ys get so excited when I'm proclaiming human
rights."

Patricia looked puzzled and she answered quickly: "Human rights--my
rights to the bit of hammering that belongs to me. Auntie, you know,
advocates cotton-wool so strongly that I suppose I'm a bit daft on my
end of the argument."

Patricia had been silent, but she spoke slowly and with a light
breaking on her face. "I believe it's true, Constance," she said
earnestly. "I can see now that it's the only way. I was getting terribly
spoiled in cotton-wool, and----" She stopped because she did not want to
seem to complain of Rosamond. "I'm glad Miss Ardsley got this dear room
for me," she ended brightly, "I've had such fun since I've been here."

She saw that Constance was not too much deceived, and to turn the talk
she seized the first thing that came into her mind.

"Does your aunt still object to your living here?" she asked, and then
was annoyed with herself for her own lack of tact, for she recalled that
it was not Constance but Rosamond who had told her of the aunt's
objections to Artemis Lodge.

Constance laughed easily. "She's coming around," she replied as though
she were used to discussing her private affairs with Patricia. "She is
so pleased with my altar-piece in All Saints that she's ready to
forgive me anything. Auntie is really awfully good."

Patricia was alight at once. "Your altar-piece, Constance?" she cried.
"Oh, how splendid! When did you do it? Why didn't you tell me about it
sooner? Where is it now?"

Constance laughed, yet she was deeply gratified, for she had been more
drawn to Patricia than to any of the others. "It's in All Saints, of
course, where it should be. You didn't think it was in the Bandbox or
the Comique, did you?" she bantered. "Auntie paid for it, and so she's
privileged to criticise, you know."

"Do let me see it," begged Patricia. "I haven't a thing to do this
afternoon. Let's go and see it."

Constance demurred at first and then gave in. "The air will do us good,
anyway," she said, "We've been cooped up here for an hour or more."

Patricia found the altar-piece a revelation of another side of
Constance--a side she had not dreamed of, and she gave it the tribute of
silence for a long five minutes.

Then she spoke very softly: "I know now why you believe in bearing the
everyday toil and trouble of the world. It's because you've been
painting that. Why, Constance, it's--it's--_triumphant_."

Constance was looking at t