guess my robust
constitution can stand a little extra exertion once in a while. I'll try
to take it easier this week, and I believe I'll give up my gymnasium
work. That will give me more time, and won't interfere with getting my
diploma."

But though Patty gained a few extra half hours by omitting the gymnasium
class, she missed the daily exercise more than she would admit even to
herself.

"You're getting round-shouldered, Patty," said Lorraine, one day; "and I
believe it's because you work so hard over those old lessons."

"It isn't the work, Lorraine," said Patty, laughing. "It's the play. I
had to rewrite the whole of that garden scene last night, after I
finished my lessons."

"Why, what was the matter with it?"

"It was all wrong. We didn't think of it at the time, but in one place
Elise has to go off at one side of the stage, and, immediately after,
come on at the other side, in different dress. Now, of course, that won't
do; it has to be arranged so that she will have time to change her
costume. So I had to write in some lines for the others. And there were
several little things like that to be looked after, so I had to do over
pretty nearly the whole scene."

"It's a shame, Patty! We make you do all the hardest of the work."

"Not a bit of it. I love to do it; and when we all work together and
chatter so, of course we don't think it out carefully enough, and so
these mistakes creep in. Don't say anything about it, Lorraine. The girls
will never notice my little changes and corrections, and I don't want to
pose as a poor, pale martyr, growing round-shouldered in her efforts to
help her fellow-sisters!"

"You're a brick, Patty, but I will tell them, all the same. If we're all
going to write this play together, we're going to do it all, and not have
you doing our work for us."

Lorraine's loyalty to Patty was unbounded, and as she had, moreover, a
trace of stubbornness in her character, Patty knew that no amount of
argument would move her from her determination to straighten matters out.
So she gave up the discussion, only saying, "You won't do a bit of good,
Lorraine; and anyway, somebody ought to revise the thing, and if I don't
do it, who will?"

Patty said this without a trace of egotism, for she and Lorraine both
knew that none of the other girls had enough constructive talent or
dramatic capability to put the finishing touches on the lines of the
play. That was Patty's special forte, just as Cl