[Illustration: Patty]

When Patty Went to College

By

Jean Webster

 With Illustrations by C. D. Williams

[Illustration]

 New York The Century Co. 1903

 Copyright, 1903, by THE CENTURY CO. 

 Copyright, 1901, 1902, by TRUTH CO. 

 * * * * *

 _Published March, 1903_

 * * * * *

 THE DEVINNE PRESS

 TO 234 MAIN AND THE GOOD TIMES WE HAVE HAD THERE

Contents

 PAGE I PETERS THE SUSCEPTIBLE 1 II AN EARLY FRIGHT 21 III THE IMPRESSIONABLE MR. TODHUNTER 39 IV A QUESTION OF ETHICS 57 V THE ELUSIVE KATE FERRIS 73 VI A STORY WITH FOUR SEQUELS 89 VII IN PURSUIT OF OLD ENGLISH 103 VIII THE DECEASED ROBERT 121 IX PATTY THE COMFORTER 133 X "PER L'ITALIA" 147 XI "LOCAL COLOR" 177 XII THE EXIGENCIES OF ETIQUETTE 203 XIII A CRASH WITHOUT 215 XIV THE MYSTERY OF THE SHADOWED SOPHOMORE 237 XV PATTY AND THE BISHOP 257

List of Illustrations

 FACING PAGE

 Patty _Frontispiece_

 Men know such a lot about such things! 18

 Mr. Algernon Vivian Todhunter, gingerly sitting on the edge of a chair 54

 What's the matter, Patty? 110

 Olivia Copeland 172

 I have just run away from you, Bishop Copeley 266

I

Peters the Susceptible

"Paper-weights, " observed Patty, sucking an injured thumb, "wereevidently not made for driving in tacks. I wish I had a hammer. "

This remark called forth no response, and Patty peered down from the topof the step-ladder at her room-mate, who was sitting on the floordragging sofa-pillows and curtains from a dry-goods box. 

"Priscilla, " she begged, "you aren't doing anything useful. Go down andask Peters for a hammer. "

Priscilla rose reluctantly. "I dare say fifty girls have already beenafter a hammer. "

"Oh, he has a private one in his back pocket. Borrow that. And, Pris, "--Patty called after her over the transom, --"just tell him tosend up a man to take that closet door off its hinges. "

Patty, in the interval, sat down on the top step and surveyed the chaosbeneath her. An Oriental rush chair, very much out at the elbows, several miscellaneous chairs, two desks, a divan, a table, and twodry-goods boxes radiated from the center of the room. The floor, as itshowed through the interstices, was covered with a grass-green carpet, while the curtains and hangings were of a not very subdued crimson. 

"One would scarcely, " Patty remarked to the furniture in general, "callit a symphony in color. "

A knock sounded on the door. 

"Come in, " she called. 

A girl in a blue linen sailor-suit reaching to her ankles, and with abraid of hair hanging down her back, appeared in the doorway. Pattyexamined her in silence. The girl's eyes traveled around the room insome surprise, and finally reached the top of the ladder. 

"I--I'm a freshman, " she began. 

"My dear, " murmured Patty, in a deprecatory tone, "I should have takenyou for a senior; but"--with a wave of her hand toward the nearestdry-goods box--"come in and sit down. I need your advice. Now, there areshades of green, " she went on, as if continuing a conversation, "whichare not so bad with red; but I ask you frankly if _that_ shade of greenwould go with anything?"

The freshman looked at Patty, and looked at the carpet, and smileddubiously. "No, " she admitted; "I don't believe it would. "

"I knew you would say that!" exclaimed Patty, in a tone of relief. "Nowwhat would you advise us to do with the carpet?"

The freshman looked blank. "I--I don't know, unless you take it up, " shestammered. 

"The very thing!" said Patty. "I wonder we hadn't thought of it before. "

Priscilla reappeared at this point with the announcement, "Peters isthe most suspicious man I ever knew!" But she stopped uncertainly as shecaught sight of the freshman. 

"Priscilla, " said Patty, severely, "I _hope_ you didn't divulge the factthat we are hanging the walls with tapestry"--this with a wave of herhand toward the printed cotton cloth dangling from the molding. 

"I tried not to, " said Priscilla, guiltily, "but he read 'tapestry' inmy eyes. He had no sooner looked at me than he said, 'See here, miss;you know it's against the rules to hang curtains on the walls, and youmustn't put nails in the plastering, and I don't believe you need ahammer anyway. '"

"Disgusting creature!" said Patty. 

"But, " continued Priscilla, hastily, "I stopped and borrowed GeorgieMerriles's hammer on my way back. Oh, I forgot, " she added; "he says wecan't take the closet door off its hinges--that as soon as we get oursoff five hundred other young ladies will be wanting theirs off, andthat it would take half a dozen men all summer to put them back again. "

A portentous frown was gathering on Patty's brow, and the freshman, wishing to avert a possible domestic tragedy, inquired timidly, "Who isPeters?"

