"The train's in, Elinor, and she'll be here in a jiffy. Bruce said he'd get a taxi, so as not to lose a minute. Do come and watch that corner while I keep my eyes on this one," said Judith, in a sudden flurry.

She was standing with her nose pressed against the cool glass of the studio window, staring eagerly out across the wintry square and scanning the opposite streets with intent gaze, and even when she gestured urgently to her older sister, her eyes never left the busy outdoor scene.

"I wish the studio wasn't so high up in the air that we can't possibly see the door," she regretted. "I'd so love to see her as she gets out—Miss Pat always makes me feel sort of thrilly and excited when I see her hopping out of a carriage or coming up the walk. Something nice usually happens when she rushes in, all laughing and sparkly, doesn't it, Elinor?" she ended, cuddling up against the tall, slender figure which had joined her at the deep casement.

Elinor smiled and patted her pale hair. "I think, chick, that the best thing that happens when Miss Pat comes in is—just Miss Pat herself."

Judith nodded, with her searching eyes on the crowded streets below. "That must be it," she agreed thoughtfully. "I didn't think of it just that way, but I guess you're right. She's so—so—pleasant that she makes the stupid little things that happen seem like big eventful-ish doings. At Greycroft this winter things seemed terribly exciting, and now, when I look back at them, they really weren't so very wonderful."

"It's the spirit, my dearest Judy, that puts the sparkle into life," said Elinor absently, with her flexible artist hands straying idly over the pale mass of her little sister's straight heavy locks. "Many girls lead vastly more interesting and exciting lives than our dear Miss Pat, but they have dull spirits, and so we don't notice them; while we're all bursting with enthusiasm over every little thing she happens to be doing. It's her gay, glad spirit that wins our interest, bless her heart."

Judith nodded again. "I know," she said conclusively. "When Miriam and she went into the chicken business no one got awfully excited over Miriam's part of it, while they were all trying to help Miss Pat make a success of it. And when we were fixing up the Social House, even old Mr. Peberdy woke up when she scolded him. It's queer, isn't it, how she makes you feel? She——"

A rap-a-tap-tap on the knocker sounded sharply and then, before either Judith or Elinor could move, the door was flung open and Patricia, followed by Bruce and Mrs. Spicer, rushed breathlessly in.

"Oh, you darlings!" she cried, hugging them both at once. "Oh, how heavenly it is to be here, and how adorable you look! Judy, that's a simply perfect green in that frock, and, Norn, you're lovelier than ever in that queer faded yellow. The studio looks stunning. Oh, I'm so excited that I don't know what I'm doing! To think of actually being here at last!" And she flung down her hat on the long divan and, crumpling her bright hair between both pink palms, she stepped back and faced the group in the middle of the studio with laughing lips and wet eyes.

Elinor, Judith and Bruce, with Mrs. Spicer in their midst, smiled back at her, but did not speak, each feeling, somehow, that this was Miss Pat's moment for utterance. On the brink of her new life—that life she had so ardently longed and planned and worked for—she had become for the moment the first figure in the scene. Tomorrow she would be gone into the ranks of that great army which is building up the beautiful world for others less gifted to live in, but today she was the center of her little world.

"To think, Judy and Elinor and Bruce and Mrs. Jinny-Nat, that I'm here, here, all ready to begin too with my music. One little day and then I'll be a real singing student. Why, it takes my breath away—" And she paused with a catch in her voice that threatened tears.

This was too much for the calm and practical Judith. "But you've been simply crazy to be here, Miss Pat," she cried reprovingly. "You've toiled and moiled on chickens and sculpture and candy and boarders and everything just to be able at last to be a real singer. I don't see what there is to be a cry-baby about now."

Patricia's merry peal rang out wholesomely and she caught Judith by her slim shoulders and gave her a playful shake.

"It takes Ju to show up our little mistakes, doesn't it, Mrs. Nat?" she cried gayly. "Thank you, Judy, for them kind words. I won't be a cry-baby again; I promise you that. Come, Norn, tell us what you and Bruce have been up to while we've been wandering toward the sunny South this last two weeks. Is your stained glass window done, Norn, and has Marty been behaving as well as ever? Oh, there's such a lot to talk about, it's hard to know where to begin."

