"What is it, Norn?" asked Patricia rather anxiously.

She eyed the note with an unspoken fear that it might be a message from her new instructor canceling her enrolment, though Elinor's face did not show any consternation as she swiftly ran her eye over the brief sheet.

"Of all things!" she murmured with an amused smile, and then read more carefully, breaking into a ripple of laughter as she finished.

"You certainly have charmed this Rosamond Merton, Miss Pat," she said with a fond look at the amazed Patricia. "Listen to this."

Patricia's look of amazement grew as Elinor read. Rosamond Merton invited them to tea with her in her rooms that afternoon, very prettily insisting that the small sister whose name she thought was Julia, might make one of the party, since it was to be merely a cosy cup of tea to better acquaintance.

"I must say she writes very agreeably," commented Elinor, scanning the lines critically.

"That's just what she is—agreeable," declared Patricia, nodding at the word. "She seems as though she would never take the trouble to be cross with anyone. And she's very pretty."

"That settles it," laughed Elinor. "No matter what must be set aside for it, I see that we must take tea with Rosamond Merton. We must look her over, Judy, and see if we can let our Miss Pat fall in love with her, as I perceive she is on the brink of doing."

Judith's anxious look made Patricia laugh. "Don't be afraid I'll make a silly of myself like I did over Miss Warner and Doris Leighton," she said lightly. "I'm done with that sort of thing ages and ages ago."

Elinor was deeply interested in this new adventure, and after a late luncheon and a hasty half hour of breathing practice for Patricia, they got into their afternoon clothes and went to Artemis Lodge again.

"How familiar it looks today," said Patricia as they rang the shining brass bell. "Isn't it queer how soon you get used to places? I feel quite like an old inmate already."

"That's always the way with me, too," agreed Judith. "I felt as though I'd always lived on that corner near the Dam, just because we spent an half hour there on each of those two mornings we were in Amsterdam."

The opening of the door put an end to their chat and they followed the respectable woman through the courtyard again, feeling quite at home with its quaint quadrangle.

They did not wind their way through any intricate passages, however, for Rosamond Merton's rooms were near the main entrance at the head of a little flight of winding stairs, very easy of access from the courtyard and quite remote from the various offices and salons.

She opened the door immediately on their knock, and there was such a pretty warmth of welcome in her tranquil manner that Elinor was won at once, though Judith, who prided herself on her discrimination, did not completely thaw out until the visit was nearly over.

The rooms, three in number, were furnished with a simple elegance that appealed strongly to them all, and the undemonstrative manner with which Rosamond Merton pursued her purpose gave her persistence a charm that robbed it of all crudity.

"You see, Mrs. Hayden," she said, after tea had been served and they were chatting comfortably before a small fire in the pleasant sitting room, "I am really quite selfish in wishing your sister to come with me for a while—as long as she will, in fact. I am very much alone here, being the only Tancredi pupil in the house, and I have more room than I need. I can't possibly use more than two of this suite, one for my bedroom and the other for a sitting-room. So the small room there is practically going to waste."

"Do you have to keep it?" asked Elinor, "I should think Miss Ardsley would be glad to have it——"

"But it belongs with this suite," urged Rosamond quietly. "It has no door except into these other rooms."

This was so evident a reason for her being burdened with an unnecessary room that Elinor fell silent for a little space while the others moved to the other side of the room to look over some fine photographs of the old French chateaux. Presently her face cleared and she went over to the table where they were busy with the views.

"Why wouldn't you consent to Patricia having the little room until there is a vacancy?" she inquired with a tinge of hesitation. "She could pay you the rent——"

Rosamond Merton broke in with such a decided negation that Patricia gave up hope, but Elinor persisted gently.

"Really, you know, Miss Pat couldn't possibly come under any other conditions," she said with sweet finality. "We are very anxious for her to be here, of course, since Madame Milano urged it; but if you feel that you can't have her under such circumstances, there's nothing for it but to wait till someone leaves and she can get a room from Miss Ardsley."

