after Mr. Long if he comes in before I do, and for goodness sake
tell him not to breathe a word about what I was talking to him about in
the Park the other day."

"Mysteries, and with your late rival in the hen-yard?" cried Bruce with
feigned concern. "I'll have to look into this later, Miss Pat, and see
what you've been up to behind our backs."

"You'll find out later, I hope," laughed Patricia, giving Elinor another
squeeze before she ran off laughing at the thought of her conspiracy
with Mr. Long coming under Bruce's notice in this unexpected way.

"I had to tell him," she thought, as she hurried back to her post. "He
might have found it out before it came to anything and then I'd have
felt so silly."

As she sat down again she thought she heard the door open and she asked,
"Is that you, Constance?"

It was Judith with her kimono over her nightdress and her bare feet
poked into her slippers. She came over and cuddled down beside Patricia.

"Don't send me back right away, please. I have something to tell you,
Miss Pat," she said earnestly, and Patricia made room for her on the
wide seat.

"What is it, Judy-pudy?" she asked kindly. "Bad dreams?"

Judith gave a little sound that seemed to mean satisfaction with the
question. "Oh, no, not bad dreams," she answered happily, cuddling
closer. "Not bad dreams. Very pleasant ones. About you, Patricia."

Patricia patted her. "Tell me," she said, not because she wanted to hear
the dream, but to please Judith.

"I dreamed," began Judith, sitting up to look earnestly in Patricia's
face in the dim light reflected from the courtyard. "I dreamed that you
were unhappy and it was because you thought that you would never be a
real singer."

Patricia interrupted her with a little laugh. "Sounds perilously like
wide-awake news to me, Ju," she said lightly, determined to conquer the
idea which possessed her small sister that she was unhappy over her
discovery of failure. "We've put that on the shelf long ago, you and I."

Judith went on, scanning her face. "I dreamed that you cried about it
when no one saw you and that you felt you'd never be happy again. Now
don't say 'Stuff,' for it's true. And I couldn't bear it, so I thought
and thought and then I went out and walked straight down to Tancredi's
and I asked for her, and found her in. She was in the music-room and I
went in and said, 'I am Judith Kendall, and I've come to ask about my
sister.'"

"Good little Ju," said Pa