Whatever Patricia did, she did thoroughly.

She had almost a week before Elinor's return, and she set about finding something to do that should prove her return to herself, and more even than that, for she wanted tremendously to be better and stronger than she had ever been.

The haunting sense of failure was with her, but she would not stop to listen to it. She practiced her exercises with the greatest care, she went to the concerts for which she had cards, and, remembering Madame Milano's song at the Filmore evening, she bought the music and learned the thing by heart. She was afraid this might not be strictly honorable, since Tancredi had forbidden her to sing songs, but she had such a strong conviction that she was already a failure that she hoped she might be pardoned this solace to herself.

"You're looking a lot gayer since you got settled," said Constance Fellows one afternoon as she sat in Patricia's room, mending the russet frock. It looked odd to see Constance with a needle, but she was deft with it.

"I guess I'm more used to being by myself," replied Patricia, not wishing to go into details. "I'd never been alone, you know, and it was strange at first."

Constance nodded, but her clear eyes showed she understood. As she went on with her sewing she said cheerfully:

"It is better to rub up against all sorts of people. You don't come to realize what living means till you've seen what the rest of them are up to. Cotton-wool isn't the environment to bring out beauty, after all."

Patricia smiled absently. "But all the pretty things are put in nice pink cotton-wool," she said, thinking of the jeweler's boxes in Rosamond's case.

"Ah, but that's when the pretty things are finished and done," cried Constance, dropping her work and leaning forward with fire in her eyes. "How about when they are being shaped? There are hammers there then, and fires, too, and they are battered into their beautiful shapes with cruel blows. My word, Patricia Kendall, can't you see it? It takes plenty of hammering and burning before it gets to the cotton-wool stage."

Patricia caught her earnestness. "The trees and flowers and skies aren't hammered into shape," she argued, with half a vision of what Constance meant.

"They are the result of hammering, perhaps," returned Constance quickly, "but that doesn't matter so much. They're the works of God, and that sort of thing can just grow, like a lovely disposition, but the things of earth have to be made into shape with rough hands. Look at the people you know. How many of the selfish, pampered ones amount to a row of pins? Can you honestly say that you know anyone who hasn't been the better for a little hammering?"

Patricia thought swiftly of Doris Leighton, of Mrs. Nat, and she shook her head.

"That's all that's the matter with the Fair Rosamond," Constance explained. "She's been in cotton-wool all her life, and it's going to rob her of her chance to give something to the world——"

She broke off abruptly, seeming to be much moved, and, rising with a disturbed air, walked up and down for a few minutes while Patricia tried to go on with her own darning as though nothing unusual had happened.

Constance dropped into her chair with a low laugh. "Don't mind my preaching, Miss Pat," she said without any suggestion of apology in her candid tone. "I always get so excited when I'm proclaiming human rights."

Patricia looked puzzled and she answered quickly: "Human rights—my rights to the bit of hammering that belongs to me. Auntie, you know, advocates cotton-wool so strongly that I suppose I'm a bit daft on my end of the argument."

Patricia had been silent, but she spoke slowly and with a light breaking on her face. "I believe it's true, Constance," she said earnestly. "I can see now that it's the only way. I was getting terribly spoiled in cotton-wool, and——" She stopped because she did not want to seem to complain of Rosamond. "I'm glad Miss Ardsley got this dear room for me," she ended brightly, "I've had such fun since I've been here."

She saw that Constance was not too much deceived, and to turn the talk she seized the first thing that came into her mind.

"Does your aunt still object to your living here?" she asked, and then was annoyed with herself for her own lack of tact, for she recalled that it was not Constance but Rosamond who had told her of the aunt's objections to Artemis Lodge.

Constance laughed easily. "She's coming around," she replied as though she were used to discussing her private affairs with Patricia. "She is so pleased with my altar-piece in All Saints that she's ready to forgive me anything. Auntie is really awfully good."

Patricia was alight at once. "Your altar-piece, Constance?" she cried. "Oh, how splendid! When did you do it? Why didn't you tell me about it sooner? Where is it now?"

Constance laughed, yet she was deeply gratified, for she had been more drawn to Patricia than to any of the others. "It's in All Saints, of course, where it should be. You didn't think it was in the Bandbox or the Comique, did you?" she bantered. "Auntie paid for it, and so she's privileged to criticise, you know."

"Do let me see it," begged Patricia. "I haven't a thing to do this afternoon. Let's go and see it."

Constance demurred at first and then gave in. "The air will do us good, anyway," she said, "We've been cooped up here for an hour or more."

Patricia found the altar-piece a revelation of another side of Constance—a side she had not dreamed of, and she gave it the tribute of silence for a long five minutes.

Then she spoke very softly: "I know now why you believe in bearing the everyday toil and trouble of the world. It's because you've been painting that. Why, Constance, it's—it's—triumphant."

Constance was looking at the painting and she forgot she was not speaking to herself alone.

"And why not?" she said in a deep breath. "He didn't fear that poverty and pain would keep anyone out of the kingdom of gladness. It was what He was telling them all the time—those exclusive, rich men who wanted to get the secret of His serene life. It wasn't that He liked pain and poverty, but He wanted everyone to know that it was the fear of them that shut people out of the kingdom of gladness. Why shouldn't He look triumphant when He'd opened the door so wide?"