Mrs. Spicer laid aside her wraps and drew a deep chair to the fire. "I move we get thawed out while we gabble," she proposed, with her deep, husky chuckle. "I'm so frozen that it'll take a week of Sundays to shed my icicles. This zero weather isn't particularly inspiring after the balmy breezes of the Gulf Stream."

"Oh, do let's stay in for tea and go without any real dinner, Elinor," begged Patricia, impulsively. "Bruce said we were to take dinner at the Ritz as a special treat, but I'd ever so much rather stay home for this one night, if you don't mind."

Elinor looked inquiringly at her husband, who nodded and disappeared into the adjoining room, and then she smiled at Mrs. Spicer and nodded reassuringly at Judith, whose rather troubled expression did not escape the quick eyes of her impetuous sister.

"Will it disappoint you, Judy?" she asked with slightly dampened ardor. "I never thought of your being set on it——"

Judith waved her aside with a gesture of calm benignity. "I should hope," she said magnificently, "that I could do without food as well as any of you." And she seated herself on the stool beside Mrs. Spicer with an air of having settled the matter.

Patricia could not resist a ripple of merriment at her imposing manner. "Squelched again," she laughed, trying vainly to look humble and repentant. "Elinor, you really oughtn't to let Judy sacrifice herself like this. She——"

Elinor sank into another wide chair at the opposite side of the hearth. "We're only too glad to stay indoors this bitterly cold weather," she replied easily. "Judith was just wishing before you came that we could have a cosy supper here, but we all thought it would be more festive to celebrate in some more lively spot than the old studio. We didn't have any tea for you this afternoon because we wanted you to enjoy the dinner all the more."

Patricia still looked rather uncertainly at Judith, whose dignified manner was as impassive as ever. "Sure you don't mind, Ju?" she asked, solicitous as ever for her small sister's happiness. "Mrs. Nat will soon be thawed out, and——"

Judith drew herself up with beautiful composure. "Patricia Louise Kendall, you will never be a great artist if your mind is so set on your food," she said severely. "Do stop talking about dinners, and tell us what you've seen down there among the alligators and palm trees."

Patricia flung out two protesting palms. "Ask Sinbad, otherwise Mrs. Nathaniel Spicer," she retorted gayly, relieved by Judith's evident sincerity, "I'm no earthly good on descriptive pieces, as you very well know; and she can spin yarns that would make Robinson Crusoe sound like a Cook excursion. I'll roll up here alongside of Elinor and censor her reports when they get too highly colored."

Mrs. Spicer chuckled, rubbed her frosty fingers before the leaping blaze and then plunged into the story of their fortnight's journey southward with Miriam Halden, whom they had left with her mother in New Orleans, looking forward, in spite of crutches, to the festivities of her friends' coming-out parties.

Elinor and Judith asked a great many questions and Patricia threw in a word or two occasionally, but for the most part she was silent, reveling in the cosy warmth of the big room, with its easels and casts and canvases and all the other familiar delightful implements of the painter's craft.

As Mrs. Spicer finished and Patricia was beginning to bubble over with eager questions about friends and acquaintances, Bruce came back into the room, and, lighting a cigar, flung himself into the vacant lounging chair at the other side of the hearth. He was smiling and Patricia knew his expression meant something agreeable.

"What is it, Bruce?" she asked eagerly. "I know you've something up your sleeve. Is it a surprise? Does Elinor know? Is anyone coming?"

Bruce pretended to be absorbed in his cigar and said not a word.

The others looked expectantly at him, and Judith, catching the infection, slipped over to him and taking him gently by the ears, turned his head directly toward them.

"You may as well tell us, Mr. Bruce," she urged firmly. "We haven't any time to waste this evening on conundrums, you know."

Elinor suddenly seemed enlightened. "Oh, I think I know—" she began, when Bruce interrupted her.

"No, you don't know it all," he announced loudly, as if fearful that the news might come from some other source. "You may know that I was going to order dinner served here in the studio, and you might guess that it was to be a very festive one, but you couldn't possibly foresee who was to share the humble board with us, no, not if you guessed a hundred years."

"Pooh, I'm sure I could do it in one little hour if I tried," laughed Patricia. "We don't know such a horde of people that it would take long to run over every name we know."

"Oh, don't try, please don't!" cried Judith in alarm, lest valuable time be lost. "Tell us, Bruce, do, Mrs. Nat hates to haggle over news."