"Peters, " said Priscilla, "is a short, bow-legged gentleman with a redVandyke beard, whose technical title is janitor, but who is reallydictator. Every one is afraid of him--even Prexy. "

"I'm not, " said Patty; "and, " she added firmly, "that door is comingdown whether he says so or not, so I suppose we shall have to do itourselves. " Her eyes wandered back to the carpet and her facebrightened. "Oh, Pris, we've got a beautiful new scheme. My friend heresays she doesn't like the carpet at all, and suggests that we take itup, get some black paint, and put it on the floor ourselves. I agree, "she added, "that a Flemish oak floor covered with rugs would be a greatimprovement. "

Priscilla glanced uncertainly from the freshman to the floor. "Do youthink they'd let us do it?"

"It would never do to ask them, " said Patty. 

The freshman rose uneasily. "I came, " she said hesitatingly, "to findout--that is, I understand that the girls rent their old books, and Ithought, if you wouldn't mind--"

"Mind!" said Patty, reassuringly. "We'd rent our souls for fifty cents asemester. "

"It--it was a Latin dictionary I wanted, " said the freshman, "and thegirls next door said perhaps you had one. "

"A beautiful one, " said Patty. 

"No, " interrupted Priscilla; "hers is lost from O to R, and it's alltorn; but mine, "--she dived down into one of the boxes and hauled out achunky volume without any covers, --"while it is not so beautiful as itwas once, it is still as useful. "

"Mine's annotated, " said Patty, "and illustrated. I'll show you what asuperior book it is, " and she began descending the ladder; butPriscilla charged upon her and she retreated to the top again. "Why, "she wailed to the terrified freshman, "did you not say you wanted adictionary before she came back? Let me give you some advice at thebeginning of your college career, " she added warningly. "Never choose aroom-mate bigger than yourself. They're dangerous. "

The freshman was backing precipitously toward the door, when it openedand revealed an attractive-looking girl with fluffy reddish hair. 

"Pris, you wretch, you walked off with my hammer!"

"Oh, Georgie, we need it worse than you do! Come in and help tack. "

"Hello, Georgie, " called Patty, from the ladder. "Isn't this room goingto be beautiful when it's finished?"

Georgie looked about. "You are more sanguine than I should be, " shelaughed. 

"You can't tell yet, " Patty returned. "We're going to cover thewall-paper with this red stuff, and paint the floor black, and have darkfurniture, and red hangings, and soft lights. It will look just like theOriental Room in the Waldorf. "

"How in the world, " Georgie demanded, "do you ever make them let you doall these things? I stuck in three innocent little thumb-tacks to-day, and Peters descended upon me bristling with wrath, and said he'd reportme if I didn't pull them out. "

"We never ask, " explained Patty. "It's the only way. "

"You've got enough to do if you expect to get settled by Monday, "Georgie remarked. 

"_C'est vrai_, " agreed Patty, descending the ladder with a sudden accessof energy; "and you've got to stay and help us. We have to get all thisfurniture moved into the bedrooms and the carpet up before we even_begin_ to paint. " She regarded the freshman tentatively. "Are youawfully busy?"

"Not very. My room-mate hasn't come yet, so I can't settle. "

"That's nice; then you can help us move furniture. "

"Patty!" said Priscilla, "I think you are too bad. "

"I should really love to stay and help, if you'll let me. "

"Certainly, " said Patty, obligingly. "I forgot to ask your name, " shecontinued, "and I don't suppose you like to be called 'Freshman'; it'snot specific enough. "

"My name is Genevieve Ainslee Randolph. "

"Genevieve Ains--dear me! I can't remember anything like that. Do youmind if I call you Lady Clara Vere de Vere for short?"

The freshman looked doubtful, and Patty proceeded: "Lady Clara, allow meto present my room-mate Miss Priscilla Pond--no relation to the extract. She's athletic and wins hundred-yard dashes and hurdle races, and getsher name in the paper to a really gratifying extent. And my dear friendMiss Georgie Merriles, one of the oldest families in Dakota. MissMerriles is very talented--sings in the glee club, plays on the comb--"

"And, " interrupted Georgie, "let me present Miss Patty Wyatt, who--"

"Has no specialty, " said Patty, modestly, "but is merely good andbeautiful and bright. "

A knock sounded on the door, which opened without waiting for aresponse. "Miss Theodora Bartlet, " continued Patty, "commonly known asthe Twin, Miss Vere de Vere. "

The Twin looked dazed, murmured, "Miss Vere de Vere, " and dropped downon a dry-goods box. 

