"We'll meet you at the door on Charter Street," Elinor reminded her, as she kissed her. "Be sure to be there on time."
"I'll remember," laughed Judith, her anticipation of the delights of lunching at the Academy with grown-up artists shining in her starry eyes. "I'm perfectly crazy over it. I'm going to write all about it in my diary."
"Then we shall be handed down to fame!" cried Patricia, giving Judith a very hard squeeze and pinching her thin cheeks into color. "Look us over well, Judy-pudy, and see how much you can make of your two illustrious sisters; for I feel sure that I, for one, will never have a chance to be 'writ up' again."
"Oh, go along, Miss Pat! You'll be awfully late," said Judith, wriggling away, flushed and happy.
Patricia watched, flying up the stairs two steps at a time, and she turned to Elinor, with her hand on the door.
"Ju's a clever young monkey, in spite of her grannified airs," she said, warmly. "If we can only get some of the starch out of her by the time she's old enough to take notice, her dream of being a great writer may come half-way true."
"If she's going to be a writer, she'll drop her dignified pose soon enough," predicted Elinor easily. "She'll be too much interested in other people and things to remember herself too vividly."
"That's so," admitted Patricia readily. "You always hit the nail on the head, old lady. Now I must run. See you later," and closing the door behind her, she ran down the steps and hurried off through the tingling morning air, with her parcel tight under her arm and a kindling light on her mobile face.
"I do hope they like it and won't be too hard on me," she thought, as she hastened on. "It took a lot of trouble to make all the little figures, but if they'll only let me off from speechifying, I'll feel it was worth it."
There was no one in the modeling room but Naskowski, the silent, heavy-shouldered Slav who toiled early and late making up for his lost youth. Him Patricia held to be as impersonal as any of the other furnishings of the room, and she readily took him into her plan.