"Bless your heart, no indeedy!" replied Miss Jinny emphatically. "I'd rather keep them a week than to have you slight Elinor. We'll have time to take the edge off our tongues, anyhow, before she gets here, and get more settled down, I hope. I haven't felt so flighty in a blue moon, and it's all your fault, Patricia Louise Kendall, with your tales about theaters and parties and the like! We'll have to put a muzzle on her, won't we, Judith?--like poor old Nero after he nipped Georgie Smith when Georgie tried to make him walk the tight rope."

"Oh, do tell me about it," said Judith eagerly, settling down on a low stool beside the trunk. "Your stories are always so nice and nippy."

Miss Jinny laughed, as she shook out a creased skirt, and laid it carefully in the long lower drawer.

"I reckon most of the nippiness in this tale is Nero's work--not mine,"

she said, smoothing the long folds of gray lansdown into shape with absent fingers. "You see, it was this way. Old Miss Fell, who lives in that big red brick house----"

"Yes, I know," said Judith, expectantly, but Miss Jinny had whisked to her feet and whirled about towards the door.

"I saw you in the looking gla.s.s!" she cried gleefully. "You needn't think you can surprise us, young lady!"

She had Elinor in her arms, to everyone's great amazement, and Elinor, far from being reluctant, was as responsive as though Miss Jinny were her own mother.

"Oh, you're just in time!" she cried, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining with a great light of happiness. "You were Aunt Louise's best friend here, and you'll know just how she'd feel. I got my criticism!"

She paused, choking with emotion. "He came up behind me, and he stood there so long I was afraid to go on working; and when I stopped, he spoke out loud, twisting his moustache and popping off his eye-gla.s.ses."

"What did he say?" burst out Patricia, unable to bear the suspense.

"Don't beat around the bush so long, for pity's sake, Norn!"

"He spoke so loud I was ashamed," went on Elinor. "He sort of bawled it out. '_Remarkable_ talent, madame, remarkable talent.' And everybody turned around and looked at me till I felt like sinking through the floor."

"How perfectly heavenly!" exclaimed Patricia, with rapture. "I wish I'd been there to hear it."

"Your Aunt Louise will rejoice to see this day," said Miss Jinny solemnly. "For I'm sure she sees it, wherever she is, and I know just how her dark proud eyes would shine. She always got regularly lighted up when she was real pleased--like you look now, child."

"Hannah Ann will be awfully proud, too," said Judith, thoughtfully.

"She's regularly wrapped up in Elinor, because she's so much like Aunt Louise, she says."

Elinor looked her surprise. "Why, I didn't know Hannah Ann liked me specially," she protested. "I thought Miss Pat was her favorite."

"She used to be," was Judith's frank reply. "But since you've become an artist, like Aunt Louise, she fairly _adores_ you!"

The idea of Hannah Ann in any such state of loving frenzy was irresistible, and they all pealed out their appreciation of Judith's picture of the grim elderly housekeeper of Greycroft.

"You may laugh, but it's true, all the same," said Judith decisively.

"And I'll prove it to you all before long--see if I don't."

The soft chimes of the dinner gong began their melodious call before anyone could answer, and in the mad scramble to make themselves presentable in the shortest possible time, Hannah Ann's enthusiasms were forgotten.

That night, after Miss Jinny's trunk had finally been disposed of, and all the gossip of Rockham village and outskirts had been thoroughly aired, and Miss Jinny, tired from her strenuous day, had gone thankfully to bed, Patricia and Elinor were talking over the day's happenings as they brushed their hair in the seclusion of their own room.

"Isn't it wonderful how Miss Jinny seems to fit in?" said Patricia, brushing the shining ripples till they fairly radiated. "I was so afraid that she might feel strange among such different sort of people, but she didn't care a bit. She's going to be awfully popular, if she keeps on. That nice old Mr. Spicer talked to her a lot at dessert, and he's awfully exclusive, you know."

"He isn't any older than she is," Elinor replied indignantly. "He's gray and pale from his illness. He was asking Miss Jinny about the air at Rockham, and she praised it so that he was much impressed. We may have him for a neighbor next summer."