"The term 'Twin, '" explained Patty, "is used in a merely allegoricalsense. There is really only one of her. The title was conferred in herfreshman year, and the reason has been lost in the dim dawn ofantiquity. "

The freshman looked at the Twin and opened her mouth, but shut it againwithout saying anything. 

"My favorite maxim, " said Patty, "has always been, 'Silence is golden. 'I observe that we are kindred spirits. "

"Patty, " said Priscilla, "do stop bothering that poor child and get towork. "

"Bothering?" said Patty. "I am not bothering her; we are just gettingacquainted. However, I dare say it is not the time for hollowcivilities. Do you want to borrow anything?" she added, turning to theTwin, "or did you just drop in to pay a social call?"

"Just a social call; but I think I'll come in again when there's nofurniture to move. "

"You don't happen to be going into town this afternoon?"

"Yes, " said the Twin. "But, " she added guardedly, "if it's acurtain-pole, I refuse to bring it out. I offered to bring one out forLucille Carter last night, because she was in a hurry to give ahouse-warming, and I speared the conductor with it getting into the car;and while I was apologizing to him I knocked Mrs. Prexy's hat off withthe other end. "

"We have all the curtain-poles we need, " said Patty. "It's just somepaint--five cans of black paint, and three brushes at the ten-centstore, and thank you very much. Good-by. Now, " she continued, "the firstthing is to get that door down, and I will wrest a screw-driver from theunwilling Peters while you remove tacks from the carpet. "

"He won't give you one, " said Priscilla. 

"You'll see, " said Patty. 

Five minutes later she returned waving above her head an unmistakablescrew-driver. "_Voilà, mes amies!_ Peters's own private screw-driver, for which I am to be personally responsible. "

"How did you get it?" inquired Priscilla, suspiciously. 

"You act, " said Patty, "as if you thought I knocked him down in somedark corner and robbed him. I merely asked him for it politely, and heasked me what I wanted to do with it. I told him I wanted to take outscrews, and the reason impressed him so that he handed it over withouta word. Peters, " she added, "is a dear; only he's like every otherman--you have to use diplomacy. "

By ten o'clock that night the study carpet of 399 was neatly folded anddeposited at the end of the corridor above, whence its origin would bedifficult to trace. The entire region was steeped in an odor ofturpentine, and the study floor of 399 was a shining black, except forfour or five unpainted spots which Patty designated as "stepping-stones, "and which were to be treated later. Every caller that had dropped induring the afternoon or evening had had a brush thrust into her hand andhad been made to go down upon her knees and paint. Besides the floor, three bookcases and a chair had been transferred from mahogany toFlemish oak, and there was still half a can of paint left which Pattywas anxiously trying to dispose of. 

The next morning, in spite of the difficulty of getting about, thestep-ladder had been reërected, and the business of tapestry-hangingwas going forward with enthusiasm, when a knock suddenly interrupted thework. 

Patty, all unconscious of impending doom, cheerily called, "Come in!"

The door opened, and the figure of Peters appeared on the threshold; andPriscilla basely fled, leaving her room-mate stranded on the ladder. 

"Are you the young lady who borrowed my screw--" Peters stopped andlooked at the floor, and his jaw dropped in astonishment. "Where is thatthere carpet?" he demanded, in a tone which seemed to imply that hethought it was under the paint. 

"It's out in the hall, " said Patty, pleasantly. "Please be careful anddon't step on the paint. It's a great improvement, don't you think?"

"You oughter got permission--" he began, but his eye fell on thetapestry and he stopped again. 

"Yes, " said Patty; "but we knew you couldn't spare a man just now topaint it for us, so we didn't like to trouble you. "

"It's against the rules to hang curtains on the walls. "

"I have heard that it was, " said Patty, affably, "and I think ordinarilyit's a very good rule. But just look at the color of that wall-paper. It's pea-green. You have had enough experience with wall-paper, Mr. Peters, to know that _that_ is impossible, especially when ourwindow-curtains and portières are red. "

Peters's eyes had traveled to the closet, bereft of its door. "Are youthe young lady, " he demanded gruffly, "who asked me to have that doortaken off its hinges?"

"No, " said Patty; "I think that must have been my room-mate. It was_very_ heavy, " she continued plaintively, "and we had a great deal oftrouble getting it down, but of course we realized that you were awfullybusy, and that it really wasn't your fault. That's what I wanted thescrew-driver for, " she added. "I'm sorry that I didn't get it back lastnight, but I was very tired, and I forgot. "

[Illustration: Men know such a lot about such things!]

Peters merely grunted. He was examining a corner cabinet hanging on thewall. "Didn't you know, " he asked severely, "that it's against the rulesto put nails in the plaster?"

