"That's all right, old pal," Griffin encouraged her. "You're almost into port now. Keep a stiff upper lip till we land you."

Patricia saw that they were steering for the dressing-room couch, and meekly allowed them their way.

"Now you're safe and sound, with no bones broken," said Griffin, as Patricia sank down on the roomy couch. "You're a nice one, you are, scaring us into a blue fit just when we were about to blister our paws with applause for the heroine of the day."

Patricia looked inquiringly at Elinor, who smiled at her serenely in return, much to Patricia's bewilderment.

"But," she protested, raising herself on one elbow. "It wasn't true, what Mr. Benton said about your design. Why don't you tell him so, Elinor?"

Elinor merely shook her head gently, while Griffin stood in embarrassed silence.

"Why don't you do something?" cried Patricia again. "Why don't you tell him? Griffin, it wasn't true—that she copied it! You know she'd not do a thing like that!"

"Any fool knows that," replied Griffin gruffly. "If Leighton had any stuff in her, she'd have spoken up. I was just going to when I saw you begin to crumple. It wasn't etiquette for me to speak, but I'd have given them something to think of!"

"It's too late now to bother about denying it, Miss Pat dear," said Elinor soothingly. "It doesn't really matter much, you know, since we three know I didn't copy. After all, it's a very little thing. I'd rather be blamed unjustly than have done such a poor act. Don't feel so badly about it, dear. We can tell our friends that it was a mistake on Mr. Benton's part, and they'll believe us, I'm sure. It doesn't matter for the rest."

"Doesn't it, really?" blazed Patricia, sitting up very stiff and straight. "Well, it may not to you, but to my mind it's as bad as telling any other untruth. You're not guilty of it, and if you let the accusation pass unnoticed, you are party to the falsehood."

Griffin, who was winking at her behind Elinor's back in a particularly portentous fashion, turned to the door.

"Calm down, Miss Pat," she said, with her hand on the knob. "I'm going to corral a few of the elect and put it to them. Brace up and look pleasant by the time I get back."

Patricia was about to break into angry tears on Elinor's neck, but the brisk and significant air with which Griffin spoke roused her to herself again. She put Elinor's arms away, and going to the mirror, smoothed her tumbled hair, and whisked away the telltale traces of her collapse, while Elinor sat quietly on the edge of the couch watching her with fond anxiety.

Not a word was spoken till the door opened again, and Griffin with Doris Leighton and Miss Green came quickly in.

Doris Leighton, who was flushed and animated, went directly up to Elinor.

"It's a shame," she said, with a marked effort to subdue her own complacency. "Everybody knows you are much too conscientious to do such a thing. I've told everybody how shocked I am that Mr. Benton should make such a horrid mistake. It's simply a thought wave, and I've told everyone that you're not at all to blame."

Elinor looked at her very calmly, and said with a tinge of amusement in her level voice, "You must be very thankful that you got your study in first, for then you would have had to congratulate me instead of commiserating me."

Patricia felt rather ashamed of Elinor's lack of response to what she considered Doris' loyal support, and she broke out gratefully, "You'll tell them all, won't you? They'll soon understand if you tell them!"

She had her reward in Doris' dazzling smile, and her assurances that she would do all she could to make Elinor's vindication speedy and thorough.

Elinor was more cordial to Miss Green's solemn and indignant protest against the powers that be. The stout monitor had so much genuine good feeling that the sincerity of her wrath could not be doubted.

"It is most unfair, unfair, Miss Kendall," she reiterated, with her two dewlaps solemnly wagging to and fro. "It is most unprofessional of Mr. Benton, and, even if you had copied (which of course no one dreams of saying), it would still be most indelicate to expose a student directly to the publicity of such a reprimand. I deplore it. I deplore it most heartily. And your manner of receiving the unmerited rebuke has made me admire you more than I can say."

Elinor thanked her with pretty gratitude.

"I shall make it a personal matter to report to the committee," said Miss Green, as she prepared to follow the vanishing skirts of the prize bearer. "I shall certainly bring the matter to their notice before the next meeting," and with a cordial shake of Elinor's hand she sailed out, with her black cloak billowing behind her and her plume quivering with suppressed indignation.

"Isn't she the good old sport?" cried Griffin, in lively admiration. "She'll do the work of a half dozen niminy-piminy dolls like Leighton. Margaret Howes and your humble servant will back her up, too, and that committee will sit up and take notice before it's a week older, or my name's not Virginia Althea Frigilla Griffin—just like that."

It was hard work later on, when they had to face the inquiries of the wrathful Judith, to convince her that the whole thing was not a plot against Elinor by some envious rival.

"Mark my words, Elinor Kendall," she said impressively. "Some one is at the bottom of this, and I have my suspicions, too, who that someone is. I'm not going to tell, for you girls always laugh at me, but I'm going to prove it to you before that committee meets that you're the victim of a conspiracy."

The relish with which Judith pronounced these ominous words made Elinor smile, but Patricia felt only aggravation at what she considered airs on Judith's part.

"Stuff and nonsense, Judy!" she said, impatiently. "You've been soaking your brain in fiction till you can't see straight. Don't you meddle with Elinor's affairs unless she gives you permission. You'll only make her ridiculous."

Judith, ignoring Patricia's pungent remarks, turned her calm eyes inquiringly to Elinor.

"You don't mind if I can help prove that someone else was the deceiver, do you, Elinor?" she asked with such seriousness that Elinor rippled with enjoyment:

"Bless your heart, kitten, make yourself as happy as you please with my affairs; only, I beseech of you, do it quietly and with as little martial music as possible."

Judith pulled herself free from Elinor's circling arms and made for the door, pausing on the threshold.

"As if I'd publish it on the housetops!" she cried in infinite disdain. "It's plain you aren't much up in detective stories."

After their laughter at her dramatic disappearance had died down, they sat quietly in the twilight watching the lamps flicker into life across the park, each one busy with her own thoughts.

"Do you know, Miss Pat," said Elinor, breaking a long silence "that I don't like Doris Leighton any more. It isn't because she got the prize—you know me better than to think that—but I've been noticing her more closely recently and I don't think she rings true."

"Oh, I wish you wouldn't, Norn," protested Patricia, in a small voice. "I do so want to have her for a friend. She's so lovely and talented and attractive. What is the matter with her now that you say such things? You didn't use to feel like that."

Elinor hesitated. "I don't know," she replied slowly, measuring her words. "I can't put my finger on it, but she doesn't seem the same to me as she did at first. She isn't jealous of my poor work, of course, but I can feel a something—a wall or barrier—that she raises up between us whenever my work is spoken of. I felt it when we talked about the subject of the prize designs, and I felt it today more clearly than ever. We can't be friends any more as we were, I'm afraid. Something has come between us. 'The little rift within the lute,'" she quoted sorrowfully.

"'That by and by will make the music mute,'" ended Patricia dismally. "Oh, I hope not, Norn. I hope it'll all turn out well and we can go on pleasantly and peaceably for the rest of the term. I hate rows and suspicions. I'd like to live 'in charity and love to all men,' but I'm always getting into scrapes. I no sooner learn to like a person than they turn out to be fakes."

"I haven't gone that far," Elinor gently reminded her. "I didn't mean to say that Doris Leighton was a fake. I only meant that my feelings toward her had changed. You don't have to give up your admiration for her, Pat dear."

Patricia shook her head slowly from side to side. "'Whither thou goest I will go,'" she quoted. "I won't have her for a friend if she gives you the creeps, Norn, and you know it. I've been mistaken in people before, but you've always been the same old true blue. You and Miss Jinny know better than I do, and I give in. I won't be an enemy—you wouldn't want that—but I won't be a real friend like I have been, doing errands and helping her stretch canvases and all that. You and I will stand together always, old lady, and if the Roberts prize has done nothing but show us how very nice we each think the other is, it will have had its uses as far as we are concerned."

They sat in comfortable silence till they heard the front door slam and Judith's feet on the stair.

"I wonder what that young monkey is up to?" laughed Patricia as they heard Judith moving about in her room, preparing for dinner with the alacrity of hungry virtue. "She won't let on for the world, but I know she's feeling mighty important about something. I can tell by the way she whisks about that she's enjoying herself immensely."



CHAPTER XII

JUDITH'S DISCOVERY

"I'll never again say that the literary instinct is a burden and a reproach, Ju," said Patricia, with her eyes dancing and her head high. "Your thirst for 'plots' has proved too serviceable for me ever to point the finger of scorn in its direction."

It was a brisk, sunny day, and they were waiting for Elinor on the steps of the Academy. Judith was looking very happy, and Patricia, while she had a perturbed air, was no less triumphant in her manner.

"I wonder what keeps Elinor? She's awfully late," complained Judith, shifting on one foot. "Let's go in and have lunch without her."

Patricia shook her head decisively.

"Not much. You'll wait here in solitude till she comes. I'm not going to have you spout it out before any old person, and get us into hot water, perhaps. Here's Elinor now. Come on, Norn, we're about dead, standing on these flinty-hearted steps. Got the sandwiches you promised?"

