"Oh, I'll be through in time for the luncheon," said Elinor, hastily. "But if I'm not out here by eleven-fifteen, you'd better start without me. I can meet you somewhere, or you all can come over here for me."

Doris Leighton, passing, stopped for a gay word with Patricia and Judith as they loitered in the hall. She made a laughing little gesture of envy when she heard their program for the day, which Patricia, eager to make amends for the unspoken slight upon her, poured out generously.

"What fun it will be," she said, with the faintest tinge of sadness in her lovely voice. "It must be splendid to have a brother! I have always so longed for one."

Patricia caught herself in the act of offering her a share in David Francis, but remembering his cold criticism of other attractive girls in the past, closed her lips in time.

"We didn't have one till this winter," she said cheerfully. "So I guess we appreciate him for all he's worth."

Doris Leighton's pretty eyes widened. "What in the world do you mean?" she asked with such real interest that Patricia gladly rushed into the tale of the kidnaping of her five-year-old twin brother, and how he had been given up as dead for all the long years until the chance discovery of his identity revealed him to them at the very time when they were most in need of him. She did not dwell on the financial reinforcement that he brought to them, feeling instinctively that the knowledge of their straitened means would lower them in Doris Leighton's estimation, but drew a lively picture of the jolly Christmas party they had had at Greycroft, and the happy future they were looking forward to in their life together.

"He's at Prep now, but he'll enter Yale next year," she ended proudly. "He's awfully clever, though he doesn't show it. He behaves just as silly and stupid as other boys most of the time."

"He must be a nice boy," returned the Class Beauty, with lagging interest and a shade of condescension in her manner. "Of course, he's young yet. I thought he was Kendall Major's twin."

Judith, who had been scanning her narrowly, opened her eyes at this, and asked innocently, "Is that why you thought you'd like him? Because he was older and more grown-up?"

Doris Leighton laughed a rippling laugh that had no shade of the annoyance which Patricia felt rise hotly at Judith's rather pert question.

"Bless you, no, child," she said lightly. "I merely thought he would be more apt to be like your oldest sister, whom I admire tremendously, as everyone knows."

Patricia could scarcely wait till Miss Leighton was out of earshot.

"What in the world made you so disagreeable?" she demanded of the unconcerned Judith. "Any blind bat could see that you wanted to be nasty, in spite of your namby-pamby airs."

Judith merely smiled her superior smile. "I know more about Miss Doris Leighton than you think," she said, nonchalantly. "Her little sister is in my class at school, and I just got acquainted with her yesterday."

Patricia stamped her foot in vexation. "What do you mean?" she cried. "You're the most exasperating——"

The words died on her tongue, as Elinor suddenly emerged from the portrait class door, her face radiant and with an exclamation of quick pleasure at the sight of them.

"I got my criticism! And he said the work was good! Now I can write to Bruce," and her voice rang with a thrilling note of joy that carried Patricia with her.

"Good old Norn!" she cried, with a mighty hug. "I told you that you were the real stuff! Ju and I are mighty proud of our big sister, aren't we, Ju?"

Judith caught Elinor's hand, and pressed close, silently adoring.

"You girls are angels to wait for me till the very last moment," chatted Elinor, stuffing her things into her locker recklessly. "I hated to run the risk of not going to the station, but, oh, it was worth it!"

Patricia watched her with studious eyes as she pinned on her hat and hurried into her wraps, holding forth the while in an exultation most unusual to her.

"You're 'fair lifted,' aren't you, Norn?" she asked curiously. "I didn't know you ever got so daffy over anything. I've never seen you if you have."

Judith looked wise. "I know how she feels," she declared, sagely. "I get awfully excited when I write something good. Why, sometimes I cry, I'm so happy about it, and I jump up and down, too, all by myself."

Patricia grinned. "You two geniuses understand each other, I see. Might a humdrum mortal remind you that David is just about sliding into the train shed at this moment?"

"Mercy! Are we so late?" exclaimed Elinor, remorsefully. "Hurry, Judith. Don't wait for me. I'll catch up to you before you get to the corner."

Off they raced, and came panting into the station, to find the express ten minutes late, and David just stepping from the platform of the still moving line of cars.

Patricia, who denounced recklessness in others, flew to meet him with loud reproaches, regardless of the thronging crowd of undergraduates that were nimbly springing off after him.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, David Carson!" she cried, her big gray eyes alight and a pretty flush on her cheeks. "You'll simply kill yourself some day, that's what you'll do! Why can't you wait till it stops?"

David, grinning broadly, cast a rather sheepish glance at the hurrying throng.

"Fellows were in a hurry," he explained good-naturedly, as he shook hands with a grip that made her wince. "Couldn't keep you girls waiting, anyway. Hullo, Elinor, how's the artist lady? Hullo, kid, give us your paw. Don't need to ask you how you are—you look out of sight."

Judith as she kissed him was wrinkling her smooth brows at him. "But I thought you were going to bring Tom Hughes——" she began, hesitatingly.

David burst into a laugh. "Blest if I didn't forget all about Tommy," he cried, turning to search the platform with eager eyes. "He's here somewhere, but he's a shy youth and I guess he was afraid you'd want to kiss him, too, Judy. Oh, there he is. Hullo, Tommy! Step lively, please!"

A tall dark-haired youth in a gray suit and overcoat, who had been standing with his back to them a short distance away, turned and showed a pleasant, homely face with two very lively eyes and a wide, firm mouth.

"This is the famous Hughes Junior," said David, introducing him to them collectively. "Collector of dead bugs, and trouble generally. He looks mild, but you want to watch him."

Hughes Junior chuckled, in a slightly embarrassed fashion.

"Don't give me away too hard," he said, in an agreeable voice. "I haven't taken any of your bugs yet. I won't tell on him, Miss Kendall," he added with an admiring glance at Elinor, "although I could make you shudder with tales of his dark deeds."

"Now, don't let's waste time," said David briskly. "Where are we bound first? How about taking a peep at the art-joint? Do you allow visitors in the morning?"

"Do you really want to go?" asked Patricia, beaming. "The modeling room's open, and you can always see the antique."

"Let's look them over then," returned David, promptly. "We aren't keen on antiques—got too many in our boarding-house, but we want to see what you've been up to, Miss, so lead on. Tommy here does not care much for female pursuits, but he'll have to put up with it for once."

"Female!" cried Patricia. "I like that! There are as many men as there are girls, aren't there, Elinor? You're shockingly ignorant, young man."

They started off, leaving Tom Hughes and Elinor to follow, and Judith, as she cast a searching backward glance at David's chum, whispered to Patricia that he must be very nice and sociable for he seemed just as much at home with Elinor as if she'd been another boy.

"Think he'll do for that future helpmeet you're expecting to turn up any old day, Judy?" Patricia mischievously whispered back.

"Patricia, he'll hear you!" gasped the scandalized Judith.

"What are you two mumbling about?" demanded David, shouldering his way through the assembly at the station door. "No fair talking secrets today. I've got to be in everything that's going on. 'Fess up now, Judy, you were complaining that Tommy's nose was too long for the hero of your next novel, weren't you?"

"I never said a word about his nose," cried Judith, relieved to evade the real topic. "I'd be more polite than to criticize his linny-ments like that."

Patricia joined in David's peal of laughter. "Shades of Hannah Ann defend us!" she cried, gayly. "Don't spring any more bombs like that on us, Infant. We've got to last till lunch time, anyway."

"Lunch time!" repeated David, warmly. "I'm aiming to survive till at least five minutes after! Think of all the good things we're going to massacre. Where does Elinor want to go, Miss Pat? She didn't nominate it in her note!"

"We all want to go to the same place we had such fun in last spring, when we thought we were so rich," said Judith quickly. "Elinor said you were to have first choice, though, as it was your treat."

"Litz-Tarlton, wasn't it?" asked David. "O.K. for me, and Tommy is a good-natured brute, who doesn't care where he feeds, so that he feeds."

They found the usual array of aproned students in the corridors and work rooms, and although the boys tried to be enthusiastic it was plain that the famous Academy did not appeal to them very strongly.

"Pretty smelly sort of a place, isn't it?" said Tom Hughes to Patricia, with great cheerfulness. "I suppose you get awfully mussed up with that clay, too. Isn't it hard to work in?"

Patricia, though a bit disappointed, felt delightfully superior as she replied loftily, "It isn't so bad. We don't mind, you know, because we're so interested in the work."

They all stood around on the sloppy floor of the clay room as she undid the moist wrappings of her half-finished head. As the cloths were laid aside, there was a disheartening silence.

"It looks sort of whopper-jawed, doesn't it, Miss Pat?" asked David, hesitating. "I can see it's going to be a stunner when it's done, but I guess I'm weak on sculpture anyway. I can't understand it in the green stage."

"It looks like a foreigner, all right," ventured Tom Hughes, and was rewarded for his courage by a flash of passionate gratitude from Patricia's big gray eyes.

"He's a Russian refugee," she said, triumphantly, and as she quickly covered her work again, and they passed out through the little side entrance, she told them the tragic scrap of the model's history that had sifted through the gossip of the work room.

"I see why Judy is so keen on the fine arts just now," teased David as he dropped into step again. "Lots of material for current fiction, eh, Ju?"

But Judith maintained a discreet silence, and David and Patricia fell into talk of school and study till the door of the great hotel swung wide to admit their little party.

