Miss Pat at School | Page 7

she, with a nod of acquiescence, went to her own stand and began to thump lumps of clay into shape about her own iron head-piece.
Patricia accepted the help as silently as it was offered, and when he brought her clay and, still mute, showed her how to block the rough clay into a semblance of a human head, she smiled at him with ready gratitude, not daring more for fear of the omnipotent Miss Green.
"How do you like it now?" asked Griffin, as the gong released them for the rest, and they slipped out in the corridor to look for Elinor.
"Perfectly fine and dandy!" cried Patricia, glowing. "My word, but that Miss Green is severe! I never heard such silence as in that room. Why, an ordinary schoolroom is a perfect Babel compared to it."
"You'll get used to old Bottle Green, all right," said Griffin reassuringly. "Her bark is a whole lot worse than her bite. She's a trump at heart, though she is awful fool on the outside."
Elinor was waiting for them, and Patricia could see that she was in a state of great agitation. She hurried to her, while her companion dropped behind to exchange notes with one of the men from the composition room.
"What is it, Norn? Didn't you get along all right?" she asked breathlessly.
Elinor dropped on a stool and raised her face to her sister, and Patricia was surprised to see that her eyes were shining with joy instead of tears.
"Oh, Miss Pat!" she cried in an ecstasy. "I've made good, and I can write to Bruce and tell him!"
"What, already?" exclaimed Patricia rapturously. "You duck! Tell me all about it instantly."
She swept Elinor off the stool, away from the crowded dressing room, and at last found a deserted corner behind a big cast.
"Now," she demanded, "tell me all about it, or I'll simply die of ingrowing curiosity."
Elinor rippled and dimpled in a surprisingly sparkling fashion as she recounted her experience in the portrait room, and Patricia, while she listened, marveled at the change in her placid sister.
"And so," concluded Elinor, "when I had just gotten ready to come out to see you, some more of them came over and looked at it. And one of them said, 'Dorset's right. It's a pace-maker all correct,' and then they brought some other men, and I left."
Patricia, greatly excited, patted her hard on the shoulder. "I told you you'd be a winner," she crowed. "I guess Bruce knew what he was talking about."
Elinor's face clouded. "But I have only started the outline," she confessed. "And I'm awfully weak on putting in the tones. I'm afraid I'll make a fizzle of it."
"See here," said Patricia, facing her severely. "I'm tired of your deceptive timidity. Just let someone else say you can't do it, and you'd feel mighty mad about it, but you're willing to scare me out of my feeble senses by croaking."
Elinor jumped up laughing, and hugged her. "I'll be as conceited as you like, if you'll stop scolding," she promised, gayly. "It doesn't look well to be too much under the thumb of a younger sister, even if she is a promising sculptor. By the way, how are you getting on? I hear that Miss Griffin is a wonderful worker. Did you see anything of her work?"
Patricia gave her a brief outline of the class and its chief characters, as far as she had observed, dwelling on Miss Green with great satisfaction.
"I know she's going to be a treat," she declared. "I hope she keeps whole for a while at least, until I get better acquainted."
"And do you know," she went on, "that the model is a Russian refugee, and he tried to kill himself because he was so homesick. He's just out of the hospital, and he has a great red scar across his breast. Isn't it exciting to be among such different sort of people? We've always been so sort of tabbified."
"We've had enough ups and downs, I am sure," said Elinor vaguely. It was evident that her mind was not on either their varied past nor even the fascinating present, but was busy with a future of progress and achievement.
"Wake up, old lady," cried Patricia. "There's the gong, and we must fly."
Patricia toiled all that afternoon with the ardor of ignorance and hope. The others looked at her with occasional interest, but otherwise paid little attention to her. In the rests she went out to visit Elinor, or Elinor came in to watch her progress. Her head fairly swam with the delightful novelty of this new and quick-flowing life. When the last gong rang she heard it with regret.
"It's better than I ever dreamed," she said to the amiable Griffin as she was showing her how to put the wet cloths about her