Elinor showed a neat parcel tucked under her muff-arm. "Chicken and lettuce," she said delectably. "White grapes for dessert. Have you seen Margaret Howes and Griffin?"

Patricia nodded as she held the door wide for Elinor. "Griffin said she'd be ready for us, and Margaret Howes is coming straight down from composition class."

Elinor glanced at them as she went in. "You two look remarkably hilarious," she said casually. "Is it the spring in the air or the prospect of a festive lunch that so illuminates you?"

"Both and more too," laughed Patricia. "We've got a surprise for you, Norn, but we won't tell till we've had lunch; will we, Ju?"

"Not till the very last crumb is done for," declared Judith, emphatically, putting down her parcels on the dressing-room couch. "You may not like it very much, Elinor——"

"Nonsense! Don't put such ideas in her head," cried Patricia stabbing her hat-pins into her hat to secure it on the hanger. "Of course, she'll be sorry for part of it, but right is right, and justice ought to be done. But there, I'll blab it all myself if I don't look out. Hurry up, Judy, let's get the cocoa stewing while Elinor prinks."

They had the table arranged in gala array, and the cocoa steaming in its receptacle, before Elinor and Margaret Howes joined them.

"Griffin says not to wait—she's got to finish stretching a canvas," Margaret Howes told them, but Patricia and Judith would not hear to beginning the little feast without the staunch and genial Griffin.

"There's no hurry, anyway," insisted Patricia. "The cocoa will keep hot on the corner of the stove and the rest of the things don't matter. You girls haven't any classes this afternoon, so we have an eternity to feed in."

They loitered about the room, chatting at various tables, and were taken by surprise at last by the breathless arrival of their late guest. She hailed them with an air of the bearer of important news, and as soon as they were ensconced in their corner with the cocoa safely bestowed on a stool at Patricia's right hand, she opened her heart.

"Awful row in the Committee room," she announced gleefully. "Good old Greenie marched right in to the grave and reverend seniors while they were in session just now, and she gave them ballyhoo. She called it a remonstrance in the cause of justice, but, my word, it was ripping!"

"What was it all about?" asked Patricia, much diverted by the picture of the mournful monitor facing the dreaded Board. "What did she say?"

Griffin chuckled. "You see, I was in the ante-room, cataloguing the prints—you know I got that job last week. Well, the Board was droning on in the big room in their usual uninteresting fashion and I was deep in admiration of a Rembrandt etching—that one with the hat and the open window behind him—when Green sails past me, head up and majesty writ large on her bulging brow. She always does put on lugs when she reports to the Committee, so I didn't sit up and take notice right away. But in a minute or two I came to life, I can tell you! She was rolling off the sentences about 'injustice to a high-minded student' and 'unnecessary humiliation' and 'reparation to one who was an ornament to any school,' and a lot of other junk like that. I tell you, I could have hugged the old girl! The Board just sat still, like school-boys caught stealing jam, and she went on, getting more flowery all the time."

"But what—" began Patricia again.

Griffin waved her to silence. "All of a sudden she seemed to realize that she was giving them a drubbing instead of a gentle rebuke. She hauled in her sails and stood winking at them behind her huge spectacles, while they all sat staring at her. It was a picture, I can tell you. Then dear old Farrer cleared his throat in that nervous way he has, and he bowed to Bottle Green as though she were the finest ever. 'We have heard with surprise and I am sure with regret,' he says, 'Miss Green's account of this matter. I think we will all agree that an investigation should be undertaken, and if there has been injustice done, such reparation as is possible shall be made.' Then they came and closed the door and I lit out for here. You've got a fine champion, Kendall Major, and we'll all see you through if it comes to a public demonstration, you can gamble on that!"

Elinor's face was perplexed. "But I don't see what can be done," she said gently. "I'd hate to have the thing dragged up before the school again. Of course, if it had been denied right then and there, I'd have been very glad, but now, after all these days——"

"It's only a week," protested Margaret Howes, firmly. "We had to wait till the Board met, you know."

"They can make an announcement, just as the prize announcement was made," explained Griffin, drumming impatiently on the table. "You may be too modest to be there, but it can be put through without you, and you will be cleared, don't you see?"

"Is Miss Green still in the Committee room?" asked Patricia suddenly.

"Of course," returned Griffin, shortly. "She had other reports to make. She usually stays about half an hour, she'll be longer today. Why?"

"I thought I'd like to have her here," she said, with a sidelong glance at Judith. "We've found out something about——"

She stopped, trying to arrange her speech so as to present the intended disclosure in the clearest form possible, but Judith, whose cheeks had been burning at Griffin's account of the interview in the Committee room, took the words out of her mouth.

"We've found out all about it!" she cried triumphantly. "Doris Leighton copied Elinor's design, and put it in ahead of Elinor! I know all about it, and I'll tell Miss Green and the whole committee, too, if I have to!"

Griffin was the first of the three to recover. She leaned forward, a thin, eager hand on Judith's arm.

"Say that again, young one," she demanded imperatively. "Make it good and plain this time."

Judith repeated her startling statement, adding that she had proof for everything she said. Her manner was so genuine and convincing that Griffin started up with a quick gesture of command.

"Don't say another word till I get back," she said, authoritatively, and was gone before any questions could be formed.

They sat in absolute silence, absently watching the occupants of the now nearly deserted tables straggle out in twos and threes, until the room was quite empty, and Patricia could bear it no longer.

"We don't have to petrify, do we?" she said, with a nervous ripple. "Griffin may keep us sitting here for hours——"

Judith's dramatic sense asserted itself, and she frowned at Patricia's frivolous interruption of the portentous silence.

"Do be still, Miss Pat," she said sedately. "We've waited two whole days already—five minutes more won't hurt us."

Margaret Howes glanced at Elinor, as she sat quietly with chin in one pink palm, her brows drawn level and her dark eyes steady and thoughtful.

"You're a wonder, Kendall Major," she broke out. "Here am I all fluffed up and on positive pins and needles over this affair, while you are as calm as a picture. Don't you feel excited? Aren't you wild to hear what it is?"

Elinor laid her hands on the table and Patricia could see that the fingers were twisted together until the knuckles showed white.

"Of course, I am anxious," she said evenly. "But I've had a different sort of life from most girls, and it's taught me that there's always a lot more to any surprise than we're looking for. I've been wondering just how much pain there's going to be, back of the pleasure of being set right in the eyes of the school."

"There oughtn't to be any for you," said Margaret Howes, impulsively laying her hand on Elinor's. "There isn't anything coming to you but plain every-day satisfaction in getting your rights."

"Ah, but how about Doris?" questioned Elinor sadly. "Isn't she to be remembered?"

"Why should she be?" returned the other warmly. "Did she have any thought for anything but her own parade when she pretended to be sorry for you? There's such a thing as carrying virtue too far, my dear girl, and I think you're straining your charity with too fine a sieve."

Elinor smiled a wistful little puckered smile. "Perhaps I am rather lop-sided in my feelings," she confessed. "I always feel so dreadfully sorry for the wrong-doers, and the less they care the sorrier I am."

Patricia had opened her lips to sustain Margaret Howes' point of view, when Griffin, followed by Miss Green, came breathlessly in to the room.

"Now we're all ready," she said eagerly when they had made room for the generous figure of the monitor. "Fire away with your tale, young one, and don't spare the details. We're game for any length of story, so long as you can prove it."

Judith, with her cheeks flushing and paling and her composed tones carrying conviction, laid the story of her discoveries before them, telling them how she had thought of it first "for fun, like a plot for a story," and then how she had remembered that Doris Leighton had Elinor's keys with access to the locker where the two studies for the prize designs were left that night that Elinor was taken ill; how she had discovered through Doris' younger sister that Doris had made her study for the Roberts prize from a little rough color sketch "just like Elinor had."

"I'd heard her say the Saturday that Miss Jinny came to see us that she never made sketches beforehand," said Judith, earnestly. "And she told Patricia the very day Elinor fainted that she hadn't begun her study. So I pretended to myself that we were all in a story, and I thought and thought what I should make of it if I were reading about it all instead of living in it. Then I saw that the thing to do was to find out if Doris Leighton had the little color sketch that she used for her study, and compare it with Elinor's."

Here Elinor gave a start, and then composed herself as Judith went on.

"I hunted and hunted for Elinor's, which I knew very well, for it was made on the back of one of my old tablets, but I couldn't find it. Geraldine couldn't find the one Doris used either, and then I got awfully interested. I told Geraldine that I was making up a story and I wanted to act it all out in life, and she was glad to help. She was mad at Doris anyway, and so she hunted everywhere for her sketch, but she couldn't find it. I was pretty near giving up then, for I thought I was mistaken; but the men were just making ready to take out Leighton's ashes when I thought, like a flash, 'There's where it would be, if anywhere,' and I told Geraldine. So we got sticks and we rummaged. My gracious, but it was dusty!"

Patricia gave a gasp of comprehension. "That's what made you so grimy that day Mrs. Halden came in for tea!" she exclaimed.