"You don't mean?" began Patricia, incredulously.

"Of course, I don't mean as Miss Jinny's special property, you goose; I was only thinking of him as a pleasant addition to the old ladies' card parties and porch teas,--they need men so badly."

The idea lodged in Patricia's fertile brain was not so easily routed out.

"Still, _in case_," she insinuated with a giggle. "I don't think it would be such a bad sort of thing, do you, Norn?"

Elinor laid down her brush impressively.

"Patricia Kendall," she said, severely, "don't ever let me hear you even _whisper_ such nonsense to yourself. Miss Jinny is too nice and sensible to be made fun of in that way, and I won't have it. Remember, once for all I won't have it!"

"All right," acquiesced Patricia, meekly. "I didn't mean to be silly.

I'm a lot fonder of her than you are, and I was only thinking what fun it would be for her, don't you see?"

"I see that you are a feather-headed kitten," said Elinor, not at all mollified. "Miss Jinny will do very well as she is without your romantic nonsense to mortify her. I I'm ashamed of you, indeed I am, Patricia. I thought you had more delicacy."

Patricia lifted her brows, perplexed and inquiring, and then dropped them with a shrug that seemed to indicate that the matter no longer interested her.

"What are _you_ going to do with that lovely old shawl she brought you, Elinor?" she asked, tossing the end of her long braid over her shoulder and yawning luxuriantly. "I'd like to make a party dress of that heavenly silk cloak I got, but it seems like cutting up one's own grandmother."

Elinor gave a start. "Well, I declare, if I didn't forget all about it!" she exclaimed. "We were so excited with the presents and all, that I never told you! It's going to be perfectly gorgeous. I know you'll be crazy over it."

Patricia flung herself on her sister, overwhelming her in a flurry of pink kimono and white arms. "Tell me!" she cried. "Tell me this minute, you aggravating thing! You're getting to be a regular miser of your news--you won't give up till it's dragged out of you. Speak, or I'll have your life!"

Elinor held her close, laughing with enjoyment at her ardor.

"It isn't anything to kill for, Miss Pat," she rippled. "It's merely the Academy ball that takes place next week----"

Patricia flung off the encircling arms, and was on her feet in an instant.

"And we are going?" she demanded breathlessly. "Oh, say that we are going, Elinor!"

"Of course we're going," said Elinor, evenly. "What else should we do?

And I want you to persuade Miss Jinny to stay over for it, Miss Pat."

"That will I!" cried Patricia, heartily. "We'll ship Judy to Mrs.

Sh.e.l.ly on an afternoon train, and make Miss Jinny feel it's her duty to chaperone us among the wild and woolly artists. Oh, it will be contemptibly easy! But," and her face fell in dismay, "what are we to wear? We haven't any party clothes, you know."

Elinor rose, and going to her bag that was still dangling from the chair back where she had flung it in her hurried preparation for dinner, took out a cardcase, and drawing forth three square bits of gray cardboard, handed them to Patricia.

"'An Arabian Nights Entertainment,'" read Patricia, mumbling in her haste. "'No guests admitted unless in costume' . . . m-m-m-m . . .

'The Sultan Haroun-al-Raschid' . . . Oh, I see! We can rig up in anything we choose,--so that it looks sort of Turkish. _Dee_-licious!

I know what to do with my rose-colored cloak right now!"

"My shawl will be stunning," rejoiced Elinor. "They've both come to us in the very nick of time. With that old silk skirt of mine, and that worn-out gold-beaded tunic of Aunt Louise's that we found in the closet at Greycroft, we'll be simply dazzling. See if we're not, Patricia Louise Kendall."

"I wonder what Miss Jinny will say to a costume?" Patricia said, her bright face clouding with the thought.

"I believe she'll like it," declared Elinor, confidently. "She does so love variety--and she has entered into everything already with such a vim."

"Perhaps she's been hungering for what she calls fripperies," said Patricia, hopefully. "She's so tremendously alive that she must need some play, and if she's only willing, we'll see that she gets it, won't we, Norn?"