tricia as she took breath. "I believe you could
really have done it."

It was rather dim to read expressions, but she thought a strange look
flitted across the eager face that was staring so hard at her. "You
mustn't take it so seriously, Judy," she said, but Judith went on.

"'I've come to see if it's true that she'll never be a great singer and
I know you'll tell me,' I said to Madame Tancredi, and she just put her
arm about me and kissed me quite hard."

"That's what she would have done. How did you guess it?" cried
Patricia.

"And she said very seriously, 'Your sister, my dear, is going to be the
greatest singer I have ever taught, if she keeps on as she has begun, or
if some stupid silly one doesn't take her from the only right method.'"

Patricia felt a surge of agonizing regret for all the bright hopes that
she had lost forever, but she tried to laugh down into Judith's eager
face.

"That sounds exactly like Tancredi," she declared. "How strange you
should dream it so truly."

"It sounds true, doesn't it?" persisted Judith. "Should you be very
cross with me if it weren't all a dream, Miss Pat?"

Patricia's heart stopped beating for a moment and then it leaped to her
throat.

"What do you mean, Judith?" she called out, clutching her tightly by the
shoulders. "What are you trying to tell me?"

"Ow! you hurt!" returned Judith, wriggling, and then she responded to
the agony of appeal in Patricia's big gray eyes. "It isn't a dream. It's
true," she said. "I went this afternoon."

Patricia could not take it in for a while. She had to question Judith
again and again before she could accept this gift from the dark heavens.

"Are you sure?" she asked over and over until Judith became impatient.

"I may be only fourteen and a half and very small for my age," she said
with withering dignity, "but I surely know what happened just this
afternoon. I'm going back to bed now, and you can believe me or not just
as you please," and in spite of Patricia's protest, she stalked away and
slammed the door behind her--a very unusual thing for Judith.

Patricia sat by the window in a trance of delight. The future glowed
with all its old alluring colors and new ones were shining out every
time she looked ahead. She was to be a singer after all. What did
anything else matter?

Suddenly she laughed aloud and jumping up she ran to the mirror and
snapped on the light to make a radiant face at the girl in the frame.

"We'll