Judith nodded. "We found it!" she went on, growing more excited as the end approached. "We found it, all in little bits, along with other stuff from Doris' waste basket!"

The girls looked at one another in shamed silence. The actual discovery of the deception was so much more disconcerting than they had foreseen. They seemed to visualize Doris Leighton as she tore those guilty fragments and hid them in the rubbish, and the sight sickened them.

Griffin held out a hand for Judith's envelope. "You'll verify these, Kendall?" she said brusquely, pushing the bulky oblong across the table to Elinor.

Spread out on the cloth, the scraps pieced perfectly into the study that Elinor had made for the Roberts prize. The back showed the stamp of the Keystone tablet, with Judith's name partly erased and Doris' scribbled over it.

"It's my sketch," admitted Elinor in a low tone. "I missed it the next day, but I thought Miss Pat had dropped it when she brought my things home to me. My study was almost done, and I forgot all about it after that."

There was a disconcerting silence, while Judith breathed hard and kept her eyes glued on Miss Green.

Suddenly Patricia spoke. "It's a horrid mess, and I'm sorry that it had to come out, but there's no use shirking, is there? If someone, no matter who, stole your hat, you'd feel they should be brought to justice. Isn't stealing an idea a lot worse? I don't really think you ought to feel so badly, Elinor. If Doris Leighton could do such a thing, and then be friends with you afterward, she isn't worth breaking your heart over. I felt badly enough when Ju told me, but I've kept getting madder and madder, as I've seen how she goes on acting her part of kind friend to you."

Miss Green rose majestically and Griffin sprang up at the same time.

"I shall ask to be allowed to have the evidence," said the impressive representative of justice. "There is no time to be lost. Come, Miss Griffin, I shall need you and Miss Howes too."

At the door she turned, with expansive kindliness.

"Do not distress yourself, my dear Miss Kendall," she said, benignantly. "There is no cause for apprehension. Absolute secrecy and perfect amenity will prevail. You will be sent for later perhaps, but nothing unpleasant will occur. Depend upon it, the Board will welcome this revelation of the true state of affairs, and will do its duty gently."



CHAPTER XIII

RESTITUTION

"Did you see Elinor?" whispered Judith to Patricia, as she edged her way to her in the packed assembly room.

Patricia shook her head. "She's with Griffin and Bottle Green," she answered under her breath. "What do you want her for?"

Judith's bow was on one eye and her hat under her arm, showing that she had made great haste to join the growing crowd in the first antique room. She looked even more agitated than Patricia had expected her to be.

"What's the matter?" insisted Patricia, nudging her to compel her attention, but Judith's gaze was wandering all about in search of Elinor, and she answered absently. "There she is, up on the stand with Griffin," she murmured in dismay. "I can never let her know. I wish I could catch her eye; can't you signal her, Miss Pat? You're taller than I am."

"What'll I tell her, if I do?" demanded Patricia indignantly. "I haven't any idea what you want to telegraph?"

"Tell her Bruce Haydon is here," said Judith. "Oh, there she goes! I was afraid you couldn't get her. She's sitting down beside Miss Green now, and we'll never be able to let her know."

"Bruce Haydon!" exclaimed Patricia, astonished. "Why, he's in Italy, isn't he? Elinor had a letter yesterday——"

"He's here all the same," said Judith, interrupting her surprise. "And he sent a message to Elinor, so she'd be prepared, I guess. But I simply can't get to her now. She'll have to find it out for herself."

"What's Bruce doing here?" asked Patricia, as they resigned themselves to the inevitable and prepared to await the event.

"He says he finished his studies, and has come back because he wanted to keep an eye on you two art students," replied Judith. "He looks awfully well. You ought to have seen them stare when he grabbed me up and kissed me in the corridor just now."

Patricia gave a happy sigh. "It'll be good to have him around again," she said appreciatively. "I never knew how weak in the knees I was until this very moment. Things are bound to go right with Bruce hovering around. I hope Elinor sees him. She's feeling mighty shaky right now, I fancy."

"Isn't it queer how wobbly one feels?" commented Judith uneasily. "We've been crazy for the time to come, and now we feel like running away. I know I'll simply drop when Mr. Benton makes his speech."

"Nonsense," said Patricia stoutly, although her own knees were not too steady. "Keep your eyes on Elinor, and remember how glad you are that she's getting an official apology, after all the cheating and nastiness—then you won't want to collapse."

"Sounds like you were prescribing for yourself," retorted Judith with a flash of intuition. "You look just as——"

"Hush, he's coming," warned Patricia, turning pale in spite of her brave words. "Listen, he has begun."

Her eyes sought the pale pure outline of Elinor's profile, caught between the intervening faces, and held it during the brief explanatory speech, wherein Mr. Benton paid his tribute to Elinor's generous silence, and apologized in the name of the Board for the unjust accusation. She saw the wave of color sweep over it at the commendatory words, and the dark eyes fall under the shame of the hinted treachery of the unnamed student whose face was in every one's mind. Then at the next words she saw the light flash into full radiance, as Mr. Benton, with something in his extended hand, turned full toward Elinor where she sat.

"And now, Miss Kendall," he finished with grave satisfaction in every word. "It is my privilege to award to you the Roberts prize of one hundred dollars, in recognition of the meritorious work done by you in the late competition. Will you kindly come forward to receive it?"

There was a general murmur of surprise and a following rustle of gratification.

Patricia's eyes were too blurred with happy tears to see very clearly, but she made out Elinor's figure bowing over the same purse that Doris Leighton had received ten short days ago, and she whispered to herself joyously, "Dear old Norn, they've more than paid up for all the horridness now, haven't they? And you deserve it all, too."

Judith, whose eyes were still wide with astonishment, touched her arm.

"Did you know?" she asked breathlessly. "Did anyone know she was going to get it?"

"Can't you tell by looking at them?" demanded Patricia. "Do they look as though they'd expected anything like this? Of course we didn't know. The Board didn't even peep to Bottle Green, for she's gaping like the rest."

"I see," acknowledged Judith, sweeping the ringleaders with her sharp scrutiny. "They're all simply stunned, but they're mighty glad, too. They're going to give the Academy Howl. Oh, Patricia, I wish I could howl, too!"

"Go ahead, if you can do it," said a masculine voice at her elbow. "The Academy won't object, I'm sure."

Patricia turned with a gasp of delight. "Bruce!" she cried delightedly. "You dear thing! You've come in the nick of time. Isn't it splendid that Elinor's won the prize? Did you hear about it? Aren't you perfectly crazy over it?"

Bruce laughed good-naturedly as he shook hands.

"I can't undertake to answer all that at once, Miss Pat," he said. "Let's go find what Elinor thinks about it."

He pushed a way for them to the group which surrounded the flushed and gracious recipient of the Roberts prize, and before Patricia quite realized how he did it, he had them ensconced with Elinor in a cozy corner of the print room, and had heard the whole story of the stolen design.

"It's a good thing you two innocents have a responsible person like Judith to look after you," he said seriously. "I don't know what you'd do without a protector to play providence for you."

Judith flushed and tossed her mane with a gratified air. "Oh, they don't think much of me," she rejoined. "They make fun of me lots of times."

"Is that so?" said Bruce, with great concern. "I'm sorry to hear that. I tell you what, Judy, we'll form a partnership, you and I, and we'll see to it that they behave themselves better in the future. They've proved that they can't take proper care of themselves, so we'll have to play guardian angels."

Elinor merely smiled her gentle, affectionate smile, but Patricia rippled out in mocking laughter.

"I like that!" she cried. "Who took care of us all those years when we were poor and alone in the world? It's late in the day for Elinor to need protectors."

"Nevertheless, she's going to have 'em," declared Bruce with undisturbed geniality. "You may mock us and you may shock us and you may say you don't care, but we're on the job for keeps, aren't we, Judith, ma chere? And the first step we're going to take in our new position is to drag you both off to luncheon this very minute. You'd best give in gracefully, for both Judy and I are fearfully strong and ferocious."

Judith giggled, but Patricia rose briskly.

"I guess you won't have to chloroform us to drag us there this time," she retorted. "I'm glad we're presentable, anyway. Aren't you thankful I made you put on your best duds, Norn? There's nothing like being contented when one feeds, and I couldn't partake of the stalled ox with any satisfaction in my old school rags."

Judith cuddled close to Bruce on the settee while Elinor went for her wraps.

"Patricia's awfully superficial, I think," she confided to him cheerfully, as she watched her readjusting her bright hair beneath the pretty hat rim at the quaint old mirror of the bookcase. "She's so set on pretty things. She just worships anyone who is pretty—no matter whether she understands their character or not. I wish we could make her more serious-minded and careful."

"Pooh," said Patricia, turning from her own reflection with a gay laugh. "You don't need to try. I do worship beauty, and I always shall. I like to laugh and sing and be happy. I like blue skies because God made them that way. And I don't think a pink rose is wickeder for being pink than if it were grubby gray. I think being happy is the serious business of life—when you take other people in with you—and I reckon God thinks so too."

