enjoyment.

"'Dear Elinor'—begins well, doesn't it, Judy? I couldn't have done much better myself—'Tom Hughes and I are coming to town next Saturday, and we are going to blow ourselves, for his birthday.' Not very enlightening as to Tom Hughes—never heard of him before; but that's neither here nor there, of course."

"Do get on, Miss Pat," urged Judith, folding her napkin. "I've got to get to school sometime this morning, you know."

"Thus admonished, I return to the manuscript," said Patricia gravely. "Where is it? 'His birthday.' Oh, yes. 'Don't you three girls want to go to the matinee with us and have lunch at some swell joint? Write me at once if you can go. We will be in on the eleven-fifteen at the Terminal and have to leave on the 4.30. Yours,' et cetera and so on, and all that stuff. Hallelujah, good gentleman, what a lark!"

"I think you ought to use better language, Miss Pat, now that you are going to be a sculptor," said Judith severely, and then broke into open delight. "We'll go, won't we, Elinor? We wouldn't disappoint David, would we? On his birthday, too."

"It must be Tom Hughes' birthday," said Elinor. "But whose ever it is, we are going to celebrate, since we're invited. I'll write 'immejit,' as Hannah Ann says."

"But how do you know it isn't David's?" persisted Judith, as she gathered up her letters. "We never asked David when his birthday came, did we?"

Patricia rolled her eyes in mock agony.

"Did it occur to your massive mind that David Francis Edward had a twin sister with whom you were fairly well acquainted?" she asked in smooth and oily tones. "Twins, you know, have a quaint custom of celebrating their birthdays on the same date. Don't swoon, Infant; it is overpowering news, but you'll get over it in time."

Judith tossed her head, with a little giggle at her own expense.

"I forgot," she said. "I never can remember that you're both the same age. You are always saying that he is so young, Miss Pat."

"So he is," replied Patricia, promptly. "No end younger than I am; but boys are that way. Who's your other letter from, Ju?"

Judith's face assumed a smooth blankness that passed unnoticed by both Elinor and Patricia, now intent on finishing their breakfast and getting off.

"Hannah Ann just says that the house is all right and Henry is as well as usual," she replied, with an uneasy flush on her clear cheek.

"What in the world did Hannah Ann write to you for?" queried Elinor absently. "She usually sends her weekly reports to me."

"She's all right," repeated Judith, with an apprehensive glance at Patricia, who, however, was entirely oblivious, her attention now being wholly concentrated on her breakfast and Bartine's Tours.

"I must see Mrs. Hudson," said Elinor, rising. "I'll meet you at the Academy, Squibs. Have you your candy all done up? I shan't take my life-class stuff till this afternoon."

"But you've got to turn in the head-class fee this morning, you know," reminded Patricia, coming back from Italy with a jump. "I have my junk all ready, and I'll tell you when I'm going to spring it on them, so you can have a peep at the fun."

"And I won't forget to let you know just when I'm ready to give in mine, so we both can see how they take it," said Elinor from the door.

Patricia laughed as she too rose.

"I'll see to it that you don't forget, miss," she said gayly. "Good-bye, Judy; don't be late for lunch, for it's short and sweet with us real artists. We can't potter over our food like you idle Philistines, you know."

Judith gulped the last mouthful and flung down her napkin.

"I'll be there on time," she promised, eagerly. "Miss Hillis said I could go five minutes earlier, as it was a holiday afternoon. I'll get the rolls and oranges on my way."

"We'll meet you at the door on Charter Street," Elinor reminded her, as she kissed her. "Be sure to be there on time."

"I'll remember," laughed Judith, her anticipation of the delights of lunching at the Academy with grown-up artists shining in her starry eyes. "I'm perfectly crazy over it. I'm going to write all about it in my diary."

"Then we shall be handed down to fame!" cried Patricia, giving Judith a very hard squeeze and pinching her thin cheeks into color. "Look us over well, Judy-pudy, and see how much you can make of your two illustrious sisters; for I feel sure that I, for one, will never have a chance to be 'writ up' again."

"Oh, go along, Miss Pat! You'll be awfully late," said Judith, wriggling away, flushed and happy.

Patricia watched, flying up the stairs two steps at a time, and she turned to Elinor, with her hand on the door.

"Ju's a clever young monkey, in spite of her grannified airs," she said, warmly. "If we can only get some of the starch out of her by the time she's old enough to take notice, her dream of being a great writer may come half-way true."

"If she's going to be a writer, she'll drop her dignified pose soon enough," predicted Elinor easily. "She'll be too much interested in other people and things to remember herself too vividly."

"That's so," admitted Patricia readily. "You always hit the nail on the head, old lady. Now I must run. See you later," and closing the door behind her, she ran down the steps and hurried off through the tingling morning air, with her parcel tight under her arm and a kindling light on her mobile face.

"I do hope they like it and won't be too hard on me," she thought, as she hastened on. "It took a lot of trouble to make all the little figures, but if they'll only let me off from speechifying, I'll feel it was worth it."

There was no one in the modeling room but Naskowski, the silent, heavy-shouldered Slav who toiled early and late making up for his lost youth. Him Patricia held to be as impersonal as any of the other furnishings of the room, and she readily took him into her plan.

"Let's wheel all the stands into a circle around the model stand," she said briskly. "You see, I want them all to get them at once if I can work it. I'll put the figures in under the cloths, beside each head, so they won't show."

Naskowski slowly shook his head.

"They will approach at different times—not? It will be more better to place them during the first rest."

"But how can I?" insisted Patricia. "They don't all go out at the rests, you know."

He held up his finger.

"Listen," he said, impressively. "I make a figure that they all wish to see, but I have not shown him. Well, when I show him, at the rest, all, all go out to the clay room to see."

Patricia clapped her hands.

"And I stay in and slip the figures on the stands! How nice! It's awfully good of you." She broke off with a sudden clouding of her gayety. "But perhaps you don't really want them to see your figure? I couldn't have you——"

He interrupted her with an upheld hand.

"I was to exhibit it today, and I am pleased to be serviceable to a newcomer at once," he said gravely.

Patricia was only too glad to give in. "That makes it perfectly simple, then," she said gratefully. "I'm tremendously obliged to you for helping me out."

"It iss nothing," said Naskowski stolidly as he went back to the clay room, but Patricia could see that he was pleased at the ardor of her gratitude.

"He's an awfully good sort, if he is queer and stubby," she said, pausing to hide her parcel beneath her stand until the propitious moment.

The first half hour seemed longer than any that Patricia had spent in the modeling room. The students straggled in at various times, and when the gong rang there were still several of the usual number who had not appeared. Naskowski, as the class broke up for the brief interval, found chance to whisper a suggestion that she postpone it till the next rest, and Patricia eagerly agreed.

"I'll go look up my sister and tell her," she said. "We can smuggle her into the clay room, too, to see your work, can't we? I know she'd be crazy to get a