"I say, this is fine!" declared David, as he looked about him in the palm-shaded, pink and gold dining-room. "Beats our refectory at the Prep, doesn't it, Tommy old boy?"

Hughes made a careful inventory of the delicate china and sparkling silver before he delivered himself.

"I haven't had a sample of the food yet," he said, gravely, "but if it comes up to the equipment, I'll be perfectly satisfied."

Patricia and Elinor, who, with Judith, had put on their best for the little spree, were in the highest spirits and were delighted with everything, remembering many of the chief features of the room and pointing them out to each other until David protested.

"I say, you needn't rub it in that Tom and I are greenhorns," he said, grinning. "Don't forget that once you were quite as unaccustomed to all this magnificence as we are now."

"Listen to him!" exclaimed Patricia, gayly. "He's been abroad for months in all sorts of grandeur, and he pretends——"

She broke off suddenly at the swift remembrance of that futile search for health that had led the gentle Mrs. Carson to her grave in far-away Florence. She caught his hand under the table in a quick squeeze, while Elinor hurried into comparisons that claimed Judith's and Tom's close attention.

"I'm a horrid pig to forget," she whispered contritely. "Don't be cross, Frad dear; you know how sorry I am."

David gave an answering squeeze that brought the tears to her eyes, as he whispered in return, "That's all right, old lady. Don't you fret about me."

He dropped her hand at the obsequious voice of the waiter at his elbow.

"Do you wish to order, sir?"

After the man had gone, Patricia, who had flushed, suddenly giggled. "Did you see him looking at us, Frad?" she asked, in an undertone. "He thought he'd caught us holding hands, like regular grown-up spoons!"

"Stuff and nonsense!" growled David, hotly. "He'd know better than that."

Nevertheless, in spite of his protest, David took great care to behave with the utmost frigidity to Patricia whenever the smiling waiter made his appearance, and instead lavished his care on Judith, who took on airs of importance that were delightful to behold.

"We caught our first view of Bruce Haydon here—remember, Norn?" said Patricia, happily consuming her entree. "Wouldn't it be fun if we'd run across someone else this time?"

"I don't think so," said David resolutely. "We haven't such a lot of time to be together that we need anyone else butting in. I'm satisfied as we are."

"You must have had a thought wave, Miss Patricia," said Tom Hughes. "The unexpected friend is here all right."

The girls swept a puzzled glance around the room, but could discern no familiar face among the gay groups at the many little tables. David, however, gave an exclamation, and half rose in his chair.

"Sure enough, Tommy. It's Hilton to the very life. Don't you see him, Pat, coming in with that head waiter? Do you mind if we ask him to join us, Elinor? He's coming right this way. He's English Lit., and a dandy fellow, if he is a teacher."

Elinor gave a hasty assent, but Patricia was ardent.

"Oh, do ask him, David," she urged, taking in the attractive athletic figure with its wholesome self-reliant air. "He looks awfully nice."

"He's all of that. He's the youngest professor in the school and no end a good fellow," supplemented Tom Hughes, heartily.

David half rose again, and signaled to attract the other's attention, and when Mr. Hilton saw who was hailing him, a pleased smile ran over his face and he strode forward with outstretched hand.

"Well, this is luck!" he began, but paused, seeing the girls. "I'm in for a bit of lunch before the matinee, and I can only say 'howdy.' Going to take in the miracle play at the Globe,—finest thing in town, they say. See you later, perhaps," and he bowed to them all, vaguely including the three girls in his kindly glance.

"Not much you won't!" cried David. "You're going to have lunch with us—we've only just begun. I want you to meet my sisters. That is, if you haven't any other engagement," and here he snickered, for there was a rumor current in the Prep that Hilton was secretly devoted to some unknown charmer.

The insinuation fell harmless, as far as the young professor was concerned.

"I shall be delighted, if you'll be so good as to let me," he said gratefully, with his sincere gaze on the festive group about the dainty table. "I've heard of your good luck in finding your family, and am very glad to meet them."

A chair was brought and another luncheon ordered, and soon they were chattering as gayly as though they had all known each other for ages. Elinor inquired for Mr. Lindley, who by chance had been Mr. Hilton's room-mate at college, and heard that he was in France on his belated honeymoon.

"He expected to be married last fall, but there was a hitch in getting out his book," said Mr. Hilton, as he finished his salad. "So he couldn't get away till last month."

"We had a great interest in that book," said Elinor smiling, "for he was compiling it when he boarded with us last summer. I'm glad to hear it is out at last. We'll have to get a copy of it, for old times' sake."

Tom Hughes, who had been surreptitiously glancing at his watch beneath the table cover, spoke reluctantly.

"If you people don't want to miss the first act, we'll have to be toddling," he said. "It's about five minutes after two."

"Where are you going, Kendall?" asked Mr. Hilton as they pushed back their chairs, and stood waiting for the last button on Judith's glove to come to terms. "If you haven't settled on anything special, I'd like to have you all see the new play with me. It's said to be the finest thing in America, and I'm sure your sisters would enjoy it."

David acquiesced, as far as the play was concerned. "But you are not going to take us," he said firmly. "This is my spree and I can't let any other fellow butt in. We'll get seats together, and have a bully time, if you're willing to go with us. Come, Judy, we'll hustle on ahead and secure the seats, while these elderly folks stroll after us at their leisure."

Patricia found Tom Hughes a very agreeable companion on the walk to the theater, and they discussed tennis and swimming with an ardor that was most exhilarating, while Elinor and Mr. Hilton kept up as best they could among the holiday crowds to the brisk pace that they maintained in the lead.

The play was all that had been promised and they sat through its mystic-scenes with rapt attention, comparing notes enthusiastically in the intervals when the curtain was down, and when it was over they came out into the daylight with that peculiar sensation of unreality in the daylight world that follows an enthralling matinee.

"Don't the people seem funny-looking?" said Judith, blinking at the gayly dressed crush at the theater entrance. "They all seem like actors in a play, with the twinkly electric lights and the streaky yellow sunset behind those big buildings."

They paused a moment on the corner for a look at the twilit streets with their white pulsing points of electric lamps flickering above the hurrying crowds, while behind the sky line, with its towers and minarets and huge squares of office buildings, the clear topaz of the winter sunset surged upward in the dimming turquoise sky.

"There's a picture for you, Elinor," said David, pointing to the beautiful serrated mass of the great buildings looming misty-blue against the gold. "Can't you remember that, and put it on canvas when you get home?"

Elinor made no reply. Her eyes were fixed on the lovely fading panorama of life that was shifting before them. The twilight, the sunset, and the haunting magic of the miracle play still lingering with them, touched them all into sudden seriousness, and they stood silent and intent, forgetful of the whirl of pleasure and traffic that swept about them.

"See how the sunset catches on the big cross on the tower!" said Patricia softly. "It's the only thing up there in the sky that answers the sun's signaling."

"'Light answering to light,'" quoted Mr. Hilton, and Patricia flashed an eager glance of appreciation at his earnest face.

After the young men had waved their last farewells from the car windows and the train had puffed its way out of the great arching dome, Patricia spoke her mind with her usual frankness.

"Tom Hughes is an awfully nice boy," she said, slipping a hand into Judith's and Elinor's arm, as they paced the platform, waiting for Miss Jinny's train. "But for pure, sheer adorableness, give me Mr. Hilton, every time. Don't you think he's a perfect duck, Elinor?"

Elinor laughed easily. "He seems to be very pleasant and he certainly is popular with the boys," she admitted, "but I must say I like Tommy Hughes immensely."

"Which have you selected for your future partner, Judy?" teased Patricia, turning to her little sister. "I saw your speculative eye upon them, and I knew you were weighing them well. Which is it to be—Tommy or the Prof?"

"I'm getting too old to be treated like such a baby, Miss Pat," said Judith with great dignity. "I wish you wouldn't be so silly! How could I marry an old person like Mr. Hilton, anyway?"

"Then it's Tom," cried Patricia delightedly. "I wonder if he'll mind being tagged. Shall you tell him his fate soon, Ju, or let him gradually waken to it?"

Judith merely pursed her lips and tossed her head. "Don't you think the train must be late?" she said to Elinor. "I do hope you can stay till Miss Jinny gets here."

"I have to leave in just five minutes," said Elinor, glancing at the big illuminated clock face. "I can't be late for criticism in the night life, you know."

They paced for a minute or two in silence, and then Patricia gave a little sigh.

"Haven't we had a gorgeous time?" she said, thoughtfully. "I didn't realize that we could enjoy ourselves so much for such a long time. It's been a whole month now, and getting nicer every day. We've been always so pinched that it seems almost wicked to be so careless about spending money, doesn't it, Norn?"

"I don't feel that way," said Elinor gratefully. "I'm thankful every minute of the day for the happiness we have, and I feel that it has come to us from the same Lord that made the world full of beauty and joy."

Patricia gave her arm a quick squeeze. "If we weren't on a public platform, I'd kiss you for that, Elinor Kendall," she said, ardently. "You make things so comfortable for me."

"We don't waste anything, anyway, and we do all we can to be nice to other people," said Judith, seriously. "And that ought to count, oughtn't it?"

"Like a charm to keep off ghosts," laughed Patricia. "Perhaps we ought to cross our fingers, Ju, when we remember to. That might help, too."

But Judith was not attending. Her eyes were fixed on the far side of the great station.

"Why, there she is!" she cried in surprise. "She must have come in on the wrong track! She's looking all around for us. Do hurry, Elinor! I'll run on ahead and tell her you're coming."