"Pa-tri-cia!" ejaculated Judith in prim rebuke, but Bruce gave her hand a restraining squeeze, and Patricia went on, glowing with earnestness.

"There isn't any more goodness in dismal looks, no, nor half so much, as in happy faces. Don't the cherubim sing eternally? Is there anything said about dark days in the New Jerusalem? I'm ashamed of you, Judith Kendall, for not knowing that it's twice as brave and good to be cheerful and pretty as it is to be moping and dull. Look at Elinor—would we love her if she'd been fussing about the hard times we had? Not much! Every bright smile she had for those horrid times has made her more adorable to me and I look on every bit of happiness we had in those poor days as just so much wrested from the powers of darkness." She stopped suddenly, with a little gasp of embarrassment, as Elinor entered.

"Patricia's spouting again," remarked Judith with the serene cruelty of extreme youth. "I didn't mind, because I'm used to it, but I guess Bruce is thankful you didn't keep us any longer, Elinor."

Bruce rose and held out his hand to Patricia, who was flushing painfully.

"Don't mind the kid, Miss Pat dear," he said, with his most winning smile. "She doesn't know any better yet. Your religion is the sort we've got to grow into, and, even then, some of us aren't ever quite big enough to realize it."

Judith's face had been undergoing swift changes during this short speech, but now it cleared and a beatific expression shone upon it.

"I know what you mean, now, Miss Pat," she declared loftily. "I've read it in Stevenson's verses, about 'those who . . . sow gladness in the peopled lands,' Isn't that it, Bruce? I didn't quite understand the way Patricia put it, but I think it's perfectly lovely, really I do."

Bruce pinched her cheek, with a tolerant laugh.

"It's all right, so long as it's in a book, eh?" he asked. "What a perfect little chameleon you are, Judy Kendall. I don't know whether to take you into the grand surprise that I'm going to spring on these two young ladies, or leave you at the nearest library while I disclose my dark projects. What do you say, Elinor?"

Elinor slipped Judith's nervous hand into her muff within her own.

"I think we might let her share with us this time," she said gently, and Judith's relief was beautiful to behold.

"Bruce says we're going to a French restaurant," she announced proudly. "I hope I can remember enough French to talk politely. Mademoiselle makes us say so many fine sentences when we have our 'calling days' in the French class that I get awfully twisted and never know whether I'm masculine or feminine."

"You won't need to think about it here," said Bruce. "The waiters are both Belgians and they speak English pretty well. You know that English is taught in the public schools in Belgium, and even the little children can say a few words to you. It's the old folks that don't understand."

Judith flew back to his side, pushing Patricia ahead to Elinor.

"Oh, do tell me all about it," she pleaded, and Bruce, with his customary good nature, launched into a very diverting account of the habits and customs of the Flemings and the year spent among them in his student days.

The first breath of spring was in the air, softening the chill of the crowded streets with warming sunshine and a hint of the coming miracle of the yearly resurrection. The shops were filled with the crisp, fresh-tinted goods of the nearing season, and here and there among the smartly dressed women was a modish straw hat brightening the winter furs and velvets. Patricia's cup was full and running over. She had no need for speech with Elinor, but she kept giving her hands quick little squeezes in her muff, while now and again they exchanged swift telegraphic glances of appreciation.

Bruce swung the door for them, and they passed into a little narrow shop-like place.

Judith's eyes were wide and dismayed.

"I don't think this is very nice," she whispered as Bruce was exchanging a few words with the smiling proprietor in the little cage behind the tiny counter.

"Hush," cautioned Patricia, using her eyes industriously. "It must be all right, or Bruce wouldn't have brought us. I like it. The floor is sanded, Judy! And those people at the snippy little tables under the stairs are French—just hear them gabble to the waiter."

Judith recovered sufficiently to take notice.

"There isn't any table—" she had begun, still with slight protest in her voice, when Bruce ushered them up the narrow vertical stair to the larger room above where more tables and windows made a cozy dining place for about a dozen people.

The waiter, a broad-faced Belgian, rushed forward with a smile of genuine welcome and a flourish of the spotless towel which he wore upon his left shoulder, and, with a few murmured words in French, motioned them to a table by the front window.

When they were being settled in their places, Judith found opportunity to whisper to Bruce, who immediately turned to the Belgian, who was helping Patricia remove her coat.

"You have good custom today, Francois," he said with a gesture toward the chattering groups at the other tables.

The waiter bowed as he folded the coat carefully.

"Yes, Mr. Haydon, sir," he said clearly. "We do not complain. Our trade keeps up, sir. We are the same as when you left, sir. We do not complain."

Patricia laughed at Judith's expression, as she watched Francois whisk away to the dumb-waiter in the far corner of the little apartment, and roar stentorian commands in indistinguishable French to an unseen source of supply below.

"He just uses his French to plot his dark plots with, Judy darlin'," she said, merrily. "You needn't try to make them out, for he doesn't intend you to."

"I heard 'Chateaubriand,' anyway," retorted Judith triumphantly. "And that means beefsteak. So I did understand something, you see."

Bruce made a gesture of mock despair. "Heavens, I'm discovered!" he cried, with a twinkle. "Judy knows just what she's going to have for lunch, and there won't be any surprise, after all."

Patricia looked inquiringly at him.

"Is that the grand surprise you meant, Bruce Haydon? Sure you aren't fooling us? Oh, you are! You've got something else—I know it by your eyes. You look awfully guilty."

"Do I?" asked Bruce innocently. "I wish there was a mirror here so I could see how that looks. Here comes Francois with the bouillon and omelets. Don't let him see me, please, till I've gotten up a better expression."

Francois served them deftly, while still attending to all the other tables, and Patricia, in the intervals of merry chatter, wondered at the innumerable bits of respectful conversation he managed to supply his patrons in addition to his very satisfactory table service, and she said so to Bruce, just as the dessert had been placed and Francois had withdrawn to a party of newcomers.

Bruce, however, was remarkably absent in his reply.

"Yes, he's a wonder," he said, cracking nuts studiously. "I hope he's as good on breakfasts as he used to be."

"Breakfast!" cried Patricia, bubbling. "Are we going to keep on eating till——"

"No, no, I didn't mean that," returned Bruce hastily. "I was thinking of something else."

"The surprise, I am sure," announced Judith calmly. "Let's try to guess what it is, like charades or Dumb Crambo. You can tell us if we guess right, Bruce. I'll begin first."

Bruce laid down his cracker with a grin. "No, you don't, young 'un," he said decisively. "I'm not going to turn my choicest possession into a puzzle department. I'm going to spring it myself, right now."

All eyes were upon him as he crumpled his napkin into a hard ball and crushed it between his flexible fingers, while his face assumed an earnest and rather anxious expression.

"I am going to ask you to think first and speak last," he began. "I don't want you to go into it hastily or unless you're quite sure you will like it."

"We'll like it, all right enough, if you have a hand in it," Patricia assured him heartily.

"It's a scheme I've been thinking of for nearly a month now, and I've made all the arrangements before I came home; but if it doesn't appeal to you—well, there are no bones broken, and I can easily fix it up with Miss J—— that is, I can make other arrangements."

Judith gave an impatient wriggle, but it was Patricia again who spoke.

"Please, please, do tell us what it is! Suspense is so awful!"

Bruce cocked his head on one side meditatively. "I'll make a stab at it," he acceded, and then paused, while they waited in breathless silence.

"I've taken a studio apartment, and I've got someone to keep house—just for a month—and I'm banking on you all coming to spend that month with me. I want you to have this chance at some outside work," he said to Elinor. "I'm not so keen on this academic work for a steady job. I want you to keep up your life class, of course, but there's a big lot of education lying around in the studios for this short time anyway. I may not be able to offer it to you again, as I'll have to be off as soon as this contract is finished. Will you come?"

Elinor sat looking at him with her eyes shining, and then she drew a quick breath.

"I think it would be perfectly glorious," she said gratefully. "It's wonderful that you should bother with us. I can't thank you——"

"Don't want any thanks," returned Bruce gruffly. "Your aunt would understand it. I'm only beginning to pay my debt to her, and it's going to take a mighty long while, too."

Patricia held out her hand across the cloth. "I can't kiss you, but here's the substitute. You're a duck, Bruce Haydon. Where is the studio?"

Bruce laughed in a relieved way. "That's the way to talk, Miss Pat. I'll show it to you as soon as you've all finished. Judy, haven't you anything to say?"

Judith finished dabbling her fingers in the finger-bowl, and wiped them daintily. Then she raised her clear eyes to the expectant company.

"The only thing I'm afraid of is that Mrs. Hudson won't let us go a whole month sooner," she said with the calmness of despair. "I suppose I'll have to stay there all by myself, just because I'm the youngest and not an artist. But I tell you all this—I'm not going to stay alone. I'll get Mrs. Shelly to come in——"

"Good idea, Judy," said Bruce encouragingly. "We'll see what we can do about it. Come along now, we're going to inspect the new premises. You girls get your duds on while I settle up. It's only around the corner, and we'll be there in a jiffy."



