"What do you think?" cried Patricia radiantly, swooping down on Elinor as she came slowly out of the portrait room at high noon on the momentous Tuesday. "What do you think, Elinor Kendall? I've gotten 'Honorable Mention' for my silly little old head! Isn't it wonderful? I'm so stunned I can't talk. I never dreamed it could have the ghost of a show," she rattled on ecstatically. "Miss Green was paralyzed, and Naskowski kept nodding till I thought he'd loosen his brain, and Griffin—she got first prize you know—cheered right out loud before them all. I was simply too limp for words, and I rushed out to tell you right away."  
Elinor's eyes filled with a glad light, and she took Patricia in her arms. "It's perfectly glorious, Miss Pat, darling," she said with a rapturous squeeze. "I'm so delighted I can't help kissing you on the spot," and she did it with a heartiness that made Patricia wriggle.
 
"Ouch, that's my loose wisdom-tooth you're pushing against!" she protested plaintively. "You've wobbled it all out of place, you reckless thing. There goes the crowd into the first antique. Come along or we'll be too late!"
 
The doors of the exhibition room were pushed quickly open as Mr. Benton led the expectant band of students in for their first sight of the prize designs, and Patricia's heart beat fast with the thrilling hope that Elinor's might be among the first in rank.
 
Her eyes swept one wall and then the other, searching for the familiar canvas, but all in vain, until she lifted them to the screen which stood in the center of the room, and where three canvases were hung, Elinor's below the other two.
 
"There it is!" she whispered eagerly, nudging Elinor to make her see. "It's on the screen. Oh, Norn, it must have——"
 
"Hush!" said Elinor in an undertone. "Don't make a fuss. There's Doris Leighton waving to us from the model stand. She looks awfully well, doesn't she? Her little vacation——"
 
But Patricia was impatiently deaf. "Why doesn't he get on?" she whispered testily. "We know all about the conditions of the prize. What we want to know is—oh, Elinor, I'm horribly disappointed. I was afraid Doris Leighton would get it, but you ought to have had Honorable Mention. Griffin's isn't half so good as yours; she said so herself. Can you see what their canvases are like? I'm just so that the light glares on them for me. What's that he's saying now? He's talking about your study."
 
The words cut the air with an incisive clearness that left no shadow of a doubt, though Patricia could scarcely credit her own ears.
 
"I regret to say that the third study on the screen," said Mr. Benton, toying with his eyeglass ribbon, "is merely placed there as a warning to students of all classes to stick to their own ideas and imaginations, and not to attempt the hazardous task of copying stronger and more experienced workers. This canvas shows so much delicacy of appreciation of the subject that, had no other of absolutely the same design been previously turned in earlier, the jury should have given it the prize. Miss Leighton's cleverly executed study of precisely the same subject, while more finished in treatment, is far below this one in feeling, and it is a matter of regret to me that the student who executed it should not have possessed more originality and self-reliance. Miss Leighton will please come forward to receive the Roberts prize."
 
Of what followed—the bestowing and graceful acceptance of the pretty purse with the hundred dollars, the congratulations and murmurs of surprise that ran about the assembly—Patricia had little knowledge. Those astonishing words of Mr. Benton had so stung and bewildered her that the room swung about her dizzily and she clutched the back of a chair for support. Elinor's stricken face faded in the blurred background of all the other faces, as she flung out vain hands of protest.
 
"Oh, it isn't fair—" she broke out, but the words that boomed so loudly in her ears were only a faint whisper, and she staggered blindly for a moment.
 
When she recovered herself in the dim corridor, Elinor, calm and reassuring, was on one side of her, while her other arm was in the firm grip of the cheery Griffin.
 
"That's all right, old pal," Griffin encouraged her. "You're almost into port now. Keep a stiff upper lip till we land you."
 
Patricia saw that they were steering for the dressing-room couch, and meekly allowed them their way.
 
"Now you're safe and sound, with no bones broken," said Griffin, as Patricia sank down on the roomy couch. "You're a nice one, you are, scaring us into a blue fit just when we were about to blister our paws with applause for the heroine of the day."
 
Patricia looked inquiringly at Elinor, who smiled at her serenely in return, much to Patricia's bewilderment.
 
"But," she protested, raising herself on one elbow. "It wasn't true, what Mr. Benton said about your design. Why don't you tell him so, Elinor?"
 
Elinor merely shook her head gently, while Griffin stood in embarrassed silence.
 
"Why don't you do something?" cried Patricia again. "Why don't you tell him? Griffin, it wasn't true—that she copied it! You know she'd not do a thing like that!"
 
"Any fool knows that," replied Griffin gruffly. "If Leighton had any stuff in her, she'd have spoken up. I was just going to when I saw you begin to crumple. It wasn't etiquette for me to speak, but I'd have given them something to think of!"
 
"It's too late now to bother about denying it, Miss Pat dear," said Elinor soothingly. "It doesn't really matter much, you know, since we three know I didn't copy. After all, it's a very little thing. I'd rather be blamed unjustly than have done such a poor act. Don't feel so badly about it, dear. We can tell our friends that it was a mistake on Mr. Benton's part, and they'll believe us, I'm sure. It doesn't matter for the rest."
 
"Doesn't it, really?" blazed Patricia, sitting up very stiff and straight. "Well, it may not to you, but to my mind it's as bad as telling any other untruth. You're not guilty of it, and if you let the accusation pass unnoticed, you are party to the falsehood."
 
Griffin, who was winking at her behind Elinor's back in a particularly portentous fashion, turned to the door.
 
"Calm down, Miss Pat," she said, with her hand on the knob. "I'm going to corral a few of the elect and put it to them. Brace up and look pleasant by the time I get back."
 
Patricia was about to break into angry tears on Elinor's neck, but the brisk and significant air with which Griffin spoke roused her to herself again. She put Elinor's arms away, and going to the mirror, smoothed her tumbled hair, and whisked away the telltale traces of her collapse, while Elinor sat quietly on the edge of the couch watching her with fond anxiety.
 
Not a word was spoken till the door opened again, and Griffin with Doris Leighton and Miss Green came quickly in.
 
Doris Leighton, who was flushed and anim............