CHAPTER VIII

SMOOTH WATERS

"Well, I declare, if you ain't just the same," said Miss Jinny, as Patricia piloted her through the crowds to the cab-stand.

Elinor, taking Judith with her, had said a hasty farewell and hurried off to the Academy for her criticism in the night life, with promises to return as soon as possible.

Miss Jinny, in her fine, last-season's dress, with the usual up-to-date hat on her scanty drab hair, and the twinkle of amusement at the continuous entertainment that life afforded her, was looking so well that Patricia voiced her wonder that she should have come to town for doctoring, as her letter had intimated.

Miss Jinny chuckled huskily. "Don't you worry about that," she said, mysteriously. "It ain't my health. It's something I didn't want to write on paper," and she tapped her upper lip suggestively.

Patricia, noting the downy line that penciled the corners of her firm mouth, hesitated to put an inquiry that could be delicate enough to indicate the faint moustache without hurting Miss Jinny's feelings.

"Uppers!" said Miss Jinny, wholly unconscious of Patricia's perturbation. "Came in on the sly last week to have a new set made. Got measured for 'em, and am going to get them day after tomorrow. Thought I'd combine business with pleasure and make a visit while they were being filed to fit. I don't reckon that dentist'll hit them off first shot. They mostly never do, you know."

"I hope he doesn't," said Patricia, warmly. "For then you'll have to stay longer with us. And we're going to have such a good time!"

In the taxicab she unfolded the plans for the week that Miss Jinny had promised them, dwelling on each detail with all the ardor of her enthusiastic nature.

"Lands alive!" cried Miss Jinny, enjoying herself hugely in prospect. "I haven't the duds to do credit to such doings. Why, I'm all out of style, and you know it, Louise Patricia Kendall! You'll have me running into all sorts of extravagance, dyking out for your tea parties and such like fandangos."

The taxi stopped with a bump at the curb and Patricia sprang out, paid the man and joined Miss Jinny on the sidewalk before the door had opened to admit the little worn trunk that the driver shouldered with such ease.

"Why, it's a mansion for sure!" exclaimed Miss Jinny, gazing with approval at the fine front of the tall, well-kept, brown-stone house. "I was so afraid you girls might be poked away in some stuffy street with never a tree or bit of sky to hearten you, but that park's most equal to the real country."

"It was the park that brought us here," said Patricia, leading the way upstairs to the spacious front room where Miss Jinny was to be domiciled. "And we're so glad we came. Mrs. Hudson is so kind to us that we don't feel like strangers at all. Even Ju adores her, and you know how hard she is to suit."

"Who's talking about me?" demanded Judith's high treble, and they turned to see her in the doorway, silhouetted against the brilliantly lighted hall.

"Mercy, Judy, where did you drop from?" asked Patricia, startled. "I didn't expect you for an hour. Is Elinor home, too?"

Judith explained that although she had been so eager for a visit to the celebrated night life, she had tired of the loneliness of work hours, and had run off home, leaving Elinor still expecting her criticism.

"Besides, I wanted to see Miss Jinny," said Judith, affectionately twining her arms about Miss Jinny's waist. "I haven't seen her for a whole month, you know."

Much to Patricia's surprise, Miss Jinny seemed not at all unused to the reticent Judith's caresses, but stooped and kissed her on her white forehead, rumpling her pale hair with kindly fingers.

"I reckon you're wanting to hear all about mama, and the visit you're going to make us," she said, wisely. "I'll get my old trunk here unstrapped, and we'll talk while I lay out my duds in those nice wide bureau drawers. You'll laugh, I guess, when you see what I've brought you each, but I want you to promise that if you don't like them, you'll say so, and I'll hunt up something that pleases you better."

"Oh, we'll be sure to love them, if they come from dear old Rockham and you!" cried Patricia, gathering an armful of hangers from the deep closet for Miss Jinny's use. "I'm perfectly crazy to see them, aren't you, Judy? I do hope Elinor doesn't stay too late tonight. You don't mind waiting for her, do you, Miss Jinny? It'll be so much more fun when we're all together."

"Bless your heart, no indeedy!" replied Miss Jinny emphatically. "I'd rather keep them a week than to have you slight Elinor. We'll have time to take the edge off our tongues, anyhow, before she gets here, and get more settled down, I hope. I haven't felt so flighty in a blue moon, and it's all your fault, Patricia Louise Kendall, with your tales about theaters and parties and the like! We'll have to put a muzzle on her, won't we, Judith?—like poor old Nero after he nipped Georgie Smith when Georgie tried to make him walk the tight rope."

"Oh, do tell me about it," said Judith eagerly, settling down on a low stool beside the trunk. "Your stories are always so nice and nippy."

Miss Jinny laughed, as she shook out a creased skirt, and laid it carefully in the long lower drawer.

"I reckon most of the nippiness in this tale is Nero's work—not mine," she said, smoothing the long folds of gray lansdown into shape with absent fingers. "You see, it was this way. Old Miss Fell, who lives in that big red brick house——"

"Yes, I know," said Judith, expectantly, but Miss Jinny had whisked to her feet and whirled about towards the door.

"I saw you in the looking glass!" she cried gleefully. "You needn't think you can surprise us, young lady!"

She had Elinor in her arms, to everyone's great amazement, and Elinor, far from being reluctant, was as responsive as though Miss Jinny were her own mother.

"Oh, you're just in time!" she cried, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining with a great light of happiness. "You were Aunt Louise's best friend here, and you'll know just how she'd feel. I got my criticism!" She paused, choking with emotion. "He came up behind me, and he stood there so long I was afraid to go on working; and when I stopped, he spoke out loud, twisting his moustache and popping off his eye-glasses."

"What did he say?" burst out Patricia, unable to bear the suspense. "Don't beat around the bush so long, for pity's sake, Norn!"

"He spoke so loud I was ashamed," went on Elinor. "He sort of bawled it out. 'Remarkable talent, madame, remarkable talent.' And everybody turned around and looked at me till I felt like sinking through the floor."

"How perfectly heavenly!" exclaimed Patricia, with rapture. "I wish I'd been there to hear it."

"Your Aunt Louise will rejoice to see this day," said Miss Jinny solemnly. "For I'm sure she sees it, wherever she is, and I know just how her dark proud eyes would shine. She always got regularly lighted up when she was real pleased—like you look now, child."

"Hannah Ann will be awfully proud, too," said Judith, thoughtfully. "She's regularly wrapped up in Elinor, because she's so much like Aunt Louise, she says."

Elinor looked her surprise. "Why, I didn't know Hannah Ann liked me specially," she protested. "I thought Miss Pat was her favorite."

"She used to be," was Judith's frank reply. "But since you've become an artist, like Aunt Louise, she fairly adores you!"

The idea of Hannah Ann in any such state of loving frenzy was irresistible, and they all pealed out their appreciation of Judith's picture of the grim elderly housekeeper of Greycroft.

"You may laugh, but it's true, all the same," said Judith decisively. "And I'll prove it to you all before long—see if I don't."

The soft chimes of the dinner gong began their melodious call before anyone could answer, and in the mad scramble to make themselves presentable in the shortest possible time, Hannah Ann's enthusiasms were forgotten.

That night, after Miss Jinny's trunk had finally been disposed of, and all the gossip of Rockham village and outskirts had been thoroughly aired, and Miss Jinny, tired from her strenuous day, had gone thankfully to bed, Patricia and Elinor were talking over the day's happenings as they brushed their hair in the seclusion of their own room.

"Isn't it wonderful how Miss Jinny seems to fit in?" said Patricia, brushing the shining ripples till they fairly radiated. "I was so afraid that she might feel strange among such different sort of people, but she didn't care a bit. She's going to be awfully popular, if she keeps on. That nice old Mr. Spicer talked to her a lot at dessert, and he's awfully exclusive, you know."

"He isn't any older than she is," Elinor replied indignantly. "He's gray and pale from his illness. He was asking Miss Jinny about the air at Rockham, and she praised it so that he was much impressed. We may have him for a neighbor next summer."

"You don't mean?" began Patricia, incredulously.

"Of course, I don't mean as Miss Jinny's special property, you goose; I was only thinking of him as a pleasant addition to the old ladies' card parties and porch teas,—they need men so badly."

The idea lodged in Patricia's fertile brain was not so easily routed out.

"Still, in case," she insinuated with a giggle. "I don't think it would be such a bad sort of thing, do you, Norn?"

Elinor laid down her brush impressively.

"Patricia Kendall," she said, severely, "don't ever let me hear you even whisper such nonsense to yourself. Miss Jinny is too nice and sensible to be made fun of in that way, and I won't have it. Remember, once for all I won't have it!"

"All right," acquiesced Patricia, meekly. "I didn't mean to be silly. I'm a lot fonder of her than you are, and I was only thinking what fun it would be for her, don't you see?"

"I see that you are a feather-headed kitten," said Elinor, not at all mollified. "Miss Jinny will do very well as she is without your romantic nonsense to mortify her. I I'm ashamed of you, indeed I am, Patricia. I thought you had more delicacy."

Patricia lifted her brows, perplexed and inquiring, and then dropped them with a shrug that seemed to indicate that the matter no longer interested her.

"What are you going to do with that lovely old shawl she brought you, Elinor?" she asked, tossing the end of her long braid over her shoulder and yawning luxuriantly. "I'd like to make a party dress of that heavenly silk cloak I got, but it seems like cutting up one's own grandmother."

