"It doesn't seem to come right," said Patricia, rumpling her hair with the back of one soiled hand and staring ruefully at the lumpy, meaningless group of two stiff figures in modeling-wax that stood stolidly on a thick little board on top of the piano stool.
 
"They do look a bit queer," admitted Elinor, reluctantly. "Perhaps when you've worked on them more——"
 
Patricia interrupted her hotly. "I won't waste another hour on them!" she declared vehemently. "I've slaved and slaved all my spare time, I missed the last of Miss Jinny's visit, and I didn't have time to hear a word of Judy's tales about Greycroft and the village, and I haven't taken a moment to myself this whole week! I've done with it now for good and all. I was an idiot to think I could do anything, anyway."
 
"I believe if you tried something that was more simple, you'd do better," said Elinor sympathetically. "You've taken such a tremendously elusive sort of thing in this. Why not try something that either Judith or I could pose for? That would help a lot, you know."
 
Patricia gave the stool a whirl, staring discontentedly at the afflicting group.
 
"It's a sorry mess," she commented dejectedly. "I don't believe I want to make a goose of myself again. No, I won't try, Norn. You're awfully good to offer to pose, but I'm done with prize designs till I've had more experience," and with a swoop she crumpled the two little stolid figures into an indistinguishable mass, pounding them fiat with her pink palm.
 
"There! That's the last of you!" she said vindictively. "Let's see what you've been working on, Elinor. Ju said it was 'very satisfactory.'"
 
Elinor smiled. "I only started this afternoon while you were in class," she replied, bringing out a fair-sized canvas with a rough charcoal drawing on it. "I'm just blocking in the outlines, as you see; but I've made a little color study that shows you how it will go."
 
Patricia took the bit of canvas board, and held it at arm's length, squinting at it with eyes that gradually brightened.
 
"Why, it's dandy, Elinor Kendall!" she cried. "It'll be perfectly lovely if you can put it through even as well as you've managed it here. Judy was drawing it mild!"
 
Judith, who was studying under the lamp at the center table with her fingers screwed into her ears and her mouth twisted intently in pursuit of knowledge, came abruptly back to life.
 
"Well, I didn't want you to expect too much," she said, with a gentle impatience. "If I'd praised it too much, you'd have been disappointed with the thing itself."
 
"Right-o, Miss Judith," laughed Patricia, flinging an arm about the young sage. "My word, but you're a crafty young one! I'd have raved about it till even Michael Angelo or Raphael couldn't have satisfied the expectations of the beholder. How do you come by so much wisdom, Miss Minerva?"
 
Judith tossed her mane. "Don't call names," she responded, hiding the gratified smile that lurked in the corners of her mouth. "You'd think of things, too, if you didn't talk quite so much, Miss Pat. It's dreadfully hard to talk and think at the same time."
 
"Is it?" cried Patricia, delighted as usual with Judith's maxims. "Hear that now, will you, Norn? Ju's going to reform me. I hope I'll be a satisfactory subject, Judy darling. 'Thinking Taught While You Wait.' It's a great idea and it may lead to a new school of mental science. Ju would look fine in cap and gown as president of the college——"
 
Patricia broke off laughing at Judith's absolutely unconscious face, as, with fingers once again screwed into her ears and mouth twisted intently, she immersed herself in the dignified oblivion of study.
 
Patricia looked at her with laughing eyes that gradually grew sober.
 
"I've got it!" she said, eagerly turning to Elinor. "I've got the idea for the sort of thing you meant. I'll do Judy just as she is—you'll pose, won't you, Ju? I won't be too hard on you."
 
"Don't I always study like this?" replied Judith without looking up. "Go ahead as long as you like—only don't talk. I want to study."
 
"Good girl, Judith!" cried Patricia, pulling the stool with its burden nearer to the light. "I'll plunge in right away and get it blocked in tonight. Do you know where I put that other package of modeling-wax, Elinor?"
 
She set to work with a will, humming to herself as she worked, the failure of her more ambitious undertaking forgotten in the joy of renewed hope, and her intimate knowledge of Judith's face and figure helping unconsciously to better work than she could have done in the schools.
 
When nine o'clock rang from the church tower across the park she laid down her tools with an air of great content.
 
"I believe it's going to go," she announced to the absorbed pair of workers before her. "Wake up, Norn, and give me a criticism. Ju has to go to bed and can't hold the pose much longer anyway."
 
