Dorothy found herself in an awkward place.
She had decided to sing a pretty waltz song, for which Nancy played the accompaniment. Nancy had at first thought of playing a piano duet with Dorothy, but Dorothy pointed out that a number of the girls, when it came their turn to entertain, would surely play, and she urged Nancy to do a fine solo dance.
"It will be more of a treat," she urged, and Nancy agreed.
Patricia declared that she had studied with a fine vocal instructor since they had heard her, and she also stated that she would sing a solo, or nothing.
Patricia, when at Merrivale private school with Dorothy and Nancy, had done some very funny singing, and Dorothy felt a bit nervous as to what she would do now, but Patricia insisted that she had rapidly improved, and there seemed to be no choice but to let her sing.
"Do make her tell you what she's going to sing," Nancy said, one morning, "because if she has chosen something you wouldn't like to have her sing, you _might_ be able to coax her to change it."
Dorothy promised to question Patricia, but she laughed at the idea of being able to make Patricia change her mind after she had decided what she should do.
"What am I to sing?" said Patricia, when at recess Dorothy questioned her. "I'm going to sing something from grand opera. It's called:
'I dreampt that I dwelt in marble halls,'
and my teacher coached me on it, and he said I sang it just as it should be sung."
"If her teacher said that she sang it well, perhaps it will be all right," Dorothy said, but even as she said it she wondered just what Patricia would do. Patricia _might_ do anything.
Dorothy took the time to practice when all of the pupils were out of doors at recess. She did not wish them to hear her song until she should sing it for them at the social.
Nancy practiced her solo at early morning. Mrs. Marvin had given her permission to practice in their reception hall when she learned at what an early hour Nancy was willing to rise in order to do it.
Patricia declared it entirely needless for her to practice, thus making Dorothy still more uneasy as to her performance.
Dorothy had told herself that if, after all, Patricia did anything as "queer" as she had been known to do, worrying beforehand would not mend matters. She knew if she became nervous regarding Patricia, she could not do her own solo well. Patricia had asked that her number might be the last on the program, and Dorothy had agreed.