Elinor gave a start. "Well, I declare, if I didn't forget all about it!" she exclaimed. "We were so excited with the presents and all, that I never told you! It's going to be perfectly gorgeous. I know you'll be crazy over it."

Patricia flung herself on her sister, overwhelming her in a flurry of pink kimono and white arms. "Tell me!" she cried. "Tell me this minute, you aggravating thing! You're getting to be a regular miser of your news—you won't give up till it's dragged out of you. Speak, or I'll have your life!"

Elinor held her close, laughing with enjoyment at her ardor.

"It isn't anything to kill for, Miss Pat," she rippled. "It's merely the Academy ball that takes place next week——"

Patricia flung off the encircling arms, and was on her feet in an instant.

"And we are going?" she demanded breathlessly. "Oh, say that we are going, Elinor!"

"Of course we're going," said Elinor, evenly. "What else should we do? And I want you to persuade Miss Jinny to stay over for it, Miss Pat."

"That will I!" cried Patricia, heartily. "We'll ship Judy to Mrs. Shelly on an afternoon train, and make Miss Jinny feel it's her duty to chaperone us among the wild and woolly artists. Oh, it will be contemptibly easy! But," and her face fell in dismay, "what are we to wear? We haven't any party clothes, you know."

Elinor rose, and going to her bag that was still dangling from the chair back where she had flung it in her hurried preparation for dinner, took out a cardcase, and drawing forth three square bits of gray cardboard, handed them to Patricia.

"'An Arabian Nights Entertainment,'" read Patricia, mumbling in her haste. "'No guests admitted unless in costume' . . . m-m-m-m . . . 'The Sultan Haroun-al-Raschid' . . . Oh, I see! We can rig up in anything we choose,—so that it looks sort of Turkish. Dee-licious! I know what to do with my rose-colored cloak right now!"

"My shawl will be stunning," rejoiced Elinor. "They've both come to us in the very nick of time. With that old silk skirt of mine, and that worn-out gold-beaded tunic of Aunt Louise's that we found in the closet at Greycroft, we'll be simply dazzling. See if we're not, Patricia Louise Kendall."

"I wonder what Miss Jinny will say to a costume?" Patricia said, her bright face clouding with the thought.

"I believe she'll like it," declared Elinor, confidently. "She does so love variety—and she has entered into everything already with such a vim."

"Perhaps she's been hungering for what she calls fripperies," said Patricia, hopefully. "She's so tremendously alive that she must need some play, and if she's only willing, we'll see that she gets it, won't we, Norn?"

"Find out in the morning how she feels about it," said Elinor, switching off the light. "I'm pretty sure she'll want to go."

At the earliest permissible hour, Patricia slipped into her pink kimono and slippers and sped softly to Miss Jinny's room, where she tapped lightly, and was admitted at once by Miss Jinny, fully dressed and with a little book in her hand.

Patricia opened her plan with great expedition, pouring out explanation and entreaty in one excited rush, while Miss Jinny sat opposite her on the side of the bed, her rather protruding pale blue eyes cocked sidewise at her in the meditative way she had when deeply interested.

"So you see, we really need you. And you wouldn't have to wear anything very outlandish, you know," urged Patricia, ending up with her strongest argument. "And I'm sure Judy would love to be with Mrs. Shelly alone—they'd have so much more chance for talk together."

Miss Jinny said not a word for what seemed to Patricia a very long minute; then she gave her deep chuckle and said decisively, "I'll go as Sinbad the Sailor. I've a picture of him at home, and I know just how he's dressed. He's so everlastingly muffled up about his shanks that I used to think he was a lady when I was knee high to a grasshopper."

Patricia gave a gasp. "But he wore a turban and great whiskers!" she said, impulsively. "How in the world could you stand that?"

Miss Jinny cocked her head knowingly. "Trust me," she replied, laconically. "I had a cousin who was an actor and I saw him put on a beautiful beard with spirit-gum and creped hair once. That was twenty years ago, but I reckon they can still be had here in town."

Patricia hesitated. "But perhaps you'd rather have an easier costume,—Aladdin's mother, or——"

Miss Jinny shook her head. "I always was bent on sea-life and I know a lot about it. I can swap tales that'll make them believe I'm the only genuine Sinbad, and I wouldn't miss the chance for a mint," she said conclusively.

Patricia was forced to give in gracefully. "I know you'll be splendid," she declared with rather forced heartiness. "I wish we were as well fixed for our parts."

Miss Jinny, with a glance at the little book in her hand, gave a guilty start and jumped up from the bed's edge with a horrified face.

"Do you know that it's Sunday morning, and I ought to be reading my two chapters?" she demanded severely. "This town life is making me forget my religion already, and as for you, you worldly-minded young sinner, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, beguiling me with your heathenish dance parties. Go along now and let me get my mind in order again."

"Oh, let me stay," urged Patricia. "You can read out loud, and I'll slip in bed here to keep warm. What part are you reading now?"

"You'll hear," returned Miss Jinny, settling herself with a jerk.

Patricia curled up cozily while Miss Jinny read the two Sunday chapters in a full, melodious voice, beginning with the ineffable words, "In my Father's house are many mansions."

She laid down the little worn book just as the soft notes of the gong floated up from the lower hall.

"Mercy on us!" she ejaculated, rising hurriedly. "I've gone and made you late for breakfast!"

Patricia wriggled out from her warm nest reluctantly. "There's lots of time," she assured Miss Jinny. "That's the first call. We've got half an hour yet."

"I'll come over to your room in just twenty-five minutes to the dot," called Miss Jinny after her, as she gathered her draperies about her and fled down the hall.

The day passed delightfully, with morning service at the famous Dr. Arnold's stately church, a specially sociable dinner at home, and a 'bus ride through the crisp sunshine of the afternoon into the snowy outskirts, with a cozy little tea in Miss Jinny's big front room, where they could watch the twilight gather among the bare trees of the park and the lamps sparkle out among the shadows. After supper Mr. Spicer invited them in to see his collection of photographs which he had taken in all parts of the civilized and barbarous world, before the long illness, contracted in the swamps of West Africa, had put a stop to his active, adventurous life as a collector for the University.

The girls enjoyed this surprising revelation of the quiet, elderly gentleman's vigorous taste, but Miss Jinny fairly reveled in such close contact with the life she so ardently envied, and it was nearly midnight when they said good-night and hurried to their rooms, Miss Jinny declaring that she'd never spent such a satisfactory day in her life, and all three full of the ideas for their costumes which Mr. Spicer's photographs had suggested to them.

The week that followed flew on winged feet. The costumes, simple enough at first, grew in detail with every day and absorbed so much of their spare time that Patricia frankly gave up any thought of work and yielded herself to the enjoyment of Miss Jinny and the day's pleasure without any effort at serious work.

"The best thing about you, Miss Pat," said Elinor, the day before the party, "is that you know when to stop. I simply haven't accomplished a thing the last two days, and yet I couldn't have the courage to shirk the Academy. You stay away joyously, and get the full benefit."

"Why not?" returned Patricia, her fingers busy with Sinbad's girdle. "You can't do two things at once, to do them well. I'm commonplace enough to realize that, but you geniuses go on trying to tear yourselves into little pieces, and then howl because you aren't making masterpieces in every department."

"I know it," said Elinor, sinking wearily into a chair. "I've tried to keep up with you all at home here, and do my work, too, but it hasn't worked. I believe I'll stay home today and take a real holiday."

Patricia nodded. "You'll be in better shape to begin on the library design next week," she said briskly. "I'm not going to start my study till I feel just like it. Doesn't pay to push yourself too hard. We've had a glorious week, with the concerts and theater and the museums and all, and I've learned more than I should have at the school. Just living teaches you lots, if you'll learn, and I don't believe in turning up my nose at things just because they aren't in a roster."

Miss Jinny, who had been out scouring the town for the materials for Sinbad's beard, broke in on them breathlessly.

"What do you think?" she cried, her eyes popping with pleasurable excitement. "The Haldens are in town for over Sunday, and the girls are going to the party tomorrow night! They've just landed yesterday and were in the customer's hunting up suits when I ran across them."

"How splendid!" said Patricia, glowing. "To think that we'll meet them here in town after all. Are they going to Rockham this summer?"

"Going right up on Monday," said Miss Jinny, taking off her things. "The two older girls go back to college, but the rest of the family go right home and stay there."

"I wonder what they are like, and if they'll like us," mused Elinor, her gaze on the fire that was snapping on the hearth in Miss Jinny's room where the sewing was being done.

"We'll find out tomorrow night," said Patricia, readily. "And now that the costumes are all done, tomorrow night can't come too soon for me."

"I'm about ready, too," chimed in Miss Jinny. "I reckon they'll be quite astonished when they meet with their old friend Sinbad the Sailor."



CHAPTER IX

THE ACADEMY BALL

"What a crowd!" exclaimed Elinor, as they pushed their way to the cloak room. "I hope the floor won't be too full for dancing!"

"Don't give way to despair so soon—lots of these are maids and chaperones. Naskowski told me when we squeezed past him at the door that the rooms upstairs weren't half filled yet," said Patricia, hopefully. "Here, Miss Jinny, squeeze in before me—there's a chance to get inside if we form a flying wedge."