"Those aren't nails, " expostulated Patty. "They're hooks. I rememberedthat you didn't like holes, so I only put in two, though I am reallyafraid that three are necessary. What do you think, Mr. Peters? Does itseem solid?"

Peters shook it. "It's solid enough, " he said sulkily. As he turned, hiseye fell on the table in Priscilla's bedroom. "Is that a gas-stove inthere?" he demanded. 

Patty shrugged her shoulders. "An apology for one--be _careful_, Mr. Peters! _Don't_ get against that bookcase. It's just painted. "

Peters jumped aside, and stood like the Colossus of Rhodes, with onefoot on one stepping-stone, and the other on another three feet away. Itis hard for even a janitor to be dignified in such a position, andwhile he was gathering his scattered impressions Patty looked longinglyaround the room for some one to enjoy the spectacle with her. She feltthat the silence was becoming ominous, however, and she hastened tointerrupt it. 

"There's something wrong with that stove; it won't burn a bit. I amafraid we didn't put it together just right. I shouldn't be surprised if_you_ might be able to tell what's the matter with it, Mr. Peters. " Shesmiled sweetly. "Men know such a lot about such things! Would you mindlooking at it?"

Peters grunted again; but he approached the stove. 

Five minutes later, when Priscilla stuck her head in to find out if, bychance, anything remained of Patty, she saw Peters on his knees on thefloor of her bedroom, with the dismembered stove scattered about him, and heard him saying, "I don't know as I have any call to report you, for I s'pose, since they're up, they might as well stay"; and Patty'svoice returning: "You're _very_ kind, Mr. Peters. Of course if we'd_known_--" Priscilla shut the door softly, and retired around the cornerto await Peters's departure. 

"How in the world did you manage him?" she asked, bursting in as soon asthe sound of his footsteps had died away down the corridor. "I expectedto sing a requiem over your remains, and I found Peters on his knees, engaged in amicable conversation. "

Patty smiled inscrutably. "You must remember, " she said, "that Peters isnot only a janitor: he is also a man. "

II

An Early Fright

"I'll make the tea to-day, " said Patty, graciously. 

"As you please, " said Priscilla, with a skeptical shrug. 

Patty bustled about amid a rattle of china. "The cups are rather dusty, "she observed dubiously. 

"You'd better wash them, " Priscilla returned. 

"No, " said Patty; "it's too much trouble. Just close the blinds, please, and we'll light the candles, and that will do as well. Come in, " shecalled in answer to a knock. 

Georgie Merriles, Lucille Carter, and the Bartlet Twin appeared in thedoorway. 

"Did I hear the two P's were going to serve tea this afternoon?"inquired the Twin. 

"Yes; come in. I'm going to make it myself, " answered Patty, "and you'llsee how much more attentive a hostess I am than Priscilla. Here, Twin, "she added, "you take the kettle out and fill it with water; and, Lucille, please go and borrow some alcohol from the freshmen at the endof the corridor; our bottle's empty. I'd do it myself, only I'veborrowed such a lot lately, and they don't know you, you see. And--oh, Georgie, you're an obliging dear; just run down-stairs to the store andget some sugar. I think I saw some money in that silver inkstand onPriscilla's desk. "

"We've got some sugar, " objected Priscilla. "I bought a whole poundyesterday. "

"No, my lamb; we haven't got it any more. I lent it to Bonnie Connaughtlast night. Just hunt around for the spoons, " she added. "I think I sawthem on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, behind Kipling. "

"And what, may I ask, are _you_ going to do?" inquired Priscilla. 

"I?" said Patty. "Oh, I am going to sit in the arm-chair and preside. "

Ten minutes later, the company being disposed about the room oncushions, and the party well under way, it was discovered that therewere no lemons. 

"Are you sure?" asked Patty, anxiously. 

"Not one, " said Priscilla, peering into the stein where the lemons werekept. 

"I, " said Georgie, "refuse to go to the store again. "

"No matter, " said Patty, graciously; "we can do very well without them. "(She did not take lemon herself. ) "The object of tea is not for the sakeof the tea, but for the conversation which accompanies it, and one mustnot let accidents annoy him. You see, young ladies, " she went on, in thetone of an instructor giving a lecture, "though I have just spilled thealcohol over the sugar, I appear not to notice it, but keep up an easyflow of conversation to divert my guests. A repose of manner is aboveall things to be cultivated. " Patty leaned languidly back in her chair. "To-morrow is Founder's Day, " she resumed in a conversational tone. "Iwonder if many--"

"That reminds me, " interrupted the Twin. "You girls needn't save anydances for my brother. I got a letter from him this morning saying hecouldn't come. "

"He hasn't broken anything, has he?" Patty asked sympathetically. 

"Broken anything?"

