d anticipation as they closed the heavy
outer door of the Academy after them.

"_Jiminy_, I wish Tuesday were here and over!" she said fervently.
"I'm scared stiff when I think of my poor little study with all those
artists focusing their eagle eyes on it."

"It does seem ages to wait," agreed Elinor. "After I turn mine in
tomorrow morning, I'll be consumed with curiosity to see the
others--particularly Doris Leighton's."

CHAPTER XI

THE LITTLE RIFT

"What do you think?" cried Patricia radiantly, swooping down on Elinor
as she came slowly out of the portrait room at high noon on the
momentous Tuesday. "What _do_ you think, Elinor Kendall? I've gotten
'Honorable Mention' for my silly little old head! Isn't it wonderful?
I'm so stunned I can't talk. I never dreamed it could have the ghost
of a show," she rattled on ecstatically. "Miss Green was paralyzed,
and Naskowski kept nodding till I thought he'd loosen his brain, and
Griffin--she got first prize you know--cheered right out loud before
them all. I was simply too limp for words, and I rushed out to tell
you right away."

Elinor's eyes filled with a glad light, and she took Patricia in her
arms. "It's perfectly glorious, Miss Pat, darling," she said with a
rapturous squeeze. "I'm so delighted I can't help kissing you on the
spot," and she did it with a heartiness that made Patricia wriggle.

"Ouch, that's my loose wisdom-tooth you're pushing against!" she
protested plaintively. "You've wobbled it all out of place, you
reckless thing. There goes the crowd into the first antique. Come
along or we'll be too late!"

The doors of the exhibition room were pushed quickly open as Mr. Benton
led the expectant band of students in for their first sight of the
prize designs, and Patricia's heart beat fast with the thrilling hope
that Elinor's might be among the first in rank.

Her eyes swept one wall and then the other, searching for the familiar
canvas, but all in vain, until she lifted them to the screen which
stood in the center of the room, and where three canvases were hung,
Elinor's below the other two.

"There it is!" she whispered eagerly, nudging Elinor to make her see.
"It's on the screen. Oh, Norn, it _must_ have----"

"Hush!" said Elinor in an undertone. "Don't make a fuss. There's
Doris Leighton waving to us from the model stand. She looks awfully
well, doesn't she? Her little vacation----"

But Patricia was impatiently deaf. "