"Pooh, I'm not a bit tired," protested Judith. "I sit this way every night for hours."
 
Elinor laid down her brushes and turned in her chair. Her face lighted as she saw the rough, vigorous outlines of Patricia's latest effort.
 
"That's the real thing, Miss Pat!" she said enthusiastically. "If you can keep it up like that, you won't have to be ashamed of it, I can tell you!"
 
She came and stood behind Patricia, her hands on her shoulders, eager and interested.
 
"That shoulder is a little too high, and the head needs more fullness at the top—Ju has lots of hair—but it's going along splendidly, splendidly! Don't touch it again till Judith poses tomorrow. You want to keep close to life and not make up anything."
 
Patricia, meek in experience of past failure, covered her work and put it safely away.
 
"I'll go on with it when I'm rested and Judy is fresh," she said contentedly. "If it goes on as rapidly as it has tonight, it will be ready to turn in at the end of the week. We have until Saturday night to put in our stuff, you know. You have to get yours in by noon, don't you?"
 
Elinor nodded. "But I shan't have any trouble finishing in time, I'm sure," she said with bright confidence. "I feel as though it were almost going to do itself."
 
The spare hours of the rest of that week were devoted to the prize designs, and both progressed so happily that their authors were filled with a greater measure of content as the days sped.
 
"I'm going to take mine in to the Academy to work on this afternoon while I wait for the night life," said Elinor on Thursday as they were leaving the breakfast room. "I want to see how it looks among the big casts and life studies. I'm afraid it won't show up very well among the real things, but it may help me to see its faults and remedy them while I still have time."
 
Patricia gazed approvingly at the dim, shadowy study of graceful figures grouped in attentive attitudes about a reader in a landscape of suggested loveliness that spoke to any observer with delicate symbolism.
 
"It's the best ever," she declared. "I'll 'wagger,' as Hannah Ann says, that you lift the medal."
 
Elinor gave a gently contemptuous sniff as she stowed it away in its corner. "No doubt—with all those experienced students competing! Some of them have been there ten years, Miss Pat. I simply haven't the ghost of a show, and you know it."
 
Patricia was silenced, though unconvinced. "Don't you let any of those hyenas see it, all the same," she cautioned. "I know them better than you do. They'd rush another version in before yours, and then where would you be?"
 
"I don't believe anyone would be so low minded!" cried Elinor, shocked and reproachful. "How can you say such things, Miss Pat?"
 
"Take my advice, my dear," grinned Patricia. "You're too good to see through some of those fakes, and this is one instance when my eyes are clearer than yours. It isn't often I can give you points, so do be grateful. Don't let those long-haired boys get a glimpse of it, or it's all up with you."
 
Elinor promised, smiling at Patricia's vehemence, and went off with her canvas, securely wrapped against curious eyes, held firmly in one gray-gloved hand.
 
Patricia looked after her with loving pride. "How pretty she is, and how clever," she thought tenderly. "And the best part of it is that she doesn't know what an adorable dear she is. I hope she gets an honorable mention, even if she can't hit the prize. She deserves a lot of good times, after all those lean years when she took such good care of us."
 
When Patricia came home from the library at half-past five, she was surprised to find Elinor stretched on the couch, with a thick comfortable drawn up to her chin, and her face gray and haggard.
 
"What in the world—" she began in alarm, but Elinor silenced her questioning with a weak wave of one tired hand.
 
"I'm not really sick," she said, in a faint tone, as Patricia cuddled down on the floor beside her and took the chilly hand in her warm one. "I have one of my old headaches. I forgot to get any lunch. I had just put the key in my locker, when everything grew black and I'd have collapsed if Doris Leighton hadn't helped me to a chair. She gave me some milk and got my things for me, and when I felt well enough, she came over here with me. She's certainly the sweetest thing. She had to miss getting her criticism, too. Mr. Benton had just gone in when I crumpled up."
 
"She's a perfect angel," cried Patricia, her heart warming at the thought of Doris' genuine sweetness of nature. "If Miss Jinny really had known her, she'd been the last to suspect her."
 
"She's coming over after life class," Elinor went on, closing her eyes wearily. "I found I'd forgotten my keys when I got home, and she's going to bring them over for me on her way home."
 
"You'd better go to sleep," said Patricia, smoothing the white brow with deft fingers. "I'll keep everything quiet, so that you can sleep it off as you used to be abl............