"Ah--an arm, or a leg, or a neck. Accidents are so prevalent aboutFounder's time. "

"No; he was called out of town on important business. "

"Important business!" Patty laughed. "Dear man! why couldn't he havethought of something new?"

"I think myself it was just an excuse, " the Twin acknowledged. "Heseemed to have an idea that he would be the only man here, and that, alone and unaided, he would have to dance with all six hundred girls. "

Patty shook her head sadly. "They're all alike. Founder's wouldn't beFounder's if half the guests didn't develop serious illness or importantbusiness or dead relations the last minute. The only safe way is toinvite three men and make out one program. "

"I simply can't realize that to-morrow is Founder's, " said Priscilla. "It doesn't seem a week since we unpacked our trunks after vacation, andbefore we know it we shall be packing them again for Christmas. "

"Yes; and before we know it we'll be unpacking them again, withexaminations three weeks ahead, " said Georgie the pessimist. 

"Oh, for the matter of that, " returned Patty the optimist, "before weknow it we'll be walking up one side of the platform for our diplomasand coming down the other side blooming alumnæ. "

"And then, " sighed Georgie, "before we even have time to decide on acareer, we'll be old ladies, telling our grandchildren to stand upstraight and remember their rubbers. "

"And, " said Priscilla, "before any of us get any tea we'll be in ourgraves, if you don't stop talking and watch that kettle. "

"It's boiling, " said Patty. 

"Yes, " said Priscilla; "it's been boiling for ten minutes. "

"It's hot, " said Patty. 

"I should think it might be, " said Priscilla. 

"And now the problem is, how to get it off without burning one's self. "

"You're presiding to-day; you must solve your own problems. "

"'Tis an easy matter, " and Patty hooked it off on the end of agolf-club. "Young ladies, " she said, with a wave of the kettle, "thereis nothing like a college education to teach you a way out of everydifficulty. If, when you are out in the wide, wide world--"

 "Where, oh, where are the grave old seniors?"

chanted the Twin. 

 "Where, oh, where are they?"

The rest took it up, and Patty waited patiently. 

 "They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics, They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics, They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics, Into the wide, wide w-o-r-l-d. "

"If you have finished your ovation, young ladies, I will proceed with mylecture. When, as I say, you are out in the wide, wide world, makingfive-o'clock tea some afternoon for one of the young men popularlysupposed to be there, who have dropped in to make an afternoon call--Doyou follow me, young ladies, or do I speak too fast? If, while you areengaged in conversation, the kettle should become too hot, do not putyour finger in your mouth and shriek 'Ouch!' and coquettishly say to theyoung man, '_You_ take it off, ' as might a young woman who has notenjoyed your advantages; but, rather, rise to the emergency; say to himcalmly, 'This kettle has become over-heated; may I trouble you to gointo the hall and bring an umbrella?' and when he returns you can hookit off gracefully and expeditiously as you have seen me do, youngladies, and the young--"

"Patty, take care!" This from Priscilla. 

"O-u-c-h!" in a long-drawn wail. This from Georgie. 

Patty hastily set the kettle down on the floor. "I'm awfully sorry, Georgie. Does it hurt?"

"Not in the least. It's really a pleasant sensation to have boilingwater poured over you. "

The Bartlet Twin sniffed. "I smell burning rug. "

Patty groaned. "I resign, Pris; I resign. Here, you preside. I'll neverask to make it again. "

"I should like, " observed the Twin, "to see Patty entertaining a youngman. "

"It's not such an unprecedented event, " said Patty, with some warmth. "You can watch me to-morrow night if it will give you so muchpleasure. "

"To-morrow night? Are you going to have a man for the Prom?"

"That, " said Patty, "is my intention. "

"And you haven't asked me for a dance!" This in an aggrieved chorus fromthe entire room. 

"I haven't asked any one, " said Patty, with dignity. 

"Do you mean you're going to have all of the twenty dances with himyourself?"

"Oh, no; I don't expect to dance more than ten with him myself--Ihaven't made out his card yet, " she added. 

"Why not?"

"I never do. "

"Has he been here before, then?"

"No; that's the reason. "

"The reason for what?"

"Well, " Patty deigned to explain, "I've invited him for every partysince freshman year. "

"And did he decline?"

"No; he accepted, but he never came. "

"Why not?"

"He was scared. "

"Scared? Of the girls?"

"Yes, " said Patty, "partly--but mostly of the faculty. "

"The _faculty_ wouldn't hurt him. "

"Of course not; but he couldn't understand that. You see, he had afright when he was young. "

"A fright? What was it?"

