a, anxious for the credit of her school, "and of course even Miss
Pratt knows we're trying for the scrap-book prize. Oh, well, yes--of
course she's a little sniffy over it, but she can't say we mustn't."

"As long as Lesbia does her prep all right I don't see why anybody need
scream," put in Joan, taking up the cudgels for her cousin.

"Scream indeed! Really, Joan!" said her mother indignantly. "The slang
you girls talk is simply outrageous. We shall hardly know the English
language soon. As I said before, Lesbia must do her home work properly,
and I don't expect to see any drawing brought out before her preparation
and her practising are both finished, every day. You quite understand,
Lesbia?"

Lesbia, to avoid replying, passed the butter dish and the biscuits with
unnecessary officiousness, and turned the subject neatly on to Joan's
headache. She meant to produce the scrap-book cover at all costs, though
she could not fling down the challenge and proclaim her rebellious
intentions in the midst of the assembled Patterson family.

[Illustration: KINDLY INTEREST _Page 134_]

"I'd better go and ask Miss Joyce about it," she decided.

Miss Joyce still took the Arts and Crafts classes at the High School,
but she was always so busy that she had no time for private
conversations with individual pupils. For several months her remarks to
Lesbia had been confined to professional criticisms. The invitation to
come and see her at her rooms still held open, however, and Lesbia
determined to avail herself of it. She knew Miss Joyce worked in her
studio on Thursdays, and would therefore be at home to a chance visitor.

So on Thursday afternoon, when school was over, she deliberately missed
the Morton Common tram-car, banished the Pattersons temporarily from her
mind, and walked down the town to Pilgrims' Inn Chambers. She was in a
bubble of excitement. The unorthodox little outing seemed a stupendous
treat, and an immense relief from the ordinary routine of her
well-regulated life. The orderly and methodical regime of her cousins'
household was immensely good for her, but often a keen trial to her
Celtic temperament. When she was bursting to impart some piece of
information, and had run home, and begun eagerly to pour it out, Mrs.
Patterson would utterly ignore her news, and interrupt her by reminding
her that she had not changed her boots. Her moments of excited elation
were discouraged, Joan and Kitty, indeed, thought them ba