his was ice-cream night at the
college, and that I sort of hated to miss it; but that to-morrow would
be mutton night, which I didn't mind missing in the least; so if she
would just as leave transfer her invitation, I would accept for
to-morrow with pleasure."

"Patty," exclaimed Lucille, in a horrified tone, "you didn't say that!"

"Just a little local color, Lucille," laughed Priscilla.

"But," objected Lucille, "we'd promised not to play local color any
more."

"Have you not learned," said Priscilla, "that Patty can no more live
without local color than she can live without food? It's ingrained in
her nature."

"Never mind," said Patty, good-naturedly; "you may not believe me now,
but to-morrow night, when I'm all dressed up in beautiful clothes,
swapping stories with Prexy and eating lobster salad, while you are over
here having mutton, _then_ maybe you'll be sorry."

XIII

A Crash Without

"I love the smell of powder," said Patty.

"Gunpowder or baking-powder?"

As Patty at the moment had her nose buried in a box of face-powder she
thought it unnecessary to answer.

"It brings back my youth," she pursued. "The best times of my life have
been mixed up with powder and rouge--Washington's Birthday nights, and
minstrel shows, and masquerades, and plays at boarding-school, and even
Mother Goose tableaux when I was a--"

Patty's reminiscences were interrupted by Georgie, who was anxiously
pacing up and down the wings. "It's queer some of the cast don't come. I
told them to be here early, so we could get them all made up and not
have a rush at the end."

"Oh, there's time enough," said Patty, comfortably. "It isn't seven yet,
and if they're going to dress in their rooms it won't take any time over
here just to make them up and put on their wigs. It's a comparatively
small cast, you see. Now, on the night of the Trig. ceremonies, when we
had to make up three whole ballets and only had one box of make-up, we
_were_ rushed. I thought I'd never live to see the curtain go down. Do
you remember the suit of chain-mail we made for Bonnie Connaught out of
wire dish-cloths? It took sixty-three, and the ten-cent store was
terribly dubious about renting them to us; and then, after working every
spare second for three days over the thing, we found, the last minute,
that we hadn't left a big enough hole for her to get into, and--"

"Oh, do keep still, Patty," said Georgie, nervously; "I can't remember
what I