"Well, " said Patty, "it happened this way: It was while I was atboarding-school. He was at Andover then, and his home was in the South;and one time when he went through Washington he stopped off to call onme. As it happened, the butler had left two days before, and had takenwith him all the knives and forks, and all the money he could find, andNancy Lee's gold watch and two hat-pins, and my silver hair-brush, and abottle of brandy, and a pie, " she enumerated with a conscientious regardfor details; "and Mrs. Trent--that's the principal--had advertised for anew butler. "

"I should have thought the old one would have discouraged her fromkeeping butlers, " said Georgie. 

"You _would_ think so, " said Patty; "but she was a very perseveringwoman. On the day that Raoul--that's his name--came to call, nineteenpeople had applied for the place, and Mrs. Trent was worn out frominterviewing them. So she told Miss Sarah--that's her daughter--toattend to those who came in the evening. Miss Sarah was tall and worespectacles, and was--was--"

"A good disciplinarian, " suggested the Twin. 

"Yes, " said Patty, feelingly, "an _awfully_ good disciplinarian. Well, when Raoul got there he gave his card to Ellen and asked for me; butEllen didn't understand, and she called Miss Sarah, and when Miss Sarahsaw him in his evening clothes she--"

"Took him for a butler, " put in Georgie. 

"Yes, she took him for a butler; and she looked at the card he'd givenEllen, and said icily, 'What does this mean?'

"'It's--it's my name, ' he stammered. 

"'I see, ' said Miss Sarah; 'but where is your recommendation?'

"'I didn't know it was necessary, ' he said, terribly scared. 

"'Of course it's necessary, ' Miss Sarah returned. 'I can't allow you tocome into the house unless I have letters from the places where you'vebeen before. '

"'I didn't suppose you were so strict, ' he said. 

"'We have to be strict, ' Miss Sarah answered firmly. 'Have you had muchexperience?'

"He didn't know what she meant, but he thought it would be safest to sayhe hadn't. 

"'Then of course you won't do, ' she replied. 'How old are you?'

"He was so frightened by this time that he couldn't remember. 'Nineteen, ' he gasped--'I mean twenty. '

"Miss Sarah saw his confusion, and thought he had designs on some ofthe heiresses intrusted to her care. 'I don't see how you _dared_ tocome here, ' she said severely. 'I should not think of having you in thehouse for a moment. You're altogether too young and too good-looking. 'And with that Raoul got up and bolted. 

"When Ellen told Miss Sarah the next day that he'd asked for me, she wasterribly mortified, and she made me write and explain, and invite him todinner; but wild horses couldn't have dragged him into the house again. He's been afraid to stop off in Washington ever since. He always goesstraight through on a sleeper, and says he has nightmares even then. "

"And is that why he won't come to the college?"

"Yes, " said Patty; "that's the reason. I told him we didn't have anybutlers here; but he said we had lady faculty, and that's as bad. "

"But I thought you said he _was_ coming to the Prom. "

"He is this time. "

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, " said Patty, with ominous emphasis, "I'm sure. He knows, " sheadded, "what will happen if he doesn't. "

"What will happen?" asked the Twin. 

"Nothing. "

The Twin shook her head, and Georgie inquired, "Then why don't you makeout his program?"

"I suppose I might as well. I didn't do it before because it sort ofseemed like tempting Providence. I didn't want to be the cause of anyreally _serious_ accident happening to him, " she explained a trifleambiguously as she got out pencil and paper. "What dances can you giveme, Lucille? And you, Georgie, have you got the third taken?"

While this business was being settled, a knock unheeded had sounded onthe door. It came again. 

"What's that?" asked Priscilla. "Did some one knock? Come in. "

The door opened, and a maid stood upon the threshold with a yellowenvelop in her hand. She peered uncertainly around the darkened roomfrom one face to another. "Miss Patty Wyatt?" she asked. 

Patty stretched out her hand in silence for the envelop, and, proppingit up on her desk, looked at it with a grim smile. 

"What is it, Patty? Aren't you going to read it?"

"There's no need. I know what it says. "

"Then I'll read it, " said Priscilla, ripping it open. 

"Is it a leg or an arm?" Patty inquired with mild curiosity. 

"Neither, " said Priscilla; "it's a collar-bone. "

"Oh, " murmured Patty. 

"What is it?" demanded Georgie the curious. "Read it out loud. "

 "NEW HAVEN, November 29. 

 "Broke collar-bone playing foot-ball. Honest Injun. Terribly sorry. Better luck next time. "

 "RAOUL. "

"There will not, " observed Patty, "_be_ a next time. "

III

The Impressionable Mr. Todhunter

"Has the mail been around yet?" called Priscilla to a girl at the otherend of the corridor. 

"Don't believe so. It hasn't been in our room. "

"There she comes now!" and Priscilla swooped down upon the mail-girl. "Got anything for 399?"

"Do you want Miss Wyatt's mail too?"

