it over
with Mrs. Elliott, and she has been kind enough to agree to it. A crowd
of us are going to the matinee on Saturday, and we want you to go. Mrs.
Morse has kindly consented to act as chaperon, and there'll be about
twelve in the party. Will you go, Patty?"

"Will I go!" cried Patty. "Indeed I will, Ken. Nothing could keep me at
home. Won't it be lots of fun?"

"Yes, it will," said Kenneth, "and I'm so glad you will go. I was afraid
you'd say those old lessons of yours were in the way."

Patty's face fell.

"I oughtn't to go," she said, "for I've promised the girls to spend
Saturday morning with them, and now this plan of yours means that I shall
lose the whole day, and I have so much to do on Saturday; an extra theme
to write, and a lot of back work to make up. Oh, Ken, I oughtn't to go."

"Oh, come ahead. You can do those things Saturday evening."

Patty sighed. She knew she wouldn't feel much like work Saturday evening,
but she couldn't resist the temptation of the gay party Saturday
afternoon. So she agreed to go, and Kenneth went away much pleased.

"What do you think, grandma?" said she. "Do you think I ought to have
given up the matinee, and stayed at home to study?"

"No, indeed," said Grandma Elliott, who was an easy-going old lady.
"You'll enjoy the afternoon with your young friends, and, as Kenneth
says, you can study in the evening."

So when Saturday came Patty spent the morning with Elise. The other girls
were there, and they really got to work on their play, and planned the
scenes and the characters.

"It will be perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Adelaide Hart. "I'm so glad for
our class to do something worth while. It will be a great deal nicer than
the tableaux of last year."

"But it will be an awful lot of work," said Hilda Henderson. "All those
costumes, though they seem so simple, will be quite troublesome to get
up, and the scenery will be no joke."

"Perhaps Mr. Hepworth will help us with the scenery," said Patty. "He did
once when we had a kind of a little play in Vernondale, where I used to
live. He's an artist, you know, and he can sketch in scenes in a minute,
and make them look as if they had taken days to do. He's awfully clever
at it, and so kind that I think he'll consent to do it."

"That will be regularly splendid!" said Elise, "and you'd better ask him
at once, Patty, so as to give him as much time as possible."

"No, I won't ask him quite yet," said Patty, laughing. "I