There was a merry outcry at this transparent plea and then Bruce, with a pretense of reluctance, gave in.

"We're going to have dinner here in the studio with real waiters, Judy, and a bunch of flowers for each lady—don't interrupt, please, till I've done. A bunch of violets for you and Elinor and Mrs. Spicer and the happy song-bird there, and also for Miss Margaret Howes and Mrs. Hiram Todd."

There was such a chorus of questions that Bruce held up his hands in protest.

"Give me time, and I'll confess all," he entreated. "Don't be too hard on a poor solitary man-body. Remember, you're four to one, and be easy. I had asked the Todds for a surprise to you all, and today I met Miss Howes on the street—just back in town and honing for a sight of old friends, and I nailed her on the spot. Fortunately I could get them all on the phone and they one and all bubbled with joy at the prospect of a quiet little dinner in the shelter of our roof-tree. Margaret Howes is sick of hotel life and Mrs. Todd isn't quite acclimated to it yet."

Mrs. Spicer shook her head. "We didn't even know there was a Mrs. Hiram," she said with a chuckle. "When did it happen?"

"The very day after you left," replied Elinor. "They went to Washington—Hiram had some more business there—and Marian had the time of her life. She looks like a different girl, too. She's taken Hiram in hand already, and he is beginning to seem like other people. She told me the day we called on them here that she had given all of Hiram's wedding outfit to the Salvation Army, and she meant to fit him out right here in New York."

Patricia puckered her brow. "I thought Hiram was very well as he was," she said doubtfully. "He was the sort that couldn't be much changed, and it seems silly to deck him out——"

Bruce interrupted her. "That isn't the idea, my dear Pat," he explained, smiling. "Marian says Hiram has too much brains to look like a scarecrow for ignorant people to look down on, so she's making him fit, merely to enlighten them as to his merit."

Patricia was silenced, though not yet convinced. She turned to the subject of Margaret Howes with eager interest, asking all sorts of questions as to her progress in painting and her appearance and her life of the past year, to none of which Bruce would answer a word, even though urged by Elinor.

"Wait and find out for yourselves," he said teasingly. "It would take off the bloom if I recounted all."

Elinor rose to lead the way to the rooms where they would dress. "I don't believe he knows a single thing," she said emphatically. "Margaret isn't a chatterbox and it was too bitterly cold on the streets today for any lengthy confidences. Come along and get into your festive togs—we don't want to miss a single minute, and dinner is very early tonight."

As Patricia followed the others out she bent gratefully over Bruce's chair. Her large gray eyes were shining in the rosy firelight and her face was sweetly serious.

"You're awfully good to me, Bruce," she said in a low tone. "I don't deserve it one scrap—but I'll try all the harder to be worth while some day."

Bruce looked up with his nicest smile and laid his strong hand over hers on his chair-arm.

"You're very much worth while now—to me, Patsy dear," he said with genuine affection. "I'm not looking ahead to those future days. Who knows whether the success, when it comes, will make you nearer to us, or will take you far away——"

She broke in eagerly with her hand pressed on her quickly beating heart. "Oh, Bruce," she said with a little tinge of fear in her tone. "I'm sometimes so afraid of that—losing you all in the work and hurry that is coming to me. But you'll help me, won't you? You'll keep me remembering how much we've always despised conceited, stuck-up people? I may be a failure after all, but if I'm not, if I'm the tiniest bit of a success and you see me getting selfish and horrid, you'll try to remind me, won't you?"

Bruce smiled reassuringly up at her flushed face. "Rely on me to puncture your balloon if it's needed, Miss Pat," he said in a tone that was very comforting, and, as she dropped a light kiss on his dark, waving hair, he added more soberly, "It's a mighty hard thing for a singer to be unselfish and generous, I warn you, my dear. It's going to be a struggle sometimes, though I don't doubt for an instant that you'll win out with flying colors."

Patricia's gayety was surging back in a happy flood, and she straightened up with a little rippling laugh, casting all her shadowy fears behind her.

"Just you wait till I sing my first concert, Mr. Bruce Hayden," she challenged, "and then tell me I'm a conceited goose, if you dare. I wagger as Hannah Ann says, I'll be the same stupid, silly thing I am now." And nodding brightly at him, she danced after the others, humming a gay little tune as she went.