"Yes; I'll take everything. What a lot! Is that all for us?" AndPriscilla walked down the corridor swinging her note-book by itsshoe-string, and opening envelops as she went. She was presently joinedby Georgie Merriles, likewise swinging a note-book by a shoe-string. 

"Hello, Pris; going to English? Want me to help carry your mail?"

"Thank you, " said Priscilla; "you may keep the most of it. Now, that, "she added, holding out a blue envelop, "is an advertisement for coldcream which no lady should be without; and that"--holding out a yellowenvelop--"is an advertisement for beef extract which no brain-workershould be without; and that"--holding out a white envelop--"is the worstof all, because it looks like a legitimate letter, and it's nothing buta 'Dear Madam' thing, telling me my tailor has moved from Twenty-secondto Forty-third Street, and hopes I'll continue to favor him with mypatronage. 

"And here, " she went on, turning to her room-mate's correspondence, "isa cold-cream and a beef-extract letter for Patty, and one from Yale;that's probably Raoul explaining why he couldn't come to the Prom. Itwon't do any good, though. No mortal man can ever make her believe hedidn't have his collar-bone broken on purpose. And I don't know whomthat's from, " Priscilla continued, examining the last letter. "It'smarked 'Hotel A----, New York. ' Never heard of it, did you? Never sawthe writing before, either. "

Georgie laughed. "Do you keep tab on all of Patty's correspondents?"

"Oh, I know the most of them by this time. She usually reads theinteresting ones out loud, and the ones that aren't interesting shenever answers, so they stop writing. Hurry up; the bell's going toring"; and they pushed in among the crowd of girls on the steps of therecitation-hall. 

The bell did ring just as they reached the class-room, and Priscilladropped the letters, without comment, into Patty's lap as she went past. Patty was reading poetry and did not look up. She had assimilated someten pages of Shelley since the first bell rang, and as she was not surewhich would be taken up in class, she was now swallowing Wordsworth inthe same voracious manner. Patty's method in Romantic Poetry was to bevery fresh on the first part of the lesson, catch the instructor's eyeearly in the hour, make a brilliant recitation, and pass the remainderof the time in gentle meditation. 

To-day, however, the unwonted bulk of her correspondence diverted hermind from its immediate duty. She failed to catch the instructor's eye, and the recitation proceeded without her assistance. Priscilla watchedher from the back seat as she read the Yale letter with a skepticalfrown, and made a grimace over the blue and the yellow; but before shehad reached the Hotel A----, Priscilla was paying attention to therecitation again. It was coming her way, and she was anxiously formingan opinion on the essential characteristics of Wordsworth's view ofimmortality. 

Suddenly the room was startled by an audible titter from Patty, whohastily composed her face and assumed a look of vacuous innocence--buttoo late. She had caught the instructor's eye at last. 

"Miss Wyatt, what do you consider the most serious limitations of ourauthor?"

Miss Wyatt blinked once or twice. This question out of its context wasnot illuminating. It was a part of her philosophy, however, never toflunk flat; she always crawled. 

"Well, " she began with an air of profound deliberation, "that questionmight be considered in two ways, either from an artistic or aphilosophic standpoint. "

This sounded promising, and the instructor smiled encouragingly. "Yes?"she said. 

"And yet, " continued Patty, after still profounder deliberation, "Ithink the same reason will be found to be the ultimate explanation ofboth. "

The instructor might have inquired, "Both what?" but she refrained andmerely waited. 

Patty thought she had done enough, but she plunged on desperately: "Inspite of his really deep philosophy we notice a certain--one mightalmost say _dash_ about his poetry, and a lack of--er--meditation whichI should attribute to his immaturity and his a--rather wild life. If hehad lived longer I think he might have overcome it in time. "

The class looked dazed, and the corners of the instructor's mouthtwitched. "It is certainly an interesting point of view, Miss Wyatt, and, as far as I know, entirely original. "

As they were crowding out at the end of the recitation Priscilla pouncedupon Patty. "What on earth were you saying about Wordsworth's youth andimmaturity?" she demanded. "The man lived to be over eighty, andcomposed a poem with his last gasp. "

"Wordsworth? I was talking about Shelley. "

"Well, the class wasn't. "

"How should I know?" Patty demanded indignantly. "She said 'our author, 'and I avoided specific details as long as I could. "

"Oh, Patty, Patty! and you said he was wild--the lamblike Wordsworth!"

"What were you laughing at, anyway?" demanded Georgie. 

Patty smiled again. "Why, _this_" she said, unfolding the Hotel A----letter. "It's from an Englishman, Mr. Todhunter, some one my fatherdiscovered last summer and invited out to stay with us for a few days. I'd forgotten all about him, and here he writes to know whether and whenhe may call, and, if so, will it be convenient for him to come to-night. That's a comprehensive sentence, isn't it? His train gets in athalf-past five and he'll be out about six. "

"He isn't going to take any chances, " said Priscilla. 