Rosamond Merton was silent for a long minute, and then she suddenly smiled her slow smile.

"Since you speak so very positively," she said with a graceful gesture of resignation, "there is nothing more for me to do than to give in. I will rent the room——"

"At the rate which they charge you," Elinor gently insisted.

"At the regular Artemis Lodge rates," agreed Rosamond Merton with a little helpless laugh. "She shall have it entirely to herself as long as she wants it, and I promise never to intrude unless I'm asked."

This considerate speech so moved Patricia that she burst out with a grateful offer to obliterate herself part of the time so that her generous hostess might not feel the loss of the room; but a nudge from Judith's rather angular elbow curtailed her gratitude, and she allowed Elinor to voice her thanks, while she tried to catch Judith's eye and understand the meaning of the prod. Judith turned to the photographs again and was not to be understood so quickly.

It was decided that the furniture should remain in the little room, Patricia merely adding her own desk, and that she should retain it until another room might be secured from Miss Ardsley. Patricia was to move in the next day and, most alluring of all, Rosamond Merton told her that she should have regular hours of use of the fine grand piano which stood in the sitting-room, thereby taking a great load off Patricia's excited mind.

"I've been wondering how I was to get a piano in that little scrap of a place," she confessed, "and I didn't see how it could be done, unless I slept on it at nights and practiced by day. A bed and a piano both simply couldn't be crammed in."

They parted in great good humor and Patricia felt that she was treading on air as she went down the winding stair to the courtyard.

"This certainly is my lucky day," she said exultantly, as the gate closed behind them. "Here I am, a pupil of Tancredi and a member of the illustrious band of inmates of Artemis Lodge—all at one fell swoop. Elinor, you've made me tremendously happy by sticking to the point like you did. I'd never have got the room if it hadn't been for your hanging on so."

"I tell you what it is, Miss Pat," said Judith with sudden decision in her tone. "You need somebody to take care of you. If Elinor hadn't insisted on paying, you'd have lost that room, and if I hadn't stopped you after you did get it, you'd have thrown away most of the good of it by making yourself a perfect door-mat."

Patricia gazed with astonishment at this amazing young sister of hers. "A door-mat?" she repeated blankly. "A door mat?"

"For Miss Merton to walk in upon as often as she liked," retorted Judith with calm finality. "She's a very encroaching sort of person, Miss Pat. I can see that. And you want to be sure you are going to be real friends with her before you let her get too chummy with you."

Patricia burst into a merry peal and even Elinor rippled with amusement at this way of looking at the matter.

"'Chummy' isn't exactly the word that fits Miss Merton, Ju," she said gayly. "It sounds suspiciously like unimposing me, rather than the elegant young lady of the three-room apartment. The only thing I'm afraid of is that she'll get tired of her bargain before the week is out. I may be an awful nuisance with my scales and strummings."

Then Judith was scandalized in earnest. The idea of anyone finding Miss Pat a nuisance was beyond her powers of thought, and she could not even find words to express her scorn of such an impossible state of things.

Patricia rippled again at the sniff of disgust which Judith made so prodigious. "Never mind, Judy-pudy, you shall come and look me over every once in a while and see that I am being well treated. Miss Merton may be a perfect monster, after all."

Judith was not to be won to speech by any such bald nonsense, and stalked homeward in thoughtful silence, hardly seeming to hear the gay chat of the other two in regard to what Miss Pat should or should not take with her to Artemis Lodge.

At the door of their own apartment Patricia stood quite still with a rather blank expression.

"We forgot all about asking Doris Leighton," she said. "How perfectly stupid of us."

Elinor had her key in the door and she flung it open on an unlighted interior as she spoke.

"Very stupid indeed, my dear," she admitted cheerfully, "but it's too late to remedy it now. Besides, I don't see how you'd have got a room in Artemis Lodge in any other way."

"And that was the most important thing, after all," agreed Patricia, stumbling over a stool in the dimness. "Mercy! What's that?"