"Mercy sakes, we'll be torn to tatters!" cried Miss Jinny from behind her veil. "Good thing we're done up good and tight. Lands! There goes my whisk—no, they don't either, it's only the veil. Oh, for pity's sake, woman, let me through without any palaver! Can't you tell I'm a female?" The attendant, who at the sight of Miss Jinny's bushy beard had thrust a sturdy arm across the door, dropped the barrier with a snort of laughter, and they were inside the swinging door of the cloak room, with a flushed maid waiting for their wraps, and an edge line of muffled newcomers pushing at their backs.

"It's a blessing we finished ourselves up to the last notch at home," said Patricia, with wide eyes of dismay for the throngs at the two mirrors. "We haven't a chance to get a peep here, unless we stay all night. Is my headpiece on all right, Elinor? I feel all askew after that crush."

"You're as sweet as can be," answered Elinor, with a fond pride in voice and eyes. "You make the dearest Fairy Banou, with these filmy scarfs and draperies! Doesn't she, Miss Jinny?"

Miss Jinny, who was still enshrouded save for the torn veil, gave the last pat to Patricia's gauzes, and handed the pink silk cloak to the admiring maid, before she spoke. Then she looked Patricia over thoroughly and gave her husky chuckle.

"I declare if I ain't a firm believer in fairies after this," she said with frank affection. "There isn't anything prettier nor sweeter in the whole ball, I'll warrant!"

Patricia laughed and blushed with pleasure, preening herself a little and stretching on tiptoe to try to catch a glimpse in the crowded mirror; there was a movement as a sultana who had been carmining her full lips gave place to a dark beggar maid, and Patricia caught the vision of a slender, airy figure, glittering beneath its gauzy draperies with the sparkle of bright gold, and with the glint and shimmer of rosy clanking bracelets and anklets, and the spangled glory of the rose-crowned headpiece stirring a magical memory of Persia.

"Why, I am awfully nice!" she cried, delighted with the picture. "I'll never know myself! Do get off your things, Norn, I'm crazy to see how you look."

Elinor, helped by Miss Jinny, shed her wrappings and stood revealed as a lovely Princess of China, with billowing draperies and flashing glass jewels and a tiny filet sparking on her dark hair. Some of the swarm about the mirrors turned at Patricia's exclamation, and with generous admiration pressed back upon themselves so that for a moment the dark, serious beauty of the Princess of China flashed out at Elinor from the long oblong of the glass, filling her lovely eyes with a gratified light and flushing her tinted cheeks a deeper pink.

"How sweet of you to let me see!" she cried impulsively to the houris and queens and beggar-maids that had given her the brief tribute. "I don't believe I know any of you, but I'm just as much obliged as——"

She broke off in amazement at the familiar grin of one of the most glittering queens. "Griffin, of all people!" she cried, delightedly, and held out an eager hand.

The sultana, speaking with decidedly un-oriental diction, came shimmering over to them, and shook hands with occidental heartiness.

"This is what I call luck," she said, genially. "I'm going to steer you two peaches right into the thick of the tumult, and if you don't have the time of your sad young lives, my name's not—well, here, you'd better pronounce it for me," and she handed out a card on which was printed in clear black letters,

THE SULTANA KEHERRYSEENOGASSOLEHENNELECTRIZADE (OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE LIGHT OF THE HARUMSCARUM)

Patricia and Elinor puckered their brows over it, but Miss Jinny, craning her head over their shoulders, gave a snort.

"Pooh, that's as easy as rolling off a log," she said, with a toss of her turban. "If you'd added acetylene and alcohol you'd made it a bit longer."

Griffin grinned amiably at the whiskered countenance. "Good for you, old top," she responded, cheerfully. "You ought to go into the Sunday puzzle department. You'd be hung all over with gold-filled watches. Where did you blow in from?"

Miss Jinny had been quietly removing her outer coverings and as Griffin spoke she dropped her last concealing wrap, and stepped out in turban and embroidered jacket, vermillion girdle and wide, baggy blue trousers whose voluminous folds almost hid the vermillion and gold tips of her curling slippers. A simitar was thrust fiercely through the flaming girdle, and a gaudy hookah cuddled in the crook of her arm, while the bristling whiskers and encarmined cheeks and nose of the weather-beaten seafarer proclaimed a strong masculine personality in striking contrast to the pretty young men Turks and Persians that tittered in feminine fashion all about her.

"Upon my soul!" cried the sultana of the inflammable name. "You're a corker! Do you mean to say, Miss Pat, that this buccaneer is the lady from the rural districts you were spouting about?"

Miss Jinny gave her husky chuckle.

"I'm the only original Sinbad," she declared with a very un-Persian hitch to her flowing trousers. "I've got tales that'll make you creep, and as for hairbreadth escapes—why, I'm so full of 'em that I can't see a tumbler of water but that I make a noise like a shipwreck."

"Come along upstairs with me!" cried the sultana, excitedly, hooking her arm in that of the embroidered jacket. "You're too good to waste! I need you in my business."

Patricia and Elinor followed, rejoicing in Miss Jinny's instant success, for, as Elinor whispered to Patricia, if Griffin took Miss Jinny about, she would be one of the features of the evening.

They went slowly up the palm-banked, stately stairway, through a dim ante-chamber where a line of twinkling barbaric lamps led to the great curtained arch of the entrance to the main assembly room.

"Isn't it lovely and mysterious?" murmured Elinor, pausing to enjoy the sense of isolation that the obscurity of the blurred lamps emphasized. "I almost hate to lift the curtain. It may be so disappointing."

Patricia set her spangled roses twinkling with a nod of comprehension, but she did not pause.

"This is nice enough," she said incisively. "It takes away the taste of the jumbled dressing room, but it makes me all the readier for the real thing—the people and the lights and the dancing. I simply can't waste another instant," and she parted the heavy fold and they slipped into the radiant Arabian land of fairy.

Lights were flashing everywhere, and everywhere silks and jewels shimmered in oriental profusion, striking the eye with a bewildering medley of color.

Patricia drew in her breath with a sharp little sigh of satisfied anticipation, but had no more than a murmur for Elinor's rapturous exclamations, so busy was she with the brilliant scene before her.

Among the palms and costly rugs that backgrounded a marvelous regal dais occupying one long end of the great room, sat the glittering figure of the portly Haroun-al-Raschid, Sultan of Bagdad and husband of many lovely wives, whose multi-colored costumes made a glowing garden on the rugs at the foot of the dais, while on the embroidered cushions at the side of the monarch a lovely Scheherazade in shimmering white satin with strings of glistening gems in her hair, on her breast, on her arms and ankles, made an alluring picture of the new-made bride. Tall palms reared their stately fronds above the group and slave girls, with fierce Nubians in attendance, waited in mute homage at either side of the throne. Lamps of brass glittered in the alcoves back of the great dais, and above it all the roofs and minarets of the ancient city gloomed in the moonlight of the thousand and second night.

All about the spacious hall were groups of Arabians, of fair Circassians, of dusky Nubians and turbaned Turks, while the rustle of costly fabrics and the odor of heavy Eastern perfumes floated in the air; the modern city outside in the wintry electric lights was well forgot in the enchantment of the moment, and Patricia lost count of time and sense of self in the pageant that swept across the lofty chamber to make its obeisance at the imperial divan.

"Look, Norn, look," she whispered, as Aladdin and his mother, in rustling native embroidered silks, led another Princess of China in bridal procession across the center of the scene, their rich dresses making a bright spot in the shifting medley of color. "She's not half so lovely as you, for all her things are so fine. I wonder who—why, it's Doris Leighton! She never told us what she was going to be; and she knew you were to be the Princess. Isn't it queer?"

"We didn't many of us tell, you know," returned Elinor absently, with her eyes on Morgiana meekly following her master with the basket of fruit which was to be such a feature in her triumphant dance after the robbers had been boiled alive in their own panniers. "There's Margaret Howes. Isn't she lovely in that pomegranate and gold? What queer slippers she has—just like the ballet dancers. And there's Ali Baba with the forty thieves, all the portrait class men in a bunch."

"And the young king of the Black Isles and his wife!" cried Patricia, giggling. "That's Jeffries, the modeling-room pet, and Miss Green. She'll exercise the black art in earnest. Did you ever see such paralyzing expressions as she can call up! That pastry cook is Peacock, the assistant in the antique. I know him by his red hair."

As the procession wound to its finish the Sultan arose and with many courteous speeches in the eastern phraseology welcomed the company to the night's entertainment, explaining that the first half would be employed in various acts by those who had appeared in the procession, with an intermission when refreshments would be served by slaves, after which there would be a general dance followed by supper in the antechamber.

A space was cleared in the center of the room, and there was a general rush to secure good positions. Patricia found herself separated from Elinor by a broad-shouldered Moslem whose slow speech revealed him as the good-natured Naskowski.

"I did work in the clay room till the hour for this ball," he said, replying to her surprise. "And after I speak to you on the hall I become a good Mohammedan very rapid—so rapid I see you and your most beautiful sister come in by the great door. Many others see also. We say she make a more fine Princess than the one——"

"Oh, hush!" cautioned Patricia, grasping his arm in her agitation. "She'll hear you! She's just back of us this minute."

Doris Leighton, with a rather flushed face, leaned forward as Patricia spoke and touched her on the shoulder.

"I must congratulate you, Peri Banou," she said with sharp gayety. "Everyone is saying that the Princess—your sister—is the clou of the ball.",

Patricia had an uneasy sense of insincerity in the light tone, but a swift glance into the wide eyes of the smiling Doris reassured her.