CHAPTER XIV

NEW QUARTERS AND OLD FRIENDS

They went up in the little box of an elevator, and as they got out, Bruce jingled his keys invitingly.

"I'll let you open the door—for luck, Judy," he said, holding out a key. "See if you can guess which door it belongs to."

Judith scanned the doors critically, her brows puckered and her head aslant.

"We-e-ll," she said, slowly revolving so as to see each hall in turn. "I'll take the one just ahead there. It hasn't any card on the door and all the others have."

"Clever child!" commended Bruce. "That escaped my notice. You're right, of course. Go ahead. Open up."

Judith put the key in its lock, turned it easily and then swung the door wide, but before the others could catch even a glimpse of the interior, she gave a little squeaking cry and rushed in, leaving the door to bang after her.

"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Patricia indignantly. "We're locked out!"

"We can ring if Bruce has no other key," said Elinor hastily. "She'll surely let us in."

So, as there was no other key, Patricia put her finger to the bell on the lintel and kept it there till the knob rattled and the door was flung open wide. Judith was standing in the middle of the big, comfortable studio and her face was flushed, but not one word did she say in explanation of her singular behavior.

Elinor and Patricia were so occupied with the room that she almost escaped reproof, but Patricia, as she turned from admiring the stairway that wound up one side of the studio to a nook in the peaked roof above, caught a very knowing look on her little sister's face which was meant for Bruce, and she pounced on her immediately.

"What is the matter with you today, Ju?" she asked in an undertone, "I do wish you'd behave yourself. Bruce will be sorry he asked us if we're going to act like wild Indians."

Judith's only reply was a giggle.

Bruce and Elinor were inspecting the rooms on the other side of the studio, and had passed out of sight behind the second doorway. Patricia forgot her censorship as the spirit of the explorer rose in her.

"Let's look at these rooms, Ju," she proposed, with a hand on the heavy curtain at her right.

Judith caught her hand with a cry of dismay.

"It's not fair, till Elinor comes, too!" she protested hotly. "Wait, they'll be back. I'll call them."

But Patricia, with a laugh, broke from her and lifted the curtain.

"Elinor didn't wait for us," she began gayly, "and I'm not——"

She broke off with her mouth and eyes opened to their widest, for there in the chair by the cozy grate sat Mrs. Shelly, while Miss Jinny stood chuckling her husky chuckle and rubbing her elbows nervously with both hands.

"They've come to stay!" shouted Judith in wild excitement. "They're going to be here the whole month! Wasn't it lovely of Bruce to get them, and won't it be transcendant, with all of us together!"

Patricia had for once no words, but she fell on Miss Jinny's willing neck, and to Judith's great wonder and Mrs. Shelly's delight, she kissed Miss Jinny with great vigor and despatch.

"You duck!" she cried, and, although Judith gasped and paled at the audacious epithet, Miss Jinny merely chuckled and patted her tenderly and then passed her on to the smiling, pink-cheeked little old lady in the rocker.

Such a time as they had all together when Elinor and Bruce joined them! And such a happy circle as they made around the studio fire, as twilight came on and the shadows crept out from the vast corners of the big room, and they made plans for the future and compared notes as to the past months of separation, with the cheerful flicker leaping and flaring on their ruddy faces, quite as it had in the old house at Rockham.

"Do you remember how we planned for this year?" said Patricia, her chin on her hand and her eyes on the leaping flame. "That was at Christmas time, only three short months ago, and we've all broken our plans already. David and Judy are the only ones who have stuck to theirs, and that is mainly because they can't help themselves. Here am I, studying at the Academy, after vowing I'd not waste money on myself at all. Elinor is dropping half her studies there and starting on an entirely new course—Interior Decoration and Stained Glass—under Mr. Bruce Haydon's personal supervision; and as for Mrs. Shelly and Miss Jinny—they are so far out of their plans I don't believe they'll ever get back into them again."

Miss Jinny gave a snort of defiance. "Just you wait till this month is over, Patricia Louise Kendall," she said belligerently. "I'll be back in that old rut so tight you won't be able to see where I ran in again. Not go back to housekeeping with mama, indeed! I'll bet that I put up as many extra pickles and jams this year as I ever did, and with the exception of having the library and you people and the Haldens again, I don't see much change ahead of me, I can tell you!"

Patricia sighed and stretched herself luxuriantly.

"Well, I haven't any complaint to make with the new arrangements," she said expansively. "Things keep getting deliciouser and deliciouser all the time. I only wish we didn't have to go back to the boarding house tonight——"

"Indeed, you're not going to budge a step!" said Miss Jinny triumphantly. "We planned it all out. You're to stay here and begin to be at home right off. You can go and pack tomorrow and have your things sent over as soon as you please."

"But," insisted Elinor, "we haven't anything——"

Again Miss Jinny interrupted. "I got your negligees and all from Mrs. Hudson this morning," she chuckled. "She knows you won't be back, and she's just as well pleased, for she's a good chance to rent your rooms right away, and I told her to go ahead. She'll keep your things till tomorrow or the next day. Now, come along and choose bunks, though there isn't much choice, for there is only one big room with three beds in it. Mama and I are right next to you, you see."

The rooms on the right of the studio, a small one with a double bed in it for Miss Jinny and her mother, and the enormous room with the three beds for the girls, were separated by a tiled bath and were quite remote from the rooms on the other side, where was a corresponding small room to be used for a sitting-room, and a slightly larger one for Bruce. Altogether, the arrangement was as satisfactory as could be wished and everyone was enthusiastic over the many comforts and conveniences that the place boasted.

"Fortunate that Symons had to hurry off to South America for that commission, wasn't it?" said Bruce, rubbing his hands before the fire. "We couldn't have got a snugger place, and just for the length of time we want it. I told Miss Jinny it would be flying in the face of Providence for her to refuse to come and occupy it."

Judith had been studying the problem of the rooms, and now put her question. "But where are we to have our meals?" she ventured. "I don't see any dining-room."

"They are coming in from Dufranne's and we're going to imbibe them in that room to the left," replied Bruce with a wave toward the sitting-room. "When we feel like it, we're going to Dufranne's for them." He turned to Mrs. Shelly with an air of charming courtesy that sat well on his strong face. "Are you still in the humor for dining out, madam?" he asked, in a tone easily heard by her.

Mrs. Shelly nodded, smiled her twinkly smile and rose with alacrity.

"I'll put on my new bonnet," she promised, and trotted off to her room, smoothing the tails of her basque with eager fingers.

"She's just as happy as a lark," said Miss Jinny to the others. "I was so scared for fear she'd hate town life, but, lands alive, she takes to it like a duck to water. I shouldn't wonder if it did her a lot of good. She's been uncommonly quiet recently, and I believe she's been missing you girls."

Mrs. Shelly in her new bonnet with a gay little pansy on it, Miss Jinny in another bran new hat, made quite a festive appearance, and the great humor of them both and their sincere pleasure in being so important a part in the little home group gave an added zest to the evening's merry-making.

"Ju hasn't let go of Mrs. Shelly's hand since we left the restaurant," said Patricia apart to Elinor, as they were taking off their wraps in the studio again. "Poor little kid, she certainly does worship that dear little old lady."

"How she'd have adored mother, if she had only lived," said Elinor softly. "Mother was so lovely. I always feel that you two have been cheated out of so much—not even to have a dim memory of her."

Patricia's face grew wistful. "She went away when I was so little," she murmured absently. "Sometimes I do fancy that I can recall how she looked as she kissed me good-bye in the big station, but it must be only fancy—one doesn't remember much at two years old. I can see just how Judy looked though, when they brought her home after mother died, and I was only three and a half then."

"What are you two conspirators hatching up over there in the corner?" called Bruce from the fireside. "We're making out our schedule, and you don't know what you're missing!"

Settled in their places—they already had their own selected places in the ingle nook—with Mrs. Shelly rocking contentedly in the center of the half circle and Bruce smoking in the deep armchair, they grew enthusiastic again over the delightful prospect of the month that Bruce outlined for them.

"Judy, of course, will go to school," he said, blowing a little smoke ring at her. "Miss Pat will go to the sculpturing as usual, but may have a hand in any game here that she is able to hold up. You'll learn a heap, Paddy Malone, if you keep those ears of yours open, for Grantly, the fellow who is doing the bas-reliefs for the State Capitol building, will be about occasionally, and he's a cracker-jack in his line."

"See here," interrupted Miss Jinny, cocking her eyes severely at Bruce. "I'm not going to have Patricia hobnobbing with those Bohemians!"

Bruce roared with laughter. "My dear Dragon!" he cried, "don't you be afraid of your precious charges. Grantly hasn't any time to waste on young 'uns like Miss Pat. He's working, I tell you, and he doesn't like young ladies, anyway. Her only chance would be to overhear him spouting to me, which if she's discreet she may occasionally be able to do."

"Oh, indeed!" said Miss Jinny subsiding. "Well, that's another matter. I don't object to that."

