It was rather dim to read expressions, but she thought a strange look flitted across the eager face that was staring so hard at her. "You mustn't take it so seriously, Judy," she said, but Judith went on.
"'I've come to see if it's true that she'll never be a great singer and I know you'll tell me,' I said to Madame Tancredi, and she just put her arm about me and kissed me quite hard."
"That's what she would have done. How did you guess it?" cried Patricia.
"And she said very seriously, 'Your sister, my dear, is going to be the greatest singer I have ever taught, if she keeps on as she has begun, or if some stupid silly one doesn't take her from the only right method.'"
Patricia felt a surge of agonizing regret for all the bright hopes that she had lost forever, but she tried to laugh down into Judith's eager face.
"That sounds exactly like Tancredi," she declared. "How strange you should dream it so truly."
"It sounds true, doesn't it?" persisted Judith. "Should you be very cross with me if it weren't all a dream, Miss Pat?"
Patricia's heart stopped beating for a moment and then it leaped to her throat.
"What do you mean, Judith?" she called out, clutching her tightly by the shoulders. "What are you trying to tell me?"
"Ow! you hurt!" returned Judith, wriggling, and then she responded to the agony of appeal in Patricia's big gray eyes. "It isn't a dream. It's true," she said. "I went this afternoon."