"She is lovely, isn't she?" she replied ardently. "But her dress isn't half so gorgeous as yours," she added heartily.

Doris Leighton's lashes drooped till her eyes were a narrow line of inscrutable blue.

"Thank you so much," she said in a tone of such even sweetness that Patricia felt uncomfortable, though she did not know why.

Doris sank back to her place and Patricia turned her attention to the laughable parodies and excellent dances and necromancy that filled the first half of the program. It was all hugely diverting, and she laughed and applauded with the rest, but all the while at the back of her mind there was a little uneasiness, a sense of insecurity and disillusionment that flavored all the gayety with its fleeting bitterness. She was uneasy till she had found Elinor and in the telling of the insignificant incident had regained enough confidence to laugh at her foolish disquiet.

"I'm always making mountains out of mole-hills, and having you level them for me, Norn," she said, taking a glass of sherbet from the flower-wreathed tray of the charming slave. "I wish I wasn't such an alarmist. I felt as frantic as though Doris Leighton had drawn a dagger, and now I can see what a goose I am."

"That's because you expect people to be perfect and then, when they show the tiniest human weakness, you declare them demons at once," said Elinor, gayly. "You couldn't expect her to like overhearing them praise me, could you? I think she tried to be very kind, and I admire her tremendously for it."

Patricia puckered her brows judicially.

"I do, too, now," she declared. "But I've been paid up for my evilmindedness by losing half my good time. I think I'll try to find her and be awfully agreeable to her. I'll feel better for it, I'm sure."

The dancing was beginning as Patricia made her way slowly across the great room to the laughing group where she had seen Doris Leighton but a moment ago, and before she was halfway across Doris and a tall Turk swung past her in the whirl of the newest dance, followed by Elinor and Aladdin, and then by Griffin and the young king of the Black Isles. Patricia stood still in sudden swift contrition.

"If I haven't forgotten all about Miss Jinny!" she thought remorsefully. "How fearfully self-absorbed I'm getting to be. I'm a perfect pig!"

She had a long search before she discovered the valiant Sinbad in a far corner of the now deserted divan surrounded by a circle of kindred spirits to whom Griffin had delivered her, holding her own with great spirit and enjoyment among the dashing wit and pungent repartee.

Miss Jinny, at the sight of Patricia fluttering in among them in her white gauzy draperies like some dainty moth, held out a reproving finger.

"Why aren't you dancing?" she demanded sternly, her whiskers trembling with the fervor of her interest. "What is Elinor up to that you're not dancing?"

Patricia, abashed by being thus publicly admonished, murmured something about its being only the first dance, and not knowing many people, but Miss Jinny cut her short.

"Don't tell me," she said abruptly. "You ought to be dancing instead of wasting your time on old ladies like me." Here there was a burst of mirth at the incongruity of the words with Miss Jinny's ferocious masculine aspect, but she silenced it with a wave of her hookah stem. "Let me introduce the Second Calendar, who I hope knows enough respectable young men here to see that you aren't a wall flower."

A good-natured, whole-some looking young man in the clothes of a calendar, with a patch on his right eye, laid aside his long-necked lute and rose with a bow.

"I'm usually known as Herbert Lester, Miss Kendall," he said, smiling as he led her to the dancing floor. "Sinbad can tell you that my mother was an old friend of your aunt. I've just learned that you and your sister are students here. Have you seen the Haldens? They were asking me about you a moment before the intermission, and I was commissioned to hunt you up when I ran into the circle there in the divan and was hypnotized by Sinbad's wonderful sea tales."

He rattled on all through the dance, Patricia getting in only a few words here and there, and when the music stopped he steered her to a particularly gay group under a big palm in a corner, and introduced her to the two Halden girls and their mother, and then went off in search of Elinor and Miss Jinny.

Patricia found the Haldens, mother and daughters, so much to her mind that she was full of regret that she had not met them earlier. They were kindly, whole-hearted people who lived without any quarrel with life, and Patricia, as well as Elinor and Miss Jinny, rejoiced openly in the prospect of a summer together in dear old Rockham.

They parted, at the end of the sumptuous supper in the transformed ante-chamber, with a thousand plans for the coming season and a strong sense of enrichment in the friendship of these sincere and attractive neighbors.

"What do you think of the artists now?" asked Patricia, leaning back in the carriage as they were being whirled homeward. "Are they such serious people as you thought them, Norn?"

"They're so mighty much in earnest that they'll break their necks to do a thing right," retorted Miss Jinny with spirit. "It's their being so serious that makes them play so well."

Elinor smiled assent, and Miss Jinny went on.

"When folks are sure a thing's worth while, they make it go. Think of how that same party would have slumped if everybody hadn't felt it was the most serious thing in the world to make it real." Then, with a sudden pounce, she changed the subject. "I've seen your wonderful Doris Leighton, Miss Pat, and I must say I don't take very much stock in her."

Patricia felt that same indefinite sense of loss and disillusionment which had haunted her earlier in the evening, and she shrank back into her corner without a word, fearing that Miss Jinny's clear vision might after all substantiate her shadowy misgivings.

It was Elinor who rushed to the defense. "We've always found her sweet-tempered and kind, haven't we, Patricia? She's very popular and perhaps you thought her spoiled, but I'm sure, dear Miss Jinny, if you knew her better you'd like her as much as we do."

Miss Jinny gave a snort that almost shook her whiskers off.

"I'll be bound for you, Elinor Kendall, to find the sweetness in every sour apple. Not that your Doris Leighton is sour on the outside. She's much too sweet for my taste. I don't trust them when they're so unearthly sweet."

Patricia recalled Griffin's remarks on the same subject, but she loyally suppressed the memory and called up instead the radiant vision of Doris as she had first seen her in her green apron, smiling back at her eager whisper of admiration, and her heart warmed to the memory.

"First impressions are always best, I find," she said sagely. "I won't believe I've been mistaken till I have to. What did she do that made you dislike her?"

Miss Jinny, cornered, had to admit that there was nothing she could put her finger on. "But I don't trust her eyes," she ended obstinately. "You have been deceived before, Miss Pat, and you may be again. However, I won't say another word against her. If you like her, that's enough. Now, let's talk about the nice people. How did you like that Lester boy? His mother was your Aunt Louise's chum at school."

"He was awfully nice," said Patricia enthusiastically. "Architects are so much better scrubbed than art students. He has lovely hair, too. He's tremendously fond of Miriam Halden, did you notice?"

Miss Jinny gave her husky chuckle. "Trust your eyes for spying out secrets," she said. "That boy has been devoted to Miriam all his life. She refused him when she was ten, and has kept on ever since. It's got to be a habit, he says. He's as jolly as a grig, but he doesn't give up, and I suppose some day Miriam will give in."

Patricia thrilled with interest.

"Oh, I hope it happens next summer, when we're home!" she cried. "I've always been perfectly crazy to know an engaged couple and I never have—except Mr. Bingham and Miss Auborn, and they weren't so very interesting anyway."

"They won't be of much use to you if they do get engaged," returned Miss Jinny sententiously. "'Two's company' after the ring appears."

"David says they're slushy," pursued Patricia, meditating. "But he's only a boy."

She was silent for a while, and then she sat up alive with enthusiasm.

"I've got it!" she exclaimed. "I'll make a study of a man and girl for the prize design, and I'll call it 'Two's company.' I'll have them looking at the ring on her hand, with a lovely rapt expression. Oh, how I wish it weren't Sunday tomorrow. I'm crazy to begin it."

"You'd better be thanking your stars for a day of rest, you incorrigible kitten," said Miss Jinny as the carriage stopped at the curb. "You'll need an extra nap after all these fandangos."

Patricia, however, was unconvinced.

"I'll show you when Monday comes!" she exulted, stepping lightly out into the frosty night. "You'll see if it isn't worth while."



CHAPTER X

THE PRIZE DESIGNS

"It doesn't seem to come right," said Patricia, rumpling her hair with the back of one soiled hand and staring ruefully at the lumpy, meaningless group of two stiff figures in modeling-wax that stood stolidly on a thick little board on top of the piano stool.

"They do look a bit queer," admitted Elinor, reluctantly. "Perhaps when you've worked on them more——"

Patricia interrupted her hotly. "I won't waste another hour on them!" she declared vehemently. "I've slaved and slaved all my spare time, I missed the last of Miss Jinny's visit, and I didn't have time to hear a word of Judy's tales about Greycroft and the village, and I haven't taken a moment to myself this whole week! I've done with it now for good and all. I was an idiot to think I could do anything, anyway."

"I believe if you tried something that was more simple, you'd do better," said Elinor sympathetically. "You've taken such a tremendously elusive sort of thing in this. Why not try something that either Judith or I could pose for? That would help a lot, you know."

Patricia gave the stool a whirl, staring discontentedly at the afflicting group.

"It's a sorry mess," she commented dejectedly. "I don't believe I want to make a goose of myself again. No, I won't try, Norn. You're awfully good to offer to pose, but I'm done with prize designs till I've had more experience," and with a swoop she crumpled the two little stolid figures into an indistinguishable mass, pounding them fiat with her pink palm.

"There! That's the last of you!" she said vindictively. "Let's see what you've been working on, Elinor. Ju said it was 'very satisfactory.'"

