Miss Pat at School Part 24

"Breakfast!" cried Patricia, bubbling. "Are we going to keep on eating till----"

"No, no, I didn't mean that," returned Bruce hastily. "I was thinking of something else."

"The surprise, I am sure," announced Judith calmly. "Let's try to guess what it is, like charades or Dumb Crambo. You can tell us if we guess right, Bruce. I'll begin first."

Bruce laid down his cracker with a grin. "No, you don't, young 'un,"

he said decisively. "I'm not going to turn my choicest possession into a puzzle department. I'm going to spring it myself, right now."

All eyes were upon him as he crumpled his napkin into a hard ball and crushed it between his flexible fingers, while his face a.s.sumed an earnest and rather anxious expression.

"I am going to ask you to think first and speak last," he began. "I don't want you to go into it hastily or unless you're quite sure you will like it."

"We'll like it, all right enough, if you have a hand in it," Patricia a.s.sured him heartily.

"It's a scheme I've been thinking of for nearly a month now, and I've made all the arrangements before I came home; but if it doesn't appeal to you--well, there are no bones broken, and I can easily fix it up with Miss J---- that is, I can make other arrangements."

Judith gave an impatient wriggle, but it was Patricia again who spoke.

"Please, please, _do_ tell us what it is! Suspense is so awful!"

Bruce c.o.c.ked his head on one side meditatively. "I'll make a stab at it," he acceded, and then paused, while they waited in breathless silence.

"I've taken a studio apartment, and I've got someone to keep house--just for a month--and I'm banking on you all coming to spend that month with me. I want you to have this chance at some outside work," he said to Elinor. "I'm not so keen on this academic work for a steady job. I want you to keep up your life cla.s.s, of course, but there's a big lot of education lying around in the studios for this short time anyway. I may not be able to offer it to you again, as I'll have to be off as soon as this contract is finished. Will you come?"

Elinor sat looking at him with her eyes s.h.i.+ning, and then she drew a quick breath.

"I think it would be perfectly glorious," she said gratefully. "It's wonderful that you should bother with us. I can't thank you----"

"Don't want any thanks," returned Bruce gruffly. "Your aunt would understand it. I'm only beginning to pay my debt to her, and it's going to take a mighty long while, too."

Patricia held out her hand across the cloth. "I can't kiss you, but here's the subst.i.tute. You're a _duck_, Bruce Haydon. Where is the studio?"

Bruce laughed in a relieved way. "That's the way to talk, Miss Pat.

I'll show it to you as soon as you've all finished. Judy, haven't you anything to say?"

Judith finished dabbling her fingers in the finger-bowl, and wiped them daintily. Then she raised her clear eyes to the expectant company.

"The only thing I'm afraid of is that Mrs. Hudson won't let us go a whole month sooner," she said with the calmness of despair. "I suppose I'll have to stay there all by myself, just because I'm the youngest and not an artist. But I tell you all this--I'm not going to stay alone. I'll get Mrs. Sh.e.l.ly to come in----"

"Good idea, Judy," said Bruce encouragingly. "We'll see what we can do about it. Come along now, we're going to inspect the new premises.

You girls get your duds on while I settle up. It's only around the corner, and we'll be there in a jiffy."

CHAPTER XIV

NEW QUARTERS AND OLD FRIENDS

They went up in the little box of an elevator, and as they got out, Bruce jingled his keys invitingly.

"I'll let you open the door--for luck, Judy," he said, holding out a key. "See if you can guess which door it belongs to."

Judith scanned the doors critically, her brows puckered and her head aslant.

"We-e-ll," she said, slowly revolving so as to see each hall in turn.

"I'll take the one just ahead there. It hasn't any card on the door and all the others have."

"Clever child!" commended Bruce. "That escaped my notice. You're right, of course. Go ahead. Open up."

Judith put the key in its lock, turned it easily and then swung the door wide, but before the others could catch even a glimpse of the interior, she gave a little squeaking cry and rushed in, leaving the door to bang after her.

"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Patricia indignantly. "We're locked out!"

"We can ring if Bruce has no other key," said Elinor hastily. "She'll surely let us in."

So, as there was no other key, Patricia put her finger to the bell on the lintel and kept it there till the k.n.o.b rattled and the door was flung open wide. Judith was standing in the middle of the big, comfortable studio and her face was flushed, but not one word did she say in explanation of her singular behavior.

Elinor and Patricia were so occupied with the room that she almost escaped reproof, but Patricia, as she turned from admiring the stairway that wound up one side of the studio to a nook in the peaked roof above, caught a very knowing look on her little sister's face which was meant for Bruce, and she pounced on her immediately.

"What is the matter with you today, Ju?" she asked in an undertone, "I do wish you'd behave yourself. Bruce will be sorry he asked us if we're going to act like wild Indians."

Judith's only reply was a giggle.

Bruce and Elinor were inspecting the rooms on the other side of the studio, and had pa.s.sed out of sight behind the second doorway.

Patricia forgot her censors.h.i.+p as the spirit of the explorer rose in her.

"Let's look at these rooms, Ju," she proposed, with a hand on the heavy curtain at her right.

Judith caught her hand with a cry of dismay.

"It's not fair, till Elinor comes, too!" she protested hotly. "Wait, they'll be back. I'll call them."

But Patricia, with a laugh, broke from her and lifted the curtain.

"Elinor didn't wait for us," she began gayly, "and I'm not----"

She broke off with her mouth and eyes opened to their widest, for there in the chair by the cozy grate sat Mrs. Sh.e.l.ly, while Miss Jinny stood chuckling her husky chuckle and rubbing her elbows nervously with both hands.

"They've come to stay!" shouted Judith in wild excitement. "They're going to be here the whole month! Wasn't it lovely of Bruce to get them, and won't it be _transcendant_, with all of us together!"

Patricia had for once no words, but she fell on Miss Jinny's willing neck, and to Judith's great wonder and Mrs. Sh.e.l.ly's delight, she kissed Miss Jinny with great vigor and despatch.

"You _duck_!" she cried, and, although Judith gasped and paled at the audacious epithet, Miss Jinny merely chuckled and patted her tenderly and then pa.s.sed her on to the smiling, pink-cheeked little old lady in the rocker.

Such a time as they had all together when Elinor and Bruce joined them!

And such a happy circle as they made around the studio fire, as twilight came on and the shadows crept out from the vast corners of the big room, and they made plans for the future and compared notes as to the past months of separation, with the cheerful flicker leaping and flaring on their ruddy faces, quite as it had in the old house at Rockham.