"No, " said Patty; "but I don't mind. I invited him to come out to dinnersome night, though I'd forgotten it. He's really very nice, and, inspite of what the funny papers say about Englishmen, quiteentertaining. "

"Intentionally or unintentionally?" inquired Georgie. 

"Both, " said Patty. 

"What's he doing in America?" asked Priscilla. "Not writing a book onthe American Girl, I hope. "

"Not quite as bad as that, " said Patty. "He's corresponding for anewspaper, though. " She smiled dreamily. "He's very curious aboutcollege. "

"Patty, I _hope_ you were not guilty of trying to make an Englishman, aguest in your father's house, believe any of your absurd fabrications!"

"Of course not, " said Patty; "I was most careful in everything I toldhim. But, " she acknowledged, "he--he gets impressions easily. "

"It is easy to get impressions when one is talking with you, " observedGeorgie. 

"He asked me, " Patty continued, ignoring this remark, "what we studiedin college! But I remembered that he was an alien in a foreign land, andI curbed my natural instincts, and outlined the courses in the catalogueverbatim, and I explained the different methods of instruction, anddescribed the library and laboratories and lecture-rooms. "

"Was he impressed?" asked Priscilla. 

"Yes, " said Patty; "I think you might almost say dazed. He asked meapologetically if we ever did anything to relieve the strain, --had anyamusements, you know, --and I said, oh, yes; we had a Browning and anIbsen club, and we sometimes gave Greek tragedies in the original. Hewas positively afraid to come near me again, for fear I'd forget andtalk to him in Greek instead of English. "

In view of the facts, Patty's friends considered this last remarkdistinctly humorous, for she had flunked her freshman Greek three times, and had been advised by the faculty to take it over sophomore year. 

"I hope, since he's a newspaper writer, " said Priscilla, "that you'll dosomething to lighten his impression, or he'll never favor women'scolleges in England. "

"I hadn't thought of that, " said Patty; "perhaps I ought. "

They had reached the steps of the dormitory. "Let's not go in, " saidGeorgie; "let's go down to Mrs. Muldoon's and get some chocolate cake. "

"Thank you, " said Priscilla; "I'm in training. "

"Soup, then. "

"Can't eat between meals. "

"You come, then, Patty. "

"Sorry, but I've got to take my white dress down to the laundry and haveit pressed. "

"Are you going to dress up for him to the extent of evening clothes?"

"Yes, " said Patty; "I think I owe it to the American Girl. "

"Well, " sighed Georgie, "I'm hungry, but I suppose I might as well go inand dress that doll for the College Settlement Association. The show'sto-night. "

"Mine's done, " said Priscilla; "and Patty wouldn't take one. Did you seeBonnie Connaught sitting on the back seat in biology this morning, hemming her doll's petticoat straight through the lecture?"

"Really?" laughed Patty. "It's a good thing Professor Hitchcock'snear-sighted. "

The College Settlement Association, by way of parenthesis, was in thehabit of distributing three hundred dolls among the students every yearbefore Christmas, to be dressed and sent to the settlement in New York. The dolls were supposed to be so well dressed that the East Side motherscould use them as models for the clothing of their own children, thoughit must be confessed that the tendency among the girls was to strive foreffect and not for detail. On the evening before the dolls were to beshipped a doll show was regularly held, at which two cents admittancewas charged (stamps accepted) to pay the expressage. 

 * * * * *

IT was ten minutes past six, and Phillips Hall (such of it as was notlate) was dining, when the maid arrived with Mr. Algernon VivianTodhunter's card. Patty, radiant in a white evening gown, was trying, with much squirming, to fasten it in the middle of the back. 

"Oh, Sadie, " she called to the maid, "would you mind coming in here andbuttoning my dress? I can't reach it from above or below. "

"You look just beautiful, Miss Wyatt, " said Sadie, admiringly. 

Patty laughed. "Do you think I can uphold the honor of the nation?"

"To be sure, miss, " said Sadie, politely. 

Patty ran down the corridor to the door of the reception-room, and thenswept slowly in with what she called an air of continental repose. Theroom was empty. She glanced about in some surprise, for she knew thatthe two reception-rooms on the other side of the hall were being usedfor the doll show. She tiptoed over and peered in through the half-opendoor. The room was filled with dolls in rows and tiers; every piece offurniture was covered with them; and in a far corner, at the end of along vista of dolls, appeared Mr. Algernon Vivian Todhunter, gingerlysitting on the edge of a sofa, surrounded by flaxen-haired baby dolls, and awkwardly holding in his lap the three he had displaced. 

Patty drew back behind the door, and spent fully three minutