sketches for them on scraps of paper, which they would afterwards keep inside their lesson books as great treasures. Among others, Patty had drawn a capital picture of Miss Rowe, showing her classical features and her coils of smooth, fair hair. It was regarded as her masterpiece, and Cissie Gardiner, its lucky owner, was quite envied by the rest of the class. Cissie placed it inside her _Merchant of Venice_, and for several days rejoiced in its possession. One morning, however, the Upper Fourth was reading Shakespeare with Miss Rowe. This lesson was always held in the lecture-room instead of in the classroom, where Miss Harper was teaching the lower division, and the girls sat on chairs arranged in a semicircle round their mistress. Cissie could not resist taking a peep at her portrait, and handed it to her neighbour to admire, who passed it on to the next girl, so that in course of time it found its way down the class to Vera Clifford. Now Miss Rowe was rather handsome, but she happened to have a scar down the side of her forehead, which slightly spoilt her good looks. Patty had naturally left this out in her sketch, but Vera, who had not the same nice feeling, took a pencil and, nudging Muriel, who sat next to her, put in the mark, which showed only too plainly across the brow. "What are you doing? Pass it back at once!" whispered Cissie anxiously. Her ill-judged concern, however, had the unfortunate effect of calling Miss Rowe's attention to the piece of paper. "What have you there, Vera?" she asked. Vera tried to hand the sketch back quickly to Maud Greening, and Maud made a valiant effort to slip it inside her Shakespeare; but as Maggie Woodhall happened at that instant to jog her elbow, she dropped the book, and the paper fluttered on to the floor, almost at the teacher's feet. Miss Rowe picked it up and looked at it critically. "To whom does this belong?" she enquired sharply. "It's mine, Miss Rowe, please," said Cissie. "Did you draw it?" "No, Miss Rowe." "Then who did?" "Patty Hirst," said Cissie, who had not seen Vera's alteration, and thought the portrait so flattering and talented that she saw no reason for withholding the artist's name, and, indeed, considered Patty might well be proud of such an achievement. "Then I think Patty Hirst might employ her time more profitably," said Miss Rowe, and, turning very pink, she tore the picture across, and threw it into the waste-paper basket.