like charades or Dumb Crambo. You can tell us if we
guess right, Bruce. I'll begin first."

Bruce laid down his cracker with a grin. "No, you don't, young 'un,"
he said decisively. "I'm not going to turn my choicest possession into
a puzzle department. I'm going to spring it myself, right now."

All eyes were upon him as he crumpled his napkin into a hard ball and
crushed it between his flexible fingers, while his face assumed an
earnest and rather anxious expression.

"I am going to ask you to think first and speak last," he began. "I
don't want you to go into it hastily or unless you're quite sure you
will like it."

"We'll like it, all right enough, if you have a hand in it," Patricia
assured him heartily.

"It's a scheme I've been thinking of for nearly a month now, and I've
made all the arrangements before I came home; but if it doesn't appeal
to you--well, there are no bones broken, and I can easily fix it up
with Miss J---- that is, I can make other arrangements."

Judith gave an impatient wriggle, but it was Patricia again who spoke.

"Please, please, _do_ tell us what it is! Suspense is so awful!"

Bruce cocked his head on one side meditatively. "I'll make a stab at
it," he acceded, and then paused, while they waited in breathless
silence.

"I've taken a studio apartment, and I've got someone to keep
house--just for a month--and I'm banking on you all coming to spend
that month with me. I want you to have this chance at some outside
work," he said to Elinor. "I'm not so keen on this academic work for a
steady job. I want you to keep up your life class, of course, but
there's a big lot of education lying around in the studios for this
short time anyway. I may not be able to offer it to you again, as I'll
have to be off as soon as this contract is finished. Will you come?"

Elinor sat looking at him with her eyes shining, and then she drew a
quick breath.

"I think it would be perfectly glorious," she said gratefully. "It's
wonderful that you should bother with us. I can't thank you----"

"Don't want any thanks," returned Bruce gruffly. "Your aunt would
understand it. I'm only beginning to pay my debt to her, and it's
going to take a mighty long while, too."

Patricia held out her hand across the cloth. "I can't kiss you, but
here's the substitute. You're a _duck_, Bruce Haydon. Where is the
studio?"

Bruce laughed in a relieved way. "That's the way to talk, Miss Pat.
I'll