Meantime Ray had no costume to wear.

"Where's your Pierrette rig?" asked Patty.

"Over home," said Ray, disconsolately.

"Go and telephone for them to send it over, if you want it," said Patty. "Put on your long cloak, and telephone."

Ray looked at her dubiously for a moment, and then said, "No, I won't.

I'll go home and stay home,--that's what I'll do!"

"Go ahead," said Patty, blithely, who didn't feel she really owed the girl any further consideration. "And next time you try to get even with anybody, pick out some one who'll let you _stay_ even!"

"You're a hummer!" said Ray, in unwilling admiration. "How did you do it?"

"I'll tell you some other time," and Patty laughed in spite of herself at the admiration on Ray's countenance. "If you're going to get your costume over here and get into it, you want to hustle."

"Time enough," returned Ray, carelessly. "My stunt is the sixth on the program, so there's lots of time."

This was true, so Patty turned all her attention to reddening her pink cheeks, while the other girls gathered around in desperate curiosity.

"What does it all mean?" asked Ethel Merritt. "Do tell us, Miss Fairfield. Why did Ray wear your dress?"

"Ask her," said Patty, smiling. "It was a whim of hers, I guess. It made me a little bother, but all's well that ends well."

"You are the good-naturedest old goose!" cried Elise, who had an inkling of what was inexplicable to the others.

"Might as well," said Patty, serenely. "She's a hummer, Ray Rose is.

She sure is a hummer!"

And then Patty p.r.o.nounced herself finished and turned from the mirror for inspection.

"Lovely!" approved Elise, "if you admire strongly-marked features!"

Patty's cheeks and lips were very red, her eyebrows greatly darkened, and her face thickly coated with powdered chalk.

"It's awful, I know," she agreed, "but in the strong lights of the stage and the footlights too, you have to pile it on like that."

"Of course you do," said Ethel. "Mine looks the same."

Laughingly gaily, the girls went to take their places on the stage.

Bob Riggs, the ringmaster, was there and a.s.signed them their places.

Patty's performance was near the beginning of the program. She did a solo dance, first, a lovely fancy dance that she had learned in New York, and then she did the grotesque and humorous dances called for by the occasion. The one that necessitated springing, head first, through hoops covered with light, thin paper, she did very prettily, striking the taut paper with just the right force to snap it into a thousand shreds.

Her act was wildly applauded by the enthusiastic audience, and would have been several times repeated but for the scarcity of hoops.

Later came her grotesque dance with Bruin Boru, the wonderful dancing bear. Jack Fenn was very funny in his bear-skin costume, and he pawed and sc.r.a.ped as he ambled ludicrously about, and kept time to the music with mincing steps or sprawling strides.

This number was the hit of the evening, and Ray Rose had longed to perform it herself. But her plan fell through, and in her pretty Pierrette costume she did a very pleasing song and dance, but her eyes rested longingly on Patty's frilly skirts.

The last number was a chariot race. The chariots were of the low, backless variety, peculiar to circus performances, indeed they had been procured from a real circus.

Patty and Ethel Merritt drove two of these, and Bob Riggs and Jack Fenn the other two.

But there was no such mad race as is sometimes seen at the real circuses. The two men drove faster, but Patty and Ethel were content to fall behind and bring up the rear. In fact, it was in no sense of the word a race, but merely a picturesque drive of the gorgeous chariots by the gay drivers.

As Patty swept round the small arena for the last time, she beckoned to Ray Rose, who sat, a little disconsolately, near the edge of the stage platform.

"Get in!" Patty whispered, as she slowed down, and, obeying without question, Ray jumped from the stage, right into the chariot, which was large enough to hold both girls.

"Grab the reins with me!" Patty cried, and Ray did, and the final triumphant circuit was made with two laughing drivers holding the ribbons, to the deafening applause of the hilarious audience.

Bob Riggs, from his own chariot, p.r.o.nounced the entertainment over, and then the performers and audience mingled in a gay crowd, dancing and feasting till the small hours.

"I'm sorry," said Ray, penitently, to Patty, as soon as she had a good chance. "I was a wretch, and you're an angel to speak to me at all."

"I am," agreed Patty, calmly. "Not one girl in a dozen would forgive you. It was a horrid thing to do, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself and you are. I know that. But I choose to forget the whole affair, and I only ask you never to treat anybody else so meanly."

"I never will," promised Ray Rose. "I think you have cured me of that childish trick of 'getting even.'"

"Yes, till next time," said Patty, laughing.

CHAPTER VIII

A REAL POEM

"It's simply absurd of you, Patty," said Elise, as they reached home after the circus, "to let Ray Rose off so easily. She cut up an awfully mean trick, and she ought to be made to suffer for it."

"Now, now, Elise, it's my own little kettle of fish, and you must keep out of it. You see, it makes a difference who does a thing. If Ray Rose were an intimate friend of mine, I should resent her performance and make a fuss about it. But she is such a casual acquaintance,--why, probably I shall never see her again after I go away from Lakewood,--and so I consider it better judgment to ignore her silly prank, rather than stir up a fuss about it."

"I don't agree with you, you're all wrong; but tell me the whole story.

What did she do?"

"You see, she was determined to do that hoop dance, and the only way she could think of, to get me out of it, was to get me over to her house and lock me up there. It was a slim chance I had of getting out, but I managed it. She called me over by telephone, and then locked me in her bedroom. How did she get my clothes?"

"Sent a maid over here, saying that you were at her house and wanted your costume sent over. I thought you were helping her, in your usual idiotic 'helping hand' way, and I sent the dress and all the belongings."

"Well, of course, I knew nothing about all that. So, I suppose the little minx dressed herself and put on the long cloak and walked off.

She is boss in her own home, I know that, and, as I learned later, her father and mother were out to dinner, so she ordered the servants to pay no attention to any call or disturbance I might make. I sized it up, and I felt pretty sure no screaming or yelling or battering at the door would do any good, so I pondered on a move of strategy. But I couldn't think of anything for a long time, and had just about made up my mind to spend the evening there, when I made one desperate attempt and it succeeded. I wrote a note to Sarah to come over there and say she had to give me a certain medicine at that hour, or I would be ill.

And I told her to wear a thick veil and a long cloak. She did all this, and I just slipped into her cloak and hat and veil and came out the door in her place, leaving her behind. They thought it was Sarah who came out, of course."

"Fine! Patty, you're a genius! How did you get the note to Sarah?"

"Tied it to Ray's hairbrush and threw it at the feet of a young man who was going by. On the outside I wrote, 'Please take this quickly to Sarah Moore at George Farrington's,' and gave the address. I added, 'Hurry, as it is a matter of tremendous importance!' And I'd like to know who that young man was."