on one leg like a
marabou stork!" quizzed Sadie. "What's the matter with you?"

"Your beastly, abominable British climate!" retorted Diana. "It goes on
rain, rain, raining till I'm fed up. I want to get away somewhere, and
see something different from just school. I wasn't born for a convent!"

"I should think not!" chuckled Vi.

"But I'm in one, and I'm tired of it! I'm tired of you all! Yes, I mean
what I say!"

"Draw it mild, Stars and Stripes!" warned Sadie.

"I don't care! School's dull, and I'm bored stiff. I'll wake things up
somehow; see if I don't!"

"What'll you do, old sport?"

"Ah! _Just wait and see!_" nodded Diana, putting down the foot that had
been twisted round her leg, and stamping to get rid of the pins and
needles that followed her cramped position. "It's just possible I may
turn philanthropist, and give you all a dinky little surprise," she
added casually, as she strolled towards the door.

The studio was a large room on the upper story, with the orthodox north
windows and top-light, in the shape of a skylight. It was fitted with
desks and easels, and round its walls was a row of casts on pedestals.
The girls liked drawing afternoon well enough, but they were not in any
particular hurry to go upstairs and take out boards and pencils. It was
not until twenty-five minutes past two that Wendy, Vi, Sadie, and Peggy
came leisurely along the top landing. They opened the door of the studio
in quite an every-day manner, and walked in. Then they all four stared
and ejaculated:

"O-o-o-oh!"

"Jehosh-a-phat!"

"I say!"

"Good night!"

They might well exclaim, for a very startling and unanticipated
spectacle greeted them. The classic heads of the casts had lost their
dignity. Apollo wore a tam-o'-shanter cocked rakishly over his left ear;
Clytie had on a motor veil; Juno and Ceres were fashionably arrayed in
straw hats; a wreath of twisted paper encircled the intellectual brow of
Minerva; Psyche peered through spectacles; Perseus was decked with a
turban; and, worst of all, the beautiful upper lip of Venus sported a
moustache. Armed with a pointer stood Diana, ready, like Mrs. Jarley of
the famous waxworks, to act show-woman.

"Walk up! Walk up, ladies and gentlemen!" she began glibly. "This isn't
funny at all, it's calm and classical. Greek art up-to-date is what I
call it. If Apollo had lived in this British climate I guess he'd have
needed a tammy to keep his hair in curl; and Psyche must