Judith went on, scanning her face. "I dreamed that you cried about it when no one saw you and that you felt you'd never be happy again. Now don't say 'Stuff,' for it's true. And I couldn't bear it, so I thought and thought and then I went out and walked straight down to Tancredi's and I asked for her, and found her in. She was in the music-room and I went in and said, 'I am Judith Kendall, and I've come to ask about my sister.'" "Good little Ju," said Patricia as she took breath. "I believe you could really have done it." It was rather dim to read expressions, but she thought a strange look flitted across the eager face that was staring so hard at her. "You mustn't take it so seriously, Judy," she said, but Judith went on. "'I've come to see if it's true that she'll never be a great singer and I know you'll tell me,' I said to Madame Tancredi, and she just put her arm about me and kissed me quite hard." "That's what she would have done. How did you guess it?" cried Patricia. "And she said very seriously, 'Your sister, my dear, is going to be the greatest singer I have ever taught, if she keeps on as she has begun, or if some stupid silly one doesn't take her from the only right method.'" Patricia felt a surge of agonizing regret for all the bright hopes that she had lost forever, but she tried to laugh down into Judith's eager face. "That sounds exactly like Tancredi," she declared. "How strange you should dream it so truly." "It sounds true, doesn't it?" persisted Judith. "Should you be very cross with me if it weren't all a dream, Miss Pat?" Patricia's heart stopped beating for a moment and then it leaped to her throat. "What do you mean, Judith?" she called out, clutching her tightly by the shoulders. "What are you trying to tell me?" "Ow! you hurt!" returned Judith, wriggling, and then she responded to the agony of appeal in Patricia's big gray eyes. "It isn't a dream. It's true," she said. "I went this afternoon." Patricia could not take it in for a while. She had to question Judith again and again before she could accept this gift from the dark heavens. "Are you sure?" she asked over and over until Judith became impatient. "I may be only fourteen and a half and very small for my age," she said with withering dignity, "but I surely know what happened just this afternoon. I'm going back to bed now, and you can believe me or not just as you please," and in spite of Patricia's protest, she stalked away and slammed the door behind her--a very unusual thing for Judith. Patricia sat by the window in a trance of delight. The future glowed with all its old alluring colors and new ones were shining out every time she looked ahead. She was to be a singer after all. What did anything else matter? Suddenly she laughed aloud and jumping up she ran to the mirror and snapped on the light to make a radiant face at the girl in the frame.