The small figure which rose at their approach gave a familiar chuckling laugh and before it could speak, Judith exclaimed, "Marty Sneath, all by herself, too!"

And Marty Sneath it proved to be, ahead of her schedule by nearly twenty-four hours and very much pleased with the chance to be installed in her new quarters that much sooner than had been planned.

After the lights were turned on and they had all commented encouragingly on the improvement in Marty's dress and appearance, she gave them an enlivening account of all that had happened in the village since their departure, particularly dwelling on the changes in the modest home of the Sneath family since Danny's removal to the far-away school where Mr. Long had sent him.

"I tell you it ain't like it used to be," she said with a shake of her elfish head and a twinkle in her brilliant eyes. "Clara's got real well and Pop's swore off, and there ain't no lively times like there used to be. Of course," she prophesied cheerfully, "Pop'll fall off in about a week—he ain't one to stick to water long, you know. Then I bet there'll be some scrimmages. He's dead set on Clara goin' for service and she wants to be a typewriter. And they're both awful set. But it won't be nothin' without Danny. It's awful flat at home now."

It was rather hard to sympathize with this peculiar point of view, so they kept to the safer side by asking about Danny, whether he liked the school, how he was getting on, and what Mr. Long said about him now.

Marty's reports were very satisfactory. Danny was doing finely and Mr. Long was delighted with his experiment. "He's as braggity about him as if he'd made our Danny up out of his head," she said with a tinge of ruffled family pride. "He better look out, though, 'fore he crows too loud. Our Danny is mighty cute and maybe he's only fooling them teachers. He ain't no lamb, you know," she ended with an earnestness that made Patricia uncomfortable for her former favorite.

"He's never had half a chance to want to be good," defended Patricia warmly. "I've always believed he was better than he behaved."

This seemed to be too deep for Marty, and she turned the subject by producing a letter from the pocket of her neat blue dress.

"Mrs. Spicer sent this," she said, handing it to Patricia. "She gave me a whole dollar, too, to spend just as I liked. My, but I felt grand comin' down on that train with a whole dollar in my purse. I kept holt on it all the way. I've read about pickpockets, and I ain't forgot Danny's ways this soon, neither."

Patricia could not deny that Danny must have been a liberal education in that sort of sleight of hand, but the letter saved her the painful confession. While Elinor took Marty to her room and Judith explained the uses of the various conveniences, push buttons and the like, Patricia devoured the scribbled note.

"Oh, Norn, listen to this," she cried, following the others into Elinor's room. "Mrs. Nat met a house-party who were going down to Mr. Long's on the train last night and she was telling them about taking tea at Artemis Lodge, and Miss Chapin, the senator's daughter Mr. Long is so devoted to, told her she had a cousin there, who was studying with Tancredi, and she hoped we'd meet and be friends. Her name—think of it—her name is Rosamond Merton!"

Elinor looked pleased. "It doesn't really enlighten us much as to her," she said. "But it's rather nice to locate her even in that remote way."

Judith tossed her pale mane in quite her old superior manner. "How childish you are, Elinor," she commented. "Cousins aren't much alike. Miss Warner wasn't a scrap like Mr. Bingham. Patricia will have to find out everything for herself—everything that Doris Leighton can't tell her."

"Pooh, I shan't bother Doris now," said Patricia easily. "I'm in for a while at least, and it would seem like spying to ask questions. I'm too thankful to be in Artemis Lodge to be so awfully finicky."

Judith tossed her head again.

"Oh, well, you never are very sensible, Miss Pat," she returned loftily. "You never see beyond a pretty face. It takes others to watch over you."

The ripples which greeted this somber speech did not seem to be wholly distasteful to her, though she hid her exact state of mind by taking Marty off to exhibit the studio to her and to explain the mysteries of oil cups and brush pots.

Patricia looked lovingly after her. "Judy's up to some of her old tricks, Norn," she hazarded. "I shouldn't be surprised if she set up a regular detective agency around my new friend and made a whole set of new thrilling tales about her."