Patricia gazed with astonishment at this amazing young sister of hers. "A door-mat?" she repeated blankly. "A door mat?" "For Miss Merton to walk in upon as often as she liked," retorted Judith with calm finality. "She's a very encroaching sort of person, Miss Pat. I can see that. And you want to be sure you are going to be real friends with her before you let her get too chummy with you." Patricia burst into a merry peal and even Elinor rippled with amusement at this way of looking at the matter. "'Chummy' isn't exactly the word that fits Miss Merton, Ju," she said gayly. "It sounds suspiciously like unimposing me, rather than the elegant young lady of the three-room apartment. The only thing I'm afraid of is that she'll get tired of her bargain before the week is out. I may be an awful nuisance with my scales and strummings." Then Judith was scandalized in earnest. The idea of anyone finding Miss Pat a nuisance was beyond her powers of thought, and she could not even find words to express her scorn of such an impossible state of things. Patricia rippled again at the sniff of disgust which Judith made so prodigious. "Never mind, Judy-pudy, you shall come and look me over every once in a while and see that I am being well treated. Miss Merton may be a perfect monster, after all." Judith was not to be won to speech by any such bald nonsense, and stalked homeward in thoughtful silence, hardly seeming to hear the gay chat of the other two in regard to what Miss Pat should or should not take with her to Artemis Lodge. At the door of their own apartment Patricia stood quite still with a rather blank expression. "We forgot all about asking Doris Leighton," she said. "How perfectly stupid of us." Elinor had her key in the door and she flung it open on an unlighted interior as she spoke. "Very stupid indeed, my dear," she admitted cheerfully, "but it's too late to remedy it now. Besides, I don't see how you'd have got a room in Artemis Lodge in any other way." "And that was the most important thing, after all," agreed Patricia, stumbling over a stool in the dimness. "Mercy! What's that?" The small figure which rose at their approach gave a familiar chuckling laugh and before it could speak, Judith exclaimed, "Marty Sneath, all by herself, too!" And Marty Sneath it proved to be, ahead of her schedule by nearly twenty-four hours and very much pleased with the chance to be installed in her new quarters that much sooner than had been planned. After the lights were turned on and they had all commented encouragingly on the improvement in Marty's dress and appearance, she gave them an enlivening account of all that had happened in the village since their departure, particularly dwelling on the changes in the modest home of the Sneath family since Danny's removal to the far-away school where Mr. Long had sent him.