e every
single leaf and flower out of her book also. Then she made Cissie
collect them all, and fling the whole pile into the grate. Poor Cissie
was in tears. She tried hard to save her sprig of rosemary: she begged
Miss Rowe to let her keep it, and said she'd put it away in her drawer,
and never bring it to class again; but Miss Rowe said she wouldn't
encourage such nonsense, and the best place for it was the fire."

"It was just like Miss Rowe," said Enid; "she always uses what my father
calls 'drastic measures'. Cissie's tired of Keats now. She's made a hero
of General Gordon instead, and has his portrait hanging up in her
bedroom, with a piece of palm over it. She says she should like to marry
a soldier some day, only she'd be so afraid of his getting killed."

"Cissie's a goose," said Winnie; "she can think of nothing but soldiers
since her brother went to Sandhurst. She even drew one in my album, and
it's not particularly well done. Patty, are you going to paint anything
for me, or are you not? I'll leave the book with you for a week, and at
the end of that time I shall expect to see something nice."

Patty was rather clever at drawing. She could copy very exactly, and
even make original sketches sometimes. Mr. Summers, the art master,
thought well of her work, and had praised her study of a group of apples
more highly than those of the other girls. It was quite a consolation to
Patty to excel in something. She found the afternoon spent in the studio
the pleasantest in the whole week, and wished the drawing lessons came
oftener. She was not without a secret hope that some of her work might
be considered good enough to secure a place in the small exhibition of
Arts and Crafts which was held yearly at the school, and to which only
very creditable efforts were admitted. The neat drawings with which she
illustrated her botany schedules were the admiration of her classmates,
though they did not always meet with the appreciation from Miss Harper
which they deserved. On one occasion Patty had taken immense trouble to
copy a harebell as an example of the order _Campanulaceae_. She had
shaded it carefully in Indian ink, with very fine cross hatchings, and
hoped it might win an extra mark, or at any rate a word of approbation.
Disappointment, however, was in store for her. Miss Harper handed back
the book with the remark:

"If you would spend less time on drawings, and more on the
subject-matter of your exercises, Patty