"We've had a lovely trip," Doris declared; "but we're awfully glad to get back to Paris. And oh, girls, I want to tell you about a plan in which we're awfully interested. There's a poor girl, an American, and her name is Leila Hunt."
"Let me tell," broke in Alicia; "she's an art student, and she's trying to support herself in Paris while she studies. And the other day we were walking through the Louvre, and we saw her there."
"Copying a picture," chimed in Doris.
"Yes, copying a picture," went on Alicia; "and she was so faint, because she doesn't have enough to eat, you know, that she fell off the stool and fainted away from sheer exhaustion."
"How dreadful!" cried Patty; "can't we help her?"
"That's just it," said Doris; "we want to help her, and we're getting up a bazaar for her benefit. But she mustn't know it, for she's awfully proud, and wouldn't like it a bit."
"You know her personally, then?" asked Elise.
"Yes; we hunted up her address and went to see her, and the poor thing is so weak and thin, but awfully brave and plucky. And papa says he'll give some money, and I thought perhaps Mr. Farrington would, too; and then we thought it might help to have a bazaar and make some money that way, and then we'll send it to her anonymously, for I don't believe she'd take it any other way."
Rosamond Barstow was present at this conversation, and she said: "I think it's a lovely plan, and I'll be glad to help. Where are you going to hold the bazaar?"
"That's the trouble," said Alicia; "we don't know any place that's just right. You see, we're at a hotel, and a bazaar in a hotel is so public. I suppose there isn't room in this house?"