Elinor smiled. "I only started this afternoon while you were in class," she replied, bringing out a fair-sized canvas with a rough charcoal drawing on it. "I'm just blocking in the outlines, as you see; but I've made a little color study that shows you how it will go."

Patricia took the bit of canvas board, and held it at arm's length, squinting at it with eyes that gradually brightened.

"Why, it's dandy, Elinor Kendall!" she cried. "It'll be perfectly lovely if you can put it through even as well as you've managed it here. Judy was drawing it mild!"

Judith, who was studying under the lamp at the center table with her fingers screwed into her ears and her mouth twisted intently in pursuit of knowledge, came abruptly back to life.

"Well, I didn't want you to expect too much," she said, with a gentle impatience. "If I'd praised it too much, you'd have been disappointed with the thing itself."

"Right-o, Miss Judith," laughed Patricia, flinging an arm about the young sage. "My word, but you're a crafty young one! I'd have raved about it till even Michael Angelo or Raphael couldn't have satisfied the expectations of the beholder. How do you come by so much wisdom, Miss Minerva?"

Judith tossed her mane. "Don't call names," she responded, hiding the gratified smile that lurked in the corners of her mouth. "You'd think of things, too, if you didn't talk quite so much, Miss Pat. It's dreadfully hard to talk and think at the same time."

"Is it?" cried Patricia, delighted as usual with Judith's maxims. "Hear that now, will you, Norn? Ju's going to reform me. I hope I'll be a satisfactory subject, Judy darling. 'Thinking Taught While You Wait.' It's a great idea and it may lead to a new school of mental science. Ju would look fine in cap and gown as president of the college——"

Patricia broke off laughing at Judith's absolutely unconscious face, as, with fingers once again screwed into her ears and mouth twisted intently, she immersed herself in the dignified oblivion of study.

Patricia looked at her with laughing eyes that gradually grew sober.

"I've got it!" she said, eagerly turning to Elinor. "I've got the idea for the sort of thing you meant. I'll do Judy just as she is—you'll pose, won't you, Ju? I won't be too hard on you."

"Don't I always study like this?" replied Judith without looking up. "Go ahead as long as you like—only don't talk. I want to study."

"Good girl, Judith!" cried Patricia, pulling the stool with its burden nearer to the light. "I'll plunge in right away and get it blocked in tonight. Do you know where I put that other package of modeling-wax, Elinor?"

She set to work with a will, humming to herself as she worked, the failure of her more ambitious undertaking forgotten in the joy of renewed hope, and her intimate knowledge of Judith's face and figure helping unconsciously to better work than she could have done in the schools.

When nine o'clock rang from the church tower across the park she laid down her tools with an air of great content.

"I believe it's going to go," she announced to the absorbed pair of workers before her. "Wake up, Norn, and give me a criticism. Ju has to go to bed and can't hold the pose much longer anyway."

"Pooh, I'm not a bit tired," protested Judith. "I sit this way every night for hours."

Elinor laid down her brushes and turned in her chair. Her face lighted as she saw the rough, vigorous outlines of Patricia's latest effort.

"That's the real thing, Miss Pat!" she said enthusiastically. "If you can keep it up like that, you won't have to be ashamed of it, I can tell you!"

She came and stood behind Patricia, her hands on her shoulders, eager and interested.

"That shoulder is a little too high, and the head needs more fullness at the top—Ju has lots of hair—but it's going along splendidly, splendidly! Don't touch it again till Judith poses tomorrow. You want to keep close to life and not make up anything."

Patricia, meek in experience of past failure, covered her work and put it safely away.

"I'll go on with it when I'm rested and Judy is fresh," she said contentedly. "If it goes on as rapidly as it has tonight, it will be ready to turn in at the end of the week. We have until Saturday night to put in our stuff, you know. You have to get yours in by noon, don't you?"

Elinor nodded. "But I shan't have any trouble finishing in time, I'm sure," she said with bright confidence. "I feel as though it were almost going to do itself."

The spare hours of the rest of that week were devoted to the prize designs, and both progressed so happily that their authors were filled with a greater measure of content as the days sped.

"I'm going to take mine in to the Academy to work on this afternoon while I wait for the night life," said Elinor on Thursday as they were leaving the breakfast room. "I want to see how it looks among the big casts and life studies. I'm afraid it won't show up very well among the real things, but it may help me to see its faults and remedy them while I still have time."

Patricia gazed approvingly at the dim, shadowy study of graceful figures grouped in attentive attitudes about a reader in a landscape of suggested loveliness that spoke to any observer with delicate symbolism.

"It's the best ever," she declared. "I'll 'wagger,' as Hannah Ann says, that you lift the medal."

Elinor gave a gently contemptuous sniff as she stowed it away in its corner. "No doubt—with all those experienced students competing! Some of them have been there ten years, Miss Pat. I simply haven't the ghost of a show, and you know it."

Patricia was silenced, though unconvinced. "Don't you let any of those hyenas see it, all the same," she cautioned. "I know them better than you do. They'd rush another version in before yours, and then where would you be?"

"I don't believe anyone would be so low minded!" cried Elinor, shocked and reproachful. "How can you say such things, Miss Pat?"

"Take my advice, my dear," grinned Patricia. "You're too good to see through some of those fakes, and this is one instance when my eyes are clearer than yours. It isn't often I can give you points, so do be grateful. Don't let those long-haired boys get a glimpse of it, or it's all up with you."

Elinor promised, smiling at Patricia's vehemence, and went off with her canvas, securely wrapped against curious eyes, held firmly in one gray-gloved hand.

Patricia looked after her with loving pride. "How pretty she is, and how clever," she thought tenderly. "And the best part of it is that she doesn't know what an adorable dear she is. I hope she gets an honorable mention, even if she can't hit the prize. She deserves a lot of good times, after all those lean years when she took such good care of us."

When Patricia came home from the library at half-past five, she was surprised to find Elinor stretched on the couch, with a thick comfortable drawn up to her chin, and her face gray and haggard.

"What in the world—" she began in alarm, but Elinor silenced her questioning with a weak wave of one tired hand.

"I'm not really sick," she said, in a faint tone, as Patricia cuddled down on the floor beside her and took the chilly hand in her warm one. "I have one of my old headaches. I forgot to get any lunch. I had just put the key in my locker, when everything grew black and I'd have collapsed if Doris Leighton hadn't helped me to a chair. She gave me some milk and got my things for me, and when I felt well enough, she came over here with me. She's certainly the sweetest thing. She had to miss getting her criticism, too. Mr. Benton had just gone in when I crumpled up."

"She's a perfect angel," cried Patricia, her heart warming at the thought of Doris' genuine sweetness of nature. "If Miss Jinny really had known her, she'd been the last to suspect her."

"She's coming over after life class," Elinor went on, closing her eyes wearily. "I found I'd forgotten my keys when I got home, and she's going to bring them over for me on her way home."

"You'd better go to sleep," said Patricia, smoothing the white brow with deft fingers. "I'll keep everything quiet, so that you can sleep it off as you used to be able to. I hope you'll be all right in the morning."

Elinor nodded mutely, and Patricia, pulling down the shades so that the street light did not flicker on the pale wall, tiptoed out of the room, to caution Judith and await the coming of Doris Leighton.

Dinner was long over, Judith's lessons done and bed-time come, when at last Patricia hurried down to the long parlor where Doris sat in the dim light.

She was very pale and tired looking, but as graceful and charming as ever. She inquired after Elinor with a profuse sympathy that more than satisfied the warm-hearted Patricia, whose compassion stirred at her look of fatigue.

"You ought to be taking more care of yourself," she said, with concern. "You're tired to death, and yet you come out of your way to see about Elinor. You look dreadfully fagged."

Doris smiled wanly. She laid an impulsive hand on Patricia's arm and opened her pretty lips, but before the words came she evidently obeyed another differing impulse, for she underwent a subtle change, an imperceptible hardening that was so delicately veiled by her still gracious manner that Patricia had only a baffling sense of being gently shut out from her real confidence.

"I've been working on my panel study," she said, with an effort at brightness. "I don't seem to get it finished to my liking, and the time is getting perilously short, you know."

Patricia looked her surprise. "Why, I thought you hadn't started it yet. You said you'd rush it off at the last moment without a bit of trouble."

"That's the way I usually do," assented Doris evenly. "But I'm going out of town on Saturday, and I have to turn it in before I leave tomorrow night. I'll stay home and work on it in the morning, so I shan't see you perhaps before I go."

She said good-night absently, and Patricia, watching her hurry down the frosty street, found herself wondering at the subtle barrier that she could feel so keenly, while she yet tried to disbelieve.

"I wonder what she was going to say?" she thought, as she went slowly up to Judith's room, where she was to spend the night. "It can't be my imagination this time, for she actually did start to speak, and then stopped." She frowned and then her face cleared. "What a stupid I am—always getting up in the air about trifles! Doris Leighton is tired to death, and wanted to get home. She was just as pleasant as ever, even though she didn't have time or strength to be as sociable as she'd liked. If she hadn't felt an interest in Elinor, she'd not troubled to bring her keys back tonight. I hope she makes good with her prize study, now that she's gotten an idea for it. She's a stunning worker when she goes at it."

She tiptoed softly in to Elinor, who was sleeping quietly, and she stood looking down at the sweep of eyelash and rounded cheek that the low-turned light caught out from the jumbled masses of dark hair.