Patricia was too much stirred by this revelation of the depths of Constance's nature to speak, and they soon went out of the dim church into the sunlight of the avenue, with its roar of hungry life and surging energies.

"I think I'll run over to Auntie's now that we're so near," said Constance at the next corner. "You don't mind, do you?"

Patricia didn't in the least mind. She wanted to go for a walk in the Park and try to catch and put in order the whirling thoughts that pulsed through her. "I'll see you tonight after dinner," she promised.

The Park was full of people. The spring was in the air. Patricia felt strange sensations, stirring thoughts which Constance's picture had called into life.

"The Kingdom of Gladness," she repeated over and over again, making it a rhythmic march to keep step with. "The Kingdom of Gladness. And I thought Constance Fellows just a nice, clever, funny girl!"

She looked at the people on the walks and in the vehicles with a new eye. She wondered if they were putting in their probation for that kingdom and when she saw a pinched face or a shabby coat, she felt like crying out to them, "Oh, don't mind it very much, for it's the best way into the kingdom."

She was very much agitated and excited, and she felt she could not go back to the Lodge, where she had given a half promise to spend the five o'clock hour with Rosamond. She walked about for a long time and sat down on benches when her mood ebbed, starting up again with a shining face as her emotions got the better of her again.

She was sitting on a bench when she saw Mr. Long coming briskly along the bridle path on a beautiful bay horse. He did not see her, and she jumped up and ran over to the side of the path, holding up an eager hand to attract his attention.

He was off his horse in one moment and shaking hands with her the next.

"This is very jolly," he said heartily. "I didn't know you were in town or I'd have tried to look you up. Miss Merton told me when we were at the theater with the Filmores last night that your family had left town for a while."

Patricia explained, and Mr Long in his turn told her that he was only in for a brief stay. He needed a secretary, a sort of caretaker for his chicken books, he said, laughing, and it must be a female person, since he had determined to bring Danny home from school for good and all, and he felt that a woman-body was a crying necessity.

Patricia understood at once. "He wouldn't get on with Mrs. Jonas," she admitted with a smile. "Have you anyone yet?"

Mr. Long had not. He had seen dozens of them, but they were all either too young or too old or too stupid or too clever.

"It's going to be mighty hard to fit Danny and the hen accounts, too," he confessed. "He's so dead set on pretty people, and most of the pretty ones are stupid or conceited."

Patricia had a sudden thought that made her dimple. "Must she be very old?" she asked eagerly.

"Mrs. Jonas will chaperone the place as ever," replied Mr. Long. "She's needed mainly for Danny, if the truth must be told. I've got to try the mother act on him now. Poor kid, he's never had anything to look up to in that line."

"I know someone," said Patricia guardedly. "I can't tell you about her now, but if you'll come to the dance on Friday I'll show her to you and you can do the rest."

Mr. Long thought Friday was too far off, but Patricia was firm, and he ended by saying he'd come. They parted at the next entrance and Patricia hurried off to Artemis Lodge feeling much elated.

"I'll ask Doris about it in a roundabout way, so she'll say just what she thinks," she planned, and she was so eager to seek out Doris that she hurried through her dinner before Rosamond had begun on her first mouthful, excusing herself by saying that she had some business on hand that would not wait.

She found Doris in her room, trying to make up her accounts, and the process was evidently not very agreeable work, for she flung down the pen at Patricia's knock and slammed the covers of the book with unusual vigor.

"I never can bear to face that horrid book," she confessed with a little laugh. "I'm always spending more than I should and it makes me so ashamed of myself, when Mother needs so many things."

Patricia was finding it very easy. She had not much trouble in learning that Doris was in search of a more paying position. Her domestic science was only half a day's work and she needed more. Patricia thought it safe to hint at something that might be in sight if she came to the dance on Friday.

Doris had not intended going to the dance, since her gowns were rather shabby and she could not think of anything new, but on Patricia's insisting, she said she would go if she could be late. She had a lesson in French at the Settlement House—Patricia almost shook her head at the thought of Doris taking free lessons in anything until she recollected the Kingdom of Gladness—and she could not afford to miss it.

"I'll wait for you," Patricia promised. "I haven't any guests—or only someone who won't mind. Come over to my room for me, and we'll go down together."

Constance met her on her way to the Red Salon, where the girls often gathered after dinner for chat, the Blue Salon across the way being reserved for reception of visitors.

"The dance is going to be quite wonderfully fine," she told her with as eager interest as ever a girl showed in a party. "Auntie's coming and I'm going to have a splendid, gorgeous new dress. I've planned it all out since I made up my mind. I'll get the stuff tomorrow and have it made in a jiffy."

Patricia looked at her in some wonder, until she remembered that the kingdom Constance was trying to enter was one of gladness.

"Of course you want to have a good time," she said aloud. "What color is it to be?" meaning the dress.

"Yellow—goldy yellow," replied Constance deliciously. "And I'm going the whole length, gold slippers and all!"

Patricia beamed. "You'll look perfectly stunning," she said, and then she caught her breath. "Who's playing?" she asked, with a look toward the open door.

Constance listened. "That must be the little Polish countess," she replied. "No one else does it that way."

Patricia had a vision of a fascinating, elegant creature with sorrowful eyes and plenty of furs, and she gave a little cry of expectation.

"Come along. She's beginning the 'Papillion'," she cried. "And I simply can't miss it."