skin costume, and he pawed
and scraped as he ambled ludicrously about, and kept time to the music
with mincing steps or sprawling strides.

This number was the hit of the evening, and Ray Rose had longed to
perform it herself. But her plan fell through, and in her pretty
Pierrette costume she did a very pleasing song and dance, but her eyes
rested longingly on Patty's frilly skirts.

The last number was a chariot race. The chariots were of the low,
backless variety, peculiar to circus performances, indeed they had been
procured from a real circus.

Patty and Ethel Merritt drove two of these, and Bob Riggs and Jack Fenn
the other two.

But there was no such mad race as is sometimes seen at the real
circuses. The two men drove faster, but Patty and Ethel were content
to fall behind and bring up the rear. In fact, it was in no sense of
the word a race, but merely a picturesque drive of the gorgeous
chariots by the gay drivers.

As Patty swept round the small arena for the last time, she beckoned to
Ray Rose, who sat, a little disconsolately, near the edge of the stage
platform.

"Get in!" Patty whispered, as she slowed down, and, obeying without
question, Ray jumped from the stage, right into the chariot, which was
large enough to hold both girls.

"Grab the reins with me!" Patty cried, and Ray did, and the final
triumphant circuit was made with two laughing drivers holding the
ribbons, to the deafening applause of the hilarious audience.

Bob Riggs, from his own chariot, pronounced the entertainment over, and
then the performers and audience mingled in a gay crowd, dancing and
feasting till the small hours.

"I'm sorry," said Ray, penitently, to Patty, as soon as she had a good
chance. "I was a wretch, and you're an angel to speak to me at all."

"I am," agreed Patty, calmly. "Not one girl in a dozen would forgive
you. It was a horrid thing to do, and you ought to be ashamed of
yourself and you are. I know that. But I choose to forget the whole
affair, and I only ask you never to treat anybody else so meanly."

"I never will," promised Ray Rose. "I think you have cured me of that
childish trick of 'getting even.'"

"Yes, till next time," said Patty, laughing.

CHAPTER VIII

A REAL POEM

"It's simply absurd of you, Patty," said Elise, as they reached home
after the circus, "to let Ray Rose off so easily. She cut up an
awfully mean trick, and she ought to be made to suffer for it."

"N