"Dear old Norn," she thought fondly. "You'll be at the head of the night life, too, some day, like Doris is now, and you'll be cleverer than any of them, for you aren't ever a bit cocked up about yourself." Her eyes grew wide with thought. "That's the reason," she whispered triumphantly, "that you're going to be a howling success—you've got time to care about all the other things in life first, to think about them and to enjoy them. And that means O-RIG-INAL-ITY. You've got more ideas now than any of those old stagers, you adorable duck!" she ended, so overcome by her feelings that she dropped on her knees by the couch and pressed her warm lips on the dark hair.

Elinor merely stirred and mumbled something indistinct, much to the contrite Patricia's relief.

"I'll never learn to be composed and considerate," she sighed as she crept in beside the slumbering Judith. "I'm crazy for Elinor to finish that lovely study of hers, and yet I'd wake her up just for my silly whims. She's got to get it done tomorrow if she can. Wish I could help her. Thank goodness, mine's done at last," and she drifted off to sleep with a jumble of prize designs and golden dreams for the future mingling with that recurring memory of Doris Leighton's hardening face as she spoke of her study for the library panel.

The next afternoon when Elinor, completely restored after a day's rest, took out her drawing-board and began to work, Patricia brought out her own study for a final criticism before laboriously lugging it up to the Academy.

Elinor and Judith were very enthusiastic over the intent, studious figure that bent over its book in such lifelike fashion.

"It's that air of real hard study that makes it so good," said Elinor, twirling the stool to catch every view of the figure. "I don't know how you managed to get it so well."

"Well, Ju was studying hard and not merely posing," returned Patricia seriously. "Somehow it gets into the work. There isn't anything that tells the truth so straight as our sort of work, Norn. You simply can't fake. Judy deserves part of the credit. And then, I liked it so, I couldn't help getting on with it. It's so fearfully jolly to a producer."

Judith gave her pale locks a toss. "Why, we're all doing it!" she crowed. "You two in the Academy, and I at home here in my diary and my stories! Aren't we a talented lot!"

"Stuff!" said Patricia disgustedly. "You and I needn't brag yet a while, Judy. Elinor's the only one that's got a ghost of a showing. You've a long lane to run before you can even be considered, and I'm just common, every-day stuff like everyone else. This is just a flyer I'm taking in the company of my betters," and she gave a whimsical glance at Elinor with the insight that was occasionally hers in brief glimpses. "I can't fly far, I warn you, but it's simply ripping while I'm on the wing!"

"Judy likes to see herself go by in the mirror," smiled Elinor leniently. "I suppose that's the literary mind."

"Literary grandmother!" exclaimed Patricia scornfully. "She's a conceited chicken that thinks she's a nightingale because she can peep louder than some. Wait till you've had some of your stuff printed, Judy, before you boast. Anyone can scribble——"

"You'll hurt her feelings, Miss Pat," protested Elinor, as Judith's dignified back disappeared into her own room and the door closed firmly. "She doesn't mean to be boastful."

"Nonsense! I'm her only hope," returned Patricia with spirit. "She won't amount to a row of pins if she goes on this way. Don't you worry about her feelings. She's got sense enough to know I'm right. Come along over to the Academy with me now. The walk will do you good, and I'll feel more respectable with a good-looking escort while I'm lugging this huge thing."

They met Doris Leighton coming out of the students' door, and after a few inquiries found that she had just accomplished the same errand that Patricia was bent on. Her study for the prize panel was safely stowed away in the office of the curator.

"What was it like?" eagerly demanded Patricia. "It doesn't matter now, you know, if you tell. We won't tell, and it's too late, anyway, to make any difference."

Doris hesitated, undergoing again that subtle change that Patricia had seen before.

"I think I'll wait till they're all in," she replied softly. "It will be better for us all to be able to say truthfully that we had no idea of what the others were like till after ours were in. Don't you think so?"

"Of course it will," agreed Elinor heartily. "I'm glad you thought of it. I'd much rather not know. Mine isn't finished yet, and I'm so new at the work that I might be influenced."

"I thought about that," said Doris with veiled eyes on Elinor's pale face. "I know how the same thought wave will pass through peoples' minds when they're working together, and I feel that one should be very careful not to influence another, particularly in a case like this."

"I'm not so sure that it makes a bit of difference," said Patricia carelessly. "I've heard of people miles apart having the same idea at the same time. Patents are always being duplicated, you know."

"Indeed they are!" cried Doris with singular fervor. "But the one who gets the idea first is always the real inventor. The jury wouldn't hesitate to decide on that, I'm positive, if anyone was so unfortunate as to turn in a duplicate of any of the studies."

After she had said good-bye and they Were waiting at the curator's desk, Elinor spoke musingly.

"I wonder," she said, wrinkling her brows, "if Doris Leighton was afraid I'd garnish my panel with any of her ideas; she was so unnaturally stirred up about it."

Patricia, with her mind wholly on her own absorbing business, gave scant attention.

"She's rattled for fear she won't take the prize as usual," she said, gayly. "I bet she opens her eyes when she sees yours, Norn. Hers may be lots better done, but it simply can't be as lovely and as different."

She pushed her bulky package carefully across the curator's counter, with an eager request that it be tenderly treated, and that official reassured her as to its entire safety by placing it at once in the locked ante-room where the modeling competition studies were stored.

"When will the prizes be announced?" she asked breathlessly, as the door clicked in its lock. "Shall we have to wait long?"

The curator smiled at her eagerness. "The library panel will be announced at noon on Tuesday in the first antique room," he said. "And the modeling class will be notified immediately before, while the class is still in session."

Patricia shivered with excited anticipation as they closed the heavy outer door of the Academy after them.

"Jiminy, I wish Tuesday were here and over!" she said fervently. "I'm scared stiff when I think of my poor little study with all those artists focusing their eagle eyes on it."

"It does seem ages to wait," agreed Elinor. "After I turn mine in tomorrow morning, I'll be consumed with curiosity to see the others—particularly Doris Leighton's."



CHAPTER XI

THE LITTLE RIFT

"What do you think?" cried Patricia radiantly, swooping down on Elinor as she came slowly out of the portrait room at high noon on the momentous Tuesday. "What do you think, Elinor Kendall? I've gotten 'Honorable Mention' for my silly little old head! Isn't it wonderful? I'm so stunned I can't talk. I never dreamed it could have the ghost of a show," she rattled on ecstatically. "Miss Green was paralyzed, and Naskowski kept nodding till I thought he'd loosen his brain, and Griffin—she got first prize you know—cheered right out loud before them all. I was simply too limp for words, and I rushed out to tell you right away."

Elinor's eyes filled with a glad light, and she took Patricia in her arms. "It's perfectly glorious, Miss Pat, darling," she said with a rapturous squeeze. "I'm so delighted I can't help kissing you on the spot," and she did it with a heartiness that made Patricia wriggle.

"Ouch, that's my loose wisdom-tooth you're pushing against!" she protested plaintively. "You've wobbled it all out of place, you reckless thing. There goes the crowd into the first antique. Come along or we'll be too late!"

The doors of the exhibition room were pushed quickly open as Mr. Benton led the expectant band of students in for their first sight of the prize designs, and Patricia's heart beat fast with the thrilling hope that Elinor's might be among the first in rank.

Her eyes swept one wall and then the other, searching for the familiar canvas, but all in vain, until she lifted them to the screen which stood in the center of the room, and where three canvases were hung, Elinor's below the other two.

"There it is!" she whispered eagerly, nudging Elinor to make her see. "It's on the screen. Oh, Norn, it must have——"

"Hush!" said Elinor in an undertone. "Don't make a fuss. There's Doris Leighton waving to us from the model stand. She looks awfully well, doesn't she? Her little vacation——"

But Patricia was impatiently deaf. "Why doesn't he get on?" she whispered testily. "We know all about the conditions of the prize. What we want to know is—oh, Elinor, I'm horribly disappointed. I was afraid Doris Leighton would get it, but you ought to have had Honorable Mention. Griffin's isn't half so good as yours; she said so herself. Can you see what their canvases are like? I'm just so that the light glares on them for me. What's that he's saying now? He's talking about your study."

The words cut the air with an incisive clearness that left no shadow of a doubt, though Patricia could scarcely credit her own ears.

"I regret to say that the third study on the screen," said Mr. Benton, toying with his eyeglass ribbon, "is merely placed there as a warning to students of all classes to stick to their own ideas and imaginations, and not to attempt the hazardous task of copying stronger and more experienced workers. This canvas shows so much delicacy of appreciation of the subject that, had no other of absolutely the same design been previously turned in earlier, the jury should have given it the prize. Miss Leighton's cleverly executed study of precisely the same subject, while more finished in treatment, is far below this one in feeling, and it is a matter of regret to me that the student who executed it should not have possessed more originality and self-reliance. Miss Leighton will please come forward to receive the Roberts prize."

Of what followed—the bestowing and graceful acceptance of the pretty purse with the hundred dollars, the congratulations and murmurs of surprise that ran about the assembly—Patricia had little knowledge. Those astonishing words of Mr. Benton had so stung and bewildered her that the room swung about her dizzily and she clutched the back of a chair for support. Elinor's stricken face faded in the blurred background of all the other faces, as she flung out vain hands of protest.

"Oh, it isn't fair—" she broke out, but the words that boomed so loudly in her ears were only a faint whisper, and she staggered blindly for a moment.

When she recovered herself in the dim corridor, Elinor, calm and reassuring, was on one side of her, while her other arm was in the firm grip of the cheery Griffin.