"Judith couldn't have gotten it from Doris," said Elinor positively. "I heard all that Doris said about Miss Merton, and it was rather nice. I think you must be over-sensitive, Miss Pat. Judith has been at the Lodge several times since then and she may have been talking with someone who is envious of your Rosamond. She isn't as popular as she might be, you know."
"Of course, she isn't," exclaimed Patricia, on the defensive at once. "She doesn't choose to hobnob with everyone, and so they say she's stuck up, and ultra, and exclusive. If she were as much of a snob as they say, she certainly wouldn't have chosen to take me in."
Judith had returned, carrying the salad in its green bowl. She held it precisely between her slender, pale hands as she stood still to confute this heresy.
"You know perfectly well, Miss Pat, that there isn't a prettier girl in the musical set in Artemis Lodge," she declared with a touch of wrath in her calm tones. "You are related to a famous artist, and you have Madame Milano for a friend. Miss Merton wouldn't look at you, either, if you didn't have nice clothes and good manners, besides being very well-born indeed, as she certainly knows."
With this blast delivered, Judith set the salad-bowl carefully down on the table and left the room, her head high and her mane tossing.
Patricia, instead of being amused this time, looked annoyed. "Judy's getting spoiled, Elinor," she said, turning away to ramble idly about the room. "She's as conceited a young imp as I know. These stories of hers have about turned her head. I wish you'd tell her for me that she must behave properly to Rosamond, or she'll have to stay away from the Lodge. I won't have her putting on her superior airs and looking mysterious over nothing with me."
Elinor sighed over this change in the sunny Patricia, but only said with a regretful glance at the discontented droop of her sister's golden head:
"Judith's fancies are sometimes short-lived, my dear. I shouldn't notice this one if I were you." And then to make a diversion she asked how the lessons were coming on.
Patricia brightened at once. "I believe I'm doing pretty well," she said hopefully. "Madame hardly says a word to me now, but she nods her head a good deal. And she's letting me take some new exercises already."
"That looks promising," began Elinor, pleased to have turned the current toward happier channels. "That is the best news——"