the syringe in her hand and the pail of disinfectant at her feet. "This," she said. "Anybody can do this job, and I've been sorting out pots over there all the morning," she indicated the yard behind the trees where the flower-pots and debris were kept. "And I can't threaten to leave."

"Your scholarship, of course?"

"Yes. And I'm supposed to be working for the medal."

Chesson's wanted a Horticultural Society's medal badly. They had never had one, nor were likely to get one unless Richenda Earle got it for them. Louie, who was quickly fathoming the real economy of the place, looked again at Richenda's red eyes.

"Well, they won't send you away till you've failed," she said.

But Earle made an impatient gesture, and her eyes began to stream again.

"Oh, what's a girl like you know about it!" she broke out. "Yes, I know they'll keep me till then, but you don't know anything at all about it! You would if you'd had my upbringing! You don't know what the struggle is. You think digging and carrying pots is hard work; you wouldn't if you'd seen what I've seen! When you go to London it's just shopping and theatres and suppers and things; but just you try to keep a small bookseller's accounts for him, when they're hardly worth keeping, I mean, and collecting his debts when all his money's tied up in stock and your father's nearly bankrupt—not that he's ever solvent—you'd know what I meant then!"