it was Kid herself who shaped the clay.

Her spicy reminiscences of mining-camps and cattle ranches made all
permissible works of fiction tame. She had given the French dancing
master, who was teaching them a polite version of a Spanish waltz, an
exposition of the real thing, as practised by the Mexican cow-punchers
on her guardian's ranch. It was a performance that left him
sympathetically breathless. The English riding master, who came weekly
in the spring and autumn, to teach the girls a correct trot, had
received a lesson in bareback riding that caused the dazed query:

"Was the young lady trained in a circus?"

The Kid was noisy and slangy and romping and boisterous; her way was
beset with reproofs and demerits and minor punishments, but she had
never yet been guilty of any actual felony. For three years, however,
St. Ursula's had been holding its breath waiting for the crash. Miss
McCoy, from her very nature, was bound to give them a sensation
sometime.

When at last it came, it was of an entirely unexpected order.

Rosalie Patton was the Kid's latest room-mate--- she wore her room-mates
out as fast as she did her shoes. Rosalie was a lovable little soul, the
essence of everything feminine. The Dowager had put the two together, in
the hope that Rosalie's gentle example might calm the Kid's tempestuous
mood. But so far, the Kid was in her usual spirits, while Rosalie was
looking worn.

Then the change came.

Rosalie burst into Patty Wyatt's room one evening in a state of
wide-eyed amazement.

"What do you think?" she cried. "Kid McCoy says she's going to be a
lady!"

"A what?" Patty emerged from the bath towel with which she had been
polishing her face.

"A _lady_. She's sitting down now, running pale blue baby ribbon through
the embroidery in her night gown."

"What's happened to her?" was Patty's question.

"She's been reading a book that Mae Mertelle brought back."

Rosalie settled herself, Turk fashion, on the window seat, disposed the
folds of her pink kimono in graceful billows about her knees, and
allowed two braids of curly yellow hair to hang picturesquely over her
shoulders. She was ready for bed and could extend her call until the
last stroke of the "Lights-out" bell.

"What kind of a book?" asked Patty with a slightly perfunctory note in
her voice.

Rosalie was apt to burst into one's room with a startling announcement
and then, having engaged everybody's attention, settle down to an