"Hope not," retorted Bruce amiably. "Now as to Elinor." He stopped for so many rings that Judith stirred and cleared her throat impatiently, whereon he grinned cheerfully at her and went on. "As to Elinor. She will keep on with the night life, but the rest of her time will be spent in the studio here, working on studies and cartoons for a big wall decoration for a church, and a stained glass window for the same church—a purely mythical one, my dear Dragon, but intended to develop our promising student more rapidly than the easygoing method of the schools. What do you say to the program, young ladies?"

Patricia smiled at Elinor's fervid response and Judith's calm approval, but she uttered never a word, though Bruce looked at her inquiringly.

"Well?" he said at last. "What's the verdict?"

"I think it is simply great," replied Patricia with a ripple of mirth. "I honestly do, Bruce. I'm going to have a gorgeous time, and I'm awfully grateful to you for it."

"Well?" he repeated. "That's not all you're thinking, Miss Pat. You're simpering at some hidden invention of your own, and you know it. Out with it or we'll put the X-rays on it."

Patricia flung a look at Miss Jinny. "Really and truly I haven't any secret to confess, Bruce. I was only thinking how very nice it was for us, Judy and me, that we had such a genius for a sister."

Miss Jinny's eyes twinkled, but Bruce flushed and flicked his cigar ash into the fire with a dexterous finger.

"What has that to do with your meek and lowly gratitude?" he asked with the trace of a smile.

"It has everything to do with all of us," responded Patricia promptly. "We're just the tail of the comet, you know."

Bruce opened his eyes and sat up, piercing Patricia with a keen gaze. Evidently he found no reserve behind her words, for he broke into a laugh and shook his head at her.

"I'm in a regular nest of female detectives," he retaliated gayly. "Between you and Judy I shan't have a single secret left at the end of the month. I'll have to watch myself like thunder, Miss Jinny, or they'll make a miserable hen-pecked man of me!"

Miss Jinny grunted amiably at him, and then rose. "I guess you know what you're about, Bruce Haydon. Don't look to me to protect you, though, for I'm a mighty active feminist, and I can't waste any of my valuable time taking care of such a common critter as a man." With a nod to the girls, she beckoned her mother.

"Time for bed, mama dear," she said clearly. "I've got your ginger tea ready for you, and I guess it's the last you'll want this year." In a lower tone she explained to the others: "Just brewed it to make her feel more at home, you know. She doesn't need it in this fiery furnace of a place."

Mrs. Shelly, with a kindly good-night to Bruce, trotted after them, fumbling with her watch pocket.

"I declare, if it isn't half-past ten!" she exclaimed, as she snapped the blue enameled lid of her little watch. "My little girl ought to have been in bed an hour ago."



Judith twined her arms about her and kissed her fondly.

"It doesn't matter just for tonight, does it, Mama Shelly?" she asked with pretty deference. "There are going to be such a lot of nights to go to bed early in."

Mrs. Shelly nodded briskly. "And I'll come sit with you while you're getting ready," she promised, patting Judith's hand. "We can have some good talks together then, and I'll remember more stories for you, too."

Much to Judith's delight she kissed them all around, and then she hustled off after Miss Jinny, leaving them to themselves in the big, comfortable room.

Patricia flung herself on the fur rug that lay before the empty fireplace.

"I don't feel as if I'd ever want to go to sleep," she said rapturously. "It seems like a glorious dream that we're going to live in this romantic place a whole month. Bruce is a perfect duck to fix it up so we can all be together. I shan't study much here, I feel that in my bones, but I'll have a gorgeous time. How do you feel about it, Judy?"

Judith sat with one stocking in her hand, dreaming, and she awoke with a start.

"I'm going to write!" she declared, dramatically waving the stocking about. "This is truly inspiring!"

Patricia gave a short laugh. "Did it ever occur to you that our little Judy might make a fair actress, Norn?" she asked, deftly catching the bare foot that supported Judith and bringing her down on the rug beside her. "Her passion for the limelight grows, I notice, and recent events have not tended to make her unmindful of her merits."

"Oh, stop teasing, Miss Pat," cried Judith, wriggling free. "I wouldn't be an actress if you'd hire me. I'm going to be a writer, and now I'm going to bed. Good-night," and she made a flying leap into her pillows and covered herself to the eyes. "Don't say another word to me tonight," she warned, "or I'll call Miss Jinny. I'm going to sleep."

Patricia yawned and rose. "I guess I'll follow her virtuous example. I'm really getting awfully drowsy, now it's so quiet," she confessed.

Elinor was already half asleep when Patricia suddenly sat up with a mirthful gurgle.

"What fun it'll be to tell the gang at the Academy," she crowed. "Won't Griffin rejoice and won't Doris Leighton wish she'd been good! Margaret Howes will have a chance to meet Bruce, too. It'll be a perfect lark all around!"

Elinor sighed in deep content.

"Maybe Bruce will let Margaret work with me sometimes," she murmured joyfully. "I know he's going to like Griffin tremendously; she's just the sort to fit in with us all. Miss Jinny's crazy over her. I don't believe we'll see poor Doris Leighton again. Griffin told me she was leaving."

Patricia cuddled down in the pillows again, with a chuckle.

"Miss Jinny told me that Mr. Spicer had asked us all to tea at the Science and Arts Club," she said. "The Haldens are coming in for Easter and all the other holidays, and we're going to simply revel in delightful doings right here in the studio. It's a dream of goodly revelry, Norn, isn't it?" "It means more than that to me," replied Elinor. "It means work—glorious, big, beautiful work——"

"Do you know," interrupted Patricia, suddenly alert again, "I don't believe I'll ever amount to a row of pins as an artist? I always forget the work and think only of the people and the fun. I wonder if I can't brace up and do something worth while. I'll start in tomorrow—see if I don't."



CHAPTER XV

AFTERNOON TEA

The days slipped by with wonderful swiftness after the trunks had been unpacked and things had settled down to the regular routine. Patricia wondered at the evenness of their minds and the serenity of their hearts in those first three weeks of studio life.

"Everything goes so smoothly," she confided to Miss Jinny one day at the end of the fortnight. "It sounds monotonous, but I don't mean it that way at all. We're all so naturally polite and agreeable. We don't seem to have to force ourselves a bit."

"That's because we've each of us got something to do," declared Miss Jinny emphatically. "If we were idling around, musing on ourselves from morning till night like some poor creatures do, we'd get prickly mighty soon. People were made to work, and it's flying in the face of Providence to try to get away from it. We all got our share in the curse of Adam, and the sooner we realize it, the better for us."

Patricia played with the handle of the great glittering brass amphora that stood by the low stool where she sat. Her face was puzzled though not disquiet.

"I wonder just what my work will turn out to be?" she said thoughtfully. "I'm beginning to be afraid I haven't any real work of my own. I've tried so hard to get on with the modeling—for I do love it—but it just seems as though I couldn't. That first head that they liked so much, and the study of Ju is about all the sculpture I've got in my system, I reckon. I'm downright ashamed to let them know——"

"You needn't be," declared Miss Jinny vigorously. "You never pretended you were in it for anything but sport, did you? Bruce knows you're about through with it; I heard him say so to Elinor yesterday."

"Oh, did he though?" cried Patricia, kindling. "How clever of him to see. I thought no one dreamed!"

Miss Jinny chuckled. "We knew you were only marking time till you stepped off into your music," she said encouragingly. "It was nice, of course, that you got along so well, but no one expected you to take to it for good and all."

Patricia sighed contentedly. "How nice you all are!" she said appreciatively. "I thought you'd all be disgusted with me if I quit. After Mr. Grantly said that study of Ju showed promise, I nearly wore myself to a bone trying to make good. I've been scared stiff about it."

"Don't you worry, Miss Pat. You'll find your own work all in good time. It mayn't be what you'd like it to, but it'll be something that you can do better than any one else," said Miss Jinny with kind wisdom. "Look at me. I'm sure that books and catalogues is my forte, but the Lord knows better. He's given me the sense to see it, too, and so mama is comfortable and happy and someone else who hasn't a dear mother depending on her does the library work in my place."

"You're a darling," said Patricia, "and the Lord must be terribly fond of you."

"Patricia Louise Kendall! That's sacrilege!" gasped the scandalized Miss Jinny.

"Is it?" exclaimed Patricia, equally startled. "I didn't know it was. Mr. Spicer said it himself yesterday when he was talking to me in the print room, and I was telling him about your poor basket and saving bank, and all that. I'm awfully sorry, Miss Jinny."

Miss Jinny had a queer look, Patricia thought, as she turned hurriedly away with a murmured excuse about the tea table.

"Why, it's all ready," cried Patricia wondering at her changed manner. "We put the sliced lemon on the very last thing."

But Miss Jinny was not to be diverted into talk again, and as she started out of the studio the bell came to her aid, buzzing shrilly an insistent summons to the door.

"That's Griffin; I know her ring!" cried Patricia jumping up. "I'll go."

Griffin it was, in the highest good humor and bursting with news. She did not wait to get out of her coat before she began to unbosom herself to them both, alternately addressing each in turn.

