Hirst, I should be better
satisfied with your work."

"It's so difficult to remember all those long, hard botanical terms,"
Patty complained afterwards to Jean. "I love the flowers, and I like to
paint them and learn their English names, but I don't care in the least
if their stamens are hypogynous or their cotyledons induplicate! I think
it spoils them to pull them to pieces. They look so much prettier just
as they're growing!"

The painting of a spray of honeysuckle which Patty did for Winnie was so
beautifully done, that it was greatly envied by the other girls, all of
whom begged for contributions to their own albums, and kept the little
artist quite busy on half-holidays, or in any other leisure moments
which she could spare. It was such a pleasant occupation that Patty did
not grudge the time spent over it, and she was magnanimous enough to
forget old grievances and to allow even Vera Clifford, Maud Greening,
and Kitty Harrison to have specimens of her work, though Enid said they
did not deserve it.

"They wouldn't any of them sit next to you when we were playing games
last night," she declared, "and they were quite rude, and left you out
altogether in the proverb questions. I think it is very cool of them to
ask you. As for Muriel, I wonder she can bear to look at the lovely
poppies you painted in her book, when she treats you so horridly."

It was Patty's birthday on the 24th of October, and for fully a week
before that event she could not help noticing an unusual amount of
mystery in the conduct of her friends. Several of them would be talking
together with the greatest animation, and would drop suddenly into
silence on her arrival. Enid twice began a sentence and stopped in the
middle at a warning glance from Jean; and once, when Patty came
unexpectedly into the classroom, there was a scuffle, the lid of
Winnie's desk was banged down violently, and Winnie herself, together
with Avis Wentworth and Cissie Gardiner, looked extremely conscious, as
though they had been almost caught in some act which they wished to keep
a secret. Patty wondered mildly why Enid seemed so anxious to ascertain
whether she preferred red or blue, and whether she did not think a
bright colour was always nicer than black; and she could not understand
why her friend should one day be poring over a catalogue from the
Stores, nor why she shut it up in such a hurry, remarking rather
pointedly that Miss Lincoln had lent it to her.

"It's