e wind, a fluttering scarf end."

"What imagery!" murmured somebody, and some one else said,
"Inspiration!" in an awed tone.

"And now to work," urged Alla. "We must plan for our holiday party.
Shall we have it here?"

"Here, of course," she was answered.

"But others of you have larger homes, more pretentious dwellings----"

"But not the atmosphere. This Studio,--" it was a large-eyed young
musician talking, "this hallowed room has more elevating
tendency,--more inspiring atmosphere than any other. Let us meet here
by all means, and let us have such a program--such a feast of glories
as never before."

Then another man spoke. He was a tall young chap, with a good-natured
smile, and Patty liked his face.

"I am an artist," he announced, "and a rattling good artist. I haven't
yet achieved my ultimate recognition, but it will come,--it must come.
I, therefore, I will undertake the task,--the ineffably joyous task of
designing,--of inventing a dance for Miss Fairfield."

"Do, Grantham," cried Blaney. "No one could do it better. Dream out a
scheme, a picture plan that will be worthy of our little Terpsichore.
A dance that shall be a whirlwind of violets,--a tornado of lilting
veils."

"Veils!" cried Grantham, "that's the keynote! A Dance of the Year,--a
mad gyration of Time,--of Time, himself, translated into
thistledown,--into scented thistledown."

"Bravo!" "Glorious!"

Other praises were shouted, and the place was like a pandemonium.
Patty began to realise the Bohemians were a boisterous lot. She
clapped her hands over her ears in smiling dismay.

"Quiet!" said Blaney, in his low, exquisite tones, and in an instant
the room was almost silent.

Committees were appointed to take charge of the Christmas celebration,
and then the program began.

It was long, and, to Patty, a bit uninteresting. She tried hard to
understand the queer things they read or recited, but it seemed to her
a continuous repetition of sound without sense. She was willing to
admit her own stupidity, and noting the rapt expressions on the faces
round her, she concluded the lack was in herself. The music, too,
though strange and eccentric, didn't seem to her as worth while as it
had done before, though it was decidedly similar. Blaney read some of
his poems, to a zithern accompaniment, but they weren't very
impressive, and not nearly so poetic as the lines he had written for
her. She wondered if she had really inspired hi