"Kendall Major's missed it, I tell you, going off to that poky architectural show," she declared to Miss Jinny. "We had the time of our lives today in life class. Benton's up in the air because Howes showed him that Ascension study she did over here—you know he never could bear Haydon or his work—and he was as mad as hops that he should be butting in with any of his own special pets like Howes."

"How mean!" cried Patricia spiritedly. "Bruce hasn't even seen that study. What did he say about it?"

"Oh, he couldn't say anything right out," replied Griffin knowingly, "but he made it hot for us, I tell you. Poor old Bottle Green caught it first, for painting before he'd given her permission, and then he jumped on me for not painting. Radford caught it and then he lit on Slovinski for using the Whistler palette, and she just blew up! These Poles aren't like us tame tabbies, you know, and she's full of ginger, for all her sleepy ways. She's terribly high-born, you know, and can't bear anyone to look cross-eyed at her."

"What did she do?" asked Patricia eagerly.

"Slammed him good and hard," returned Griffin succinctly. "Told him he was fifteen different sorts of a lobster."

"Oh, do talk English, Griffie dear," begged Patricia, laughing. "Miss Jinny doesn't understand your Choctaw speech."

"Well then, she rebuked him thoroughly for his variable though severe criticisms, and stated, with some emotion, that the Board should be enlightened as to his unfitness, through his captious temper, for the delicate task of nourishing the tender sensibilities of the budding artist."

"My word, she wasn't shy, was she?" interpolated Patricia, much diverted.

"Not she," declared Griffin. "We were all in a blue fit. Not that we old stagers are sorry for the man, but it shocked our sense of what's due him as a teacher. I was fearfully ashamed of Slovinski, but it was fun to see how astounded he looked. He just stood looking at her more quietly than I'd ever seen him look at any one, and then he bowed and asked her if she'd quite finished. Jiminy, but he was polite! We all got a chill. Slovinski sat down, and we took to work again. Benton went on criticizing as if nothing had happened, but we felt mighty queer. Then Bottle Green stooped over to get her paint-box, and up she starts, most tragic-like, with her hand, on her shoulder, and she solemnly announces she's broken her arm."

"Poor thing, she's done it at last!" cried Patricia compassionately. "Then what happened?"

"She got safely off, and then the model began to look queer, and in a minute she'd fainted. Howes brought her to with a glass of mineral water, and the class broke up. But the model didn't go. After Benton had made a small spicy speech of farewell—he's leaving, can't stand being sassed—she got up on the stand and gave us a bunch of monologues that were out of sight. She used to be on the variety stage until she lost her voice. I tell you, Kendall missed it."

"What did I miss?" called Elinor's voice from the other room, where she had come in unnoticed.

She came to the doorway with her hat and furs still on and repeated the question. Griffin gave her a synopsis of the row and the casualties following, which she received with a little protesting laugh.

"I can't say it sounds better than the architectural show," she said, pulling out her hat-pins.

"That part wasn't," agreed Griffin, "though a bit more sporting perhaps. But what came after was. Mary Miller, the model, told us the most wonderful story—her own life, first in the bush in Australia and then here in New York and Chicago; and who do you think she is?"

"Melba in disguise?" mocked Elinor gayly.

"Stuff!" snorted Griffin, impatiently. "Her family comes from Rockham, and her grandmother used to live at Greycroft. She's going out to see the place when it gets warmer. I didn't tell her you lived there now, for I didn't know whether you'd want——"

"Lands to goodness, I believe I've seen her!" exclaimed Miss Jinny. "There was a Mary Miller, a little thing about five, used to play about the place when old Miss Spence lived there. Her mother married again and went to Australia. Must be the same one."

"Come over to the shop tomorrow and see if it isn't—" Griffin began, when there was a sound of laughter and talking in the outer hall and the door opened to admit Bruce, Margaret Howes, the two Halden girls and Judith.

Mr. Spicer and Mrs. Shelly came in almost at the same time, and Miss Jinny's delicious tea and nut-cakes were served with great gayety and lively chatter. The Haldens, having come from a two-days vacation at Rockham, were full of neighborhood gossip and gave very circumstantial accounts of Greycroft, Hannah Ann and Henry.

"We saw Hannah Ann and Henry on Saturday and got all the news about the place from them. Major had the colic one night, but Hannah Ann saved him with a quart of homeopathic pills," laughed Miriam. "Everything looked just as natural as life when we drove by this morning. They'll be mighty glad to see you all when you go back."

"What are you putting up in the garden, Elinor?" asked Madalon, stirring her tea. "I noticed that Henry had a lot of poles planted along the south shrubbery——"

Judith's dismayed exclamation cut short her account of the activities at Greycroft.

"Now you've done it!" cried Judith in distress. "She knows all about it, and I meant it for a surprise! Oh dear!"

"I'm awfully sorry—" began Madalon, contritely, but Judith was too deeply disappointed to be very polite.

"Hannah Ann and I have been writing about it for ever so long," she lamented, "and we were having it put just where you wanted it, Elinor, and Henry got the trees from the wood lot, and we were going to have it for a surprise—" She broke off, choking.

Elinor slipped an arm about her. "But what is it, Ju dear?"

"A pup-pup-pergola," spluttered Judith, recovering a bit. "Just the sort you wanted. And we planned for Miss Pat to make one of those lovely stone seats out of concrete. But it isn't any use, now," she ended forlornly.

"Don't be a muff," said Patricia briskly. "It's twice as good, don't you see, coming out this way? Here are eight people surprised all in a bunch, instead of merely Elinor and poor me. You've sprung it in the very nick of time, Infant."

"Sure thing," supplemented Griffin genially. "I'm in it now, and if you'd put it off, I'd been in Kalamazoo or Madagascar, and missed it all."

Judith with this encouragement began to take heart, and by the time Mr. Spicer and Margaret Howes had joined their congratulations to the others, she was fully recovered and enjoying herself immensely, arguing with Margaret Howes and Bruce as to the shape of the projected seat with a freedom that was usually denied her.

The subject of Mary Miller was brought up and discussed with great interest. Everyone advocated Miss Jinny's visit to the Academy, and Judith added the hope that the descendant of the old housekeeper at Greycroft might be able to throw some light on the disappearance of the old miser's silver and bank books, a remark that caused some consternation among the elder members of the party.

"Don't you go making suggestions of that sort," warned Bruce, with impressive authority. "The girl will feel as though her great-grandmother were a thief."

"Oh, I wouldn't put it that way," cried Judith, scandalized. "I'd just sort of hint around gently. Maybe they dug it up long ago."

"Ju's got the idea from her last thriller that the Dutchman who used to live at Greycroft buried his treasure somewhere about the place," explained Patricia to Griffin. "I suppose she'll spend her time grubbing this summer."

Griffin pushed up her blouse sleeve, showing a remarkably thin arm. "I'm your man, if you ever want a pal," she said to Judith. "I'm trained down to the right weight now and ready for business."

Judith did not know whether she was being chaffed or not, so she dexterously changed the subject.

"Doris Leighton's sister has the scarlet fever," she announced, enjoying the stir that the name caused, "and Doris is nursing her. She takes turns with the nurse, and Geraldine cries when she goes out of the room."

"Phew, that doesn't sound like our fine lady of the stony heart!" exclaimed Griffin. "Are you sure, kidlet?"

Judith nodded emphatically. "Mrs. Leighton told Miss Hillis over the phone, and she told the class, as 'an example of sisterly devotion,' she called it. I felt like telling her what I knew."

"Judith Kendall, you're a little monster!" cried Patricia, indignantly. "Even if Doris did cheat, she's doing a noble thing now, and we ought to be the last to blab, since Elinor got the prize. Doris had to pay for her sins and she has human feelings, too."

"Pooh, she didn't have to pay much," said Judith with the callousness of childhood. "She only gave back the prize and left the Academy."

"I'm glad to hear that she is making good now," said Margaret Howes gravely. "I always felt there was a lot of good in Leighton under her fluff."

"Perhaps it took hard rubs to bring it out," said Miss Jinny, pouring another cup for Mr. Spicer. "We poor human critters are like that sometimes. Good times spoil us. Maybe she's had it too easy, poor girl."

"Souls have muscles, the same as bodies do, and they need exercise," agreed Bruce thoughtfully. "I know lots of fellows who are failures through having too much money. It's a dangerous thing to let your soul get seedy."

"Golly, that pretty nearly hits us all, doesn't it?" said Griffin apprehensively. "I'm not so sure about myself, now you mention it. Doris Leighton may be one ahead of me in this business. Fatty degeneration of the soul is a new one to me."

They were all rather serious for a silent moment, and then Patricia spoke. Her clear voice was rather low and timid, but her eyes were shining.

"Let's phone to her and tell her that we all hope Geraldine will soon be well," she said, looking at Elinor with loving confidence.

There was a murmur of assent and Elinor rose quickly.

"The very thing, Miss Pat," she agreed radiantly. "I'll look up the number for you."

But Patricia shrank from appearing too magnanimous.

