Miss Pat at School Part 6

"I wish I were in the night life," she said resentfully. "I envy you, Norn, being among live people."

Elinor smiled ruefully. "And I'd like to swap with you," she said.

"I'd much prefer a quiet time like I had in the head cla.s.s this morning, or an agreeable time like you had, to anything riotous."

Patricia sighed and stirred restlessly. "Isn't that like life?" she commented, her face clearing as the thought took hold on her. "We're all hankering after something that we haven't got--or we think we are.

Maybe--maybe we'd not like the other thing any better if we did get it, though one's own things always seem awfully commonplace, don't they?"

Before Elinor could respond, she started to the door with an exclamation.

"Here's Judy! On time to the dot!" she cried. "Come on in, Ju; drop your plunder into my strong arm and let us introduce you to the Academy."

Judith, with her hat rather on one side and her cheeks flushed from the wind and swift walking, kissed them both breathlessly and tumbled her bundles into Patricia's capacious ap.r.o.n.

She followed them into the dressing room with her eyes busy but without a single word, and it was not until they had taken her through the various cla.s.s rooms, deserted at this noon hour, and were on their way down to the lunch room that she found speech.

"I must say, Elinor," she began, in response to a question, "that it's very different from what you girls led me to expect."

"Did we draw such rosy pictures?" asked Patricia in surprise. "I thought we told you it was remarkably spotty and just as smelly."

"_But,_" continued Judith with emphasis, "I must say that, dirt and all, it is more _glorious-ified_ than I thought it would be. That big-winged angel or whatever it is at the top of the stairs looks as if it would soar right up to the top of heaven--it's so white and strong!"

Patricia's eyes filled with the ready tears as she caught the look on Judith's thin face, raised in adoring admiration to the great Winged Victory that stood poised at the top of the wide flight of stone stairs, showing triumphant in the misty light that seems to fill all great indoor s.p.a.ces.

"That's the part that makes up for all the soil and smudge, Ju darling," said Elinor softly. "Paint and charcoal and clay are dirty things, but when they're wielded with the force of an Ideal, they can illuminate the world."

Judith swept her adoring gaze from the Victory to her sister's face.

"Oh, oh," she breathed, "I didn't know you could talk like that, Elinor. It sounds like some beautiful book."

Elinor blushed and laughed. "I can't, usually," she said, gayly. "It is the Victory that did it. She must have handed down some of the thoughts of the old Greek that carved her out of the white marble under that blue, blue sky of ancient days."

Patricia nodded her quick appreciation. "I wonder how many she has spoken to, in all the centuries?" she mused, her eyes growing wide and absent. "Think of them, Norn--those people who felt her spell and heard the message. What a glorious company!"

It was Elinor's turn to raise misty eyes to the Messenger of the Ideal, and, like Judith, she was silent, busy with this thought.

"Do you know," Patricia went on, the peculiarly sweet, clear tone that marked her best self growing as she spoke, "I've come to care a lot about that glorious company. 'The kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into it,' and I don't see why we all shouldn't have some chance to add our tiny sc.r.a.p to the splendor. I know I shan't ever do much--only commonplace, humdrum things, but if I can come at last with the least, tiniest bit of a radiant snip to add to the glory and honor, I'll be more than satisfied."

She broke off suddenly, smiling a wistful smile at the two others.

"I oughtn't to envy you, but I do," she said, softly. "You'll both come in simply glittering, and I'll have to brag that you're my near relatives. I'm such an ostentatious beast that I'd have to show off even there."

"Patricia!" gasped Judith, shocked out of her dreamy calm. "You oughtn't to say things like that. It's--it's not religious!"

Patricia dropped back instantly to her usual manner.

"Well, anyway, I'm fearfully hungry," she said airily. "I can't stand any more palaver. Come along to the cave and let us feed while there is time."

Luncheon was particularly gay, much to Judith's delight. Margaret Howes joined Patricia as she carried Judith off to the them, and Griffin with a kindred spirit had the next table. Doris Leighton, the pretty girl whom Patricia had so ardently admired on her first day and who had not been visible since then, appeared without her pale companion, and took the table on the other side of them, and when Margaret Howes, at Patricia's entreaty, introduced them, she brought her chair over to their table and made one of their merry party.

Judith was silent for the most part, but her eyes glowed like live coals and she kept tossing her pale, straight mane in the way she had when pleasantly excited.

"Well, what do you think of Bohemia?" asked Griffin, as they climbed the narrow iron stair again, the time having come for Judith to say good-bye.

Judith was equal to the occasion, as usual.

"I like it better than the land of the Amorites and the Hitt.i.tes," she responded so promptly that the other gaped.

"Upon my word, you're a cla.s.sy young 'un," she grinned. "Come again soon and give us some more."

Patricia as she carried Judith off to the dressing room for her wraps, was moved to inquiry.

"How in the world could you answer her so pat?" she asked, twinkling at Judith's superior air.

"Oh, I heard you say this morning that outside people were Philistines, and when I tried to look it up in the Old Testament, I read a lot of hard names, and I remembered them," she said, triumphantly. "I didn't think, though, that I'd be able to use them so soon."

Patricia shook her head.

"You certainly are the limit," she said, gravely. "What makes you care so much about words and names and such like things?" she asked, trying to get at a clearer understanding of her little sister's mental processes.

Judith was entirely unconscious of the probe.

"Why, because they're the very nicest things in the world, of course,"

she replied spiritedly. "I love to get new ones and see how they work.

It's such fun. Like archery practice, when you hit the bull's eye.

Only words are somehow different, too. They sort of _taste_ when you say them--sometimes sweet and sometimes tingly and queer, like the Amorites and Hitt.i.tes," and she giggled at the memory.

Patricia shook her head.

"Don't go tasting too many new ones around here," she cautioned with a kiss. "You might hit on the wrong one, and they wouldn't understand that it was merely a game with you."

"Well, I just guess it isn't any game," retorted Judith with a toss of her mane. "It's the most important thing in life to me," and she stalked off towards the door with great dignity.

Patricia groaned as she watched her walk primly down the corridor and out of the side entrance. "That infant," she said to Elinor who had been leaving Judith out, "is trembling on the brink of becoming a little prig. We've got to see to it, Norn, that she doesn't get too satisfied with herself."

"I don't believe she'll get spoiled," returned Elinor, easily. "She _is_ clever, you know, and I think it's rather nice that she can enjoy it a bit. She isn't pretty, and it makes up to her for that."

"All the same," said Patricia, darkly, "she needs to drop a peg in her own esteem. Conceit is mighty crippling to the runner in the race that Ju's picked out for herself. I'd hate her to be a fizzle, and I'm going to see to it that she gets rid of it."

"Very well; only don't be too hard on her," said Elinor, easily. "Come help me with the candy for the night life, won't you? I can't get it in shape."

"Lots of time for it," said Patricia, yawning and flinging herself down on the wide couch. "The men aren't through in there for more than an hour yet."

"But I've got to get it tied inside the lantern while no one is about,"

insisted Elinor. "And the hall is absolutely deserted now. Come along, do, and be useful."

Patricia, protesting, dragged herself from the restful nest, but by the time they had begun to arrange the gay little bags of candy in the big red j.a.panese lantern, she was as enthusiastic as Elinor could wish.

"Aren't the bags perfect ducks?" she laughed, handling the gauzy bundles with dexterous fingers. "And those verses are too cute for words. What a time we all had over them! Ju's are the best, though she mustn't know it; funny without being personal. It was terribly hard to get such a mob, too. How many are there altogether, Norn?"