on without me," said Elinor to the other
two girls as she met them in the corridor the next morning. "Mr.
Benton's awfully slow, but I can't miss this first criticism, you know."

"David'll be fearfully disappointed," remarked Judith dispassionately.
"It's his first family spree, and I think it's your duty to go, Elinor."

"Oh, I'll be through in time for the luncheon," said Elinor, hastily.
"But if I'm not out here by eleven-fifteen, you'd better start without
me. I can meet you somewhere, or you all can come over here for me."

Doris Leighton, passing, stopped for a gay word with Patricia and
Judith as they loitered in the hall. She made a laughing little
gesture of envy when she heard their program for the day, which
Patricia, eager to make amends for the unspoken slight upon her, poured
out generously.

"What fun it will be," she said, with the faintest tinge of sadness in
her lovely voice. "It must be splendid to have a brother! I have
always so longed for one."

Patricia caught herself in the act of offering her a share in David
Francis, but remembering his cold criticism of other attractive girls
in the past, closed her lips in time.

"We didn't have one till this winter," she said cheerfully. "So I
guess we appreciate him for all he's worth."

Doris Leighton's pretty eyes widened. "What in the world do you mean?"
she asked with such real interest that Patricia gladly rushed into the
tale of the kidnaping of her five-year-old twin brother, and how he had
been given up as dead for all the long years until the chance discovery
of his identity revealed him to them at the very time when they were
most in need of him. She did not dwell on the financial reinforcement
that he brought to them, feeling instinctively that the knowledge of
their straitened means would lower them in Doris Leighton's estimation,
but drew a lively picture of the jolly Christmas party they had had at
Greycroft, and the happy future they were looking forward to in their
life together.

"He's at Prep now, but he'll enter Yale next year," she ended proudly.
"He's awfully clever, though he doesn't show it. He behaves just as
silly and stupid as other boys most of the time."

"He must be a nice boy," returned the Class Beauty, with lagging
interest and a shade of condescension in her manner. "Of course, he's
young yet. I thought he was Kendall Major's twin."

Judith, who had been scanning her narrowly, opened her eyes at this,