"It's your affair, Norn," she demurred. "You ought to do the talking."

So Elinor went into the sitting-room where the telephone was, and in the intervals of their rather forced conversation, they could hear scraps of her kind questions and gentle answers. When she returned to the studio, her face was glowing.

"I'm so glad you thought of phoning, Miss Pat," she said, taking her plate and cup from Bruce and seating herself by Miss Jinny. "Doris was—well, I can't tell you what she said, but she certainly isn't as bad as we thought her. She's just wrapped up in Geraldine and she seems to think that this illness is a judgment on her for the prize study."

"Poor thing," exclaimed Griffin. "Did you tell her we all asked for her?"

Elinor nodded. "She said I might as well tell you all, for it would be in the papers tomorrow. Her father has failed, and they're dreadfully poor. It's been coming on for a long while, and that was why she wanted the prize so much—not that she excused herself for it, she only said I could see how she came to stoop so low. She was frantic for the money and was so worried that she couldn't think of any subject for herself. She thought I was rich and happy and wouldn't care. She even thought I might not turn in my study at all, when I got sick that night. She's had a terrible time about it, but she was so glad to have the chance to explain."

"Why in the world didn't she say so before?" cried Griffin indignantly. "She had a chance to defend herself. We're not absolutely inhuman."

"She couldn't, don't you see, without telling her father's private affairs?" said Elinor gently. "She didn't feel that it was any excuse for her conduct, anyway."

Patricia heaved a deep sigh. "Well, I must say," she said with a triumphant look at Miss Jinny, "I do believe in first impressions and I'm glad I always liked Doris Leighton."

Miriam Halden rose regretfully. "Sorry to break up the festivities, Miss Jinny," she said, shaking hands, "but our train leaves in just ten minutes, and Madalon has on bran-new pumps with heels that cut her down to a mile an hour. We'll see you all again next week at the house-breaking, as Judith calls it."

"We'll be here," promised Madalon, following her sister's example. "We'll have to miss lunch and the Senior dance, but what's a mere dance compared to helping a neighbor say farewell to their happy little home. Look for us at twelve-thirty sharp and prepare an extra mess of pottage, for we'll both be fearfully hungry. Tell David and Tom Hughes we'll come in on the same train they do. Good-bye, be good till Saturday and then we'll all be happy."



CHAPTER XVI

APRIL SHOWERS

"That Miller girl needs a good rest," said Miss Jinny emphatically.

She had come in from her visit to the Academy, where she had interviewed the model with a thoroughness that left little of her past unexplored, and her face was sad and thoughtful as she stood pulling off her gloves, finger by finger, by the big side window in the studio.

Mrs. Shelly went on with her knitting, but Patricia, who was mending a long rent in her best blouse, looked up with eager interest.

"Did you have a chance to talk to her much?" she asked, snapping off her thread in her absorption. "What is she really like? Does she remember Rockham? And does she know we have the old place?"

Miss Jinny chuckled and then grew grave and thoughtful.

"I guess she wouldn't last much longer at this business," she said, smoothing the creases out of the glove fingers. "She's got a pinched look and her cheeks are mighty pink. No, it ain't paint; I asked right out, and she answered just as nice as could be. She seems tired, poor girl, and mortally glad to have some one take an interest. She says the class rooms are so hot, and the change from living in eighty degrees to sixty-five, like it is in her room, has made her downright sick part of the time."

"It must be hard on her," acquiesced Patricia. "Why didn't she get something else to do?"

"Couldn't," said Miss Jinny, briefly. "A girl without friends or money hasn't much show in a big town. I'm going to take charge of that girl, Patricia."

Patricia felt a thrill of alarm.

"You aren't going to bring her here?" she queried, a faint flush of shame at the selfishness of her speech creeping into her cheeks.

"Certainly not," said Miss Jinny crisply. "I'm merely a guest here. I'm going to do something more practical, and I want you to help me, if you can stop being jealous of the poor girl, for——"

Patricia flung the sewing aside and threw her arms about her friend in a tempest of contrition. "I didn't mean to be horrid," she cried. "You know I wouldn't really be so selfish—if I thought you wanted it. But we have been so happy together here, and I wanted it to go onto the end, just like a beautiful story that ends happily. I'm sorry I seemed mean."

Miss Jinny gave her a pat and a kiss. "I guess I feel quite as much that way as you do, Miss Pat," she said with unusual softness. "I hadn't the wildest notion of bringing Mary Miller here. I'm going to take her to Rockham with me."

Patricia's heart sank, but she concealed her feelings sufficiently to reassure Miss Jinny, who went on briskly:

"I'm going to take her out with us day after tomorrow—she's not going back to the Academy—and I'm going to get work for her. There's where you can help. She's a good sewer, she says, though she'd rather live with someone and do housework."

"Shouldn't think she'd be strong enough for housework," said Patricia, puckering her brow. "Mrs. Hand wants a 'lady houseworker,' but I don't believe she'd have an ex-model. She's so awfully particular, you know."

Miss Jinny nodded. "She'd work her to death, anyway," she agreed. "She's mighty inhuman under her soft outside. Her help don't hear much of her purry ways, I can tell you. That's why they're always leaving. No, Mrs. Hand won't do." She sighed in perplexity. "I wish we were well enough off to keep her ourselves. I've taken a liking to her quiet ways, and I'd enjoy having her about, I'm sure. Most country girls are so loud and clumping that I've never wanted help before, but she's mighty different."

Patricia rubbed the end of her nose with the scissors. "There are the Haldens and the Berkleys and Tattans," she mused. "They're all supplied. Perhaps someone will leave and then she can get their place. Maybe Hannah Ann will have her help sometimes,—we can't afford to have anyone regularly, you know."

Miss Jinny rose abruptly, and putting away her things, began preparations for tea.

"Well, it's settled that she's going with us," she said comfortably. "I guess the future will take care of itself. If we do the best we can and leave the rest to the Lord, we can't go far astray. I feel that Mary Miller is going to be taken care of some way."

It had been raining all the afternoon, a gentle persistent rain that gave no sign of clearing, and they decided, after a cozy dinner at home, that their projected trip to Rockham the next day would have to be given up; but when Bruce pulled aside the curtain from the studio window to compare his watch with the illuminated disc of the St. Francis clock tower, he gave an exclamation of satisfaction.

"It's cleared off, after all," he said. "It's going to be a ripping fine day tomorrow."

They crowded to the big window, and saw, through the wet flicker of tiny sprouting leaves, a wind-swept sky with racing clouds and brilliant stars blazing in the dark, serene spaces between the hurrying masses of billowy vapor.

Judith clapped her hands. "We'll go, won't we, Bruce, and Elinor, and Miss Jinny?" she asked, whirling to each authority in turn. "We'll see dear, delectable Greycroft and have our picnic in the barn?"

"And the pup-pup-pergola, too," added Patricia mischievously.

Miss Jinny meditated for a moment. "I don't believe I'll go," she said. "I'm going back in another day or so, and mama and I will have enough of Rockham anyway. I'll stay with her and finish that library book that Mr. Spicer lent me. It's overdue now, anyway."

So it was arranged that the four of them, Elinor, Patricia, Judith, and Bruce, should take the early train to Rockham and spend the day in adjusting matters at Greycroft for their return the following Saturday, coming back to town in the late afternoon or early evening.

Just as they had finished, to their great satisfaction the studio knocker sounded the quick double knock that always heralded Griffin, and Judith flew to welcome her.

"I didn't ring," she explained, standing on the little blue rug by the umbrella stand, and jabbing her dripping umbrella into the stand. "The hall door was open and I came right in." She hesitated, and then rushed on, directing most of her speech to Elinor. "Geraldine Leighton is dying, they say, and I thought we might each send a little note to Doris—she's awfully alone, now that Mrs. Leighton is ill, you know. It mightn't help her much, but it would show her that we——"

"Dying!" cried Patricia, aghast. "Why they said she was better this morning."

Judith crept near to Mrs. Shelly and caught her hand close in both of hers. The others put eager questions. Griffin, who was deeply stirred, answered breathlessly. Suddenly, in the midst of the quiet, home-like, cozy evening, had come tragedy and the shadow of death.

Patricia had known Geraldine Leighton in a very slight and casual way, but with the word "dying," she became the heroic center of her hurrying thoughts. She saw her in the dim room with Doris and the nurse and doctor, each agonizingly intent on the slow, faltering heart-beats and the fitful, irregular breathing. As her swift mind galloped on to the end, and the subdued sounds of grief caught her inner ear, another face began to print itself rapidly on that quick-moving scene—Doris, white and haggard, looked into her eyes, and she felt her whole heart go out to her.

Griffin was just ending the sentence that had hurried the fleeting pictures through her mind when Patricia slipped away unnoticed into the hall, where she flung on a cape and soft hat of Judith's and softly let herself out.

The Leighton house was a big dark pile at the end of the street and the only light visible was in the back room where Patricia knew the struggle against death and disease was being fought out. She paused for a long look and then she ran lightly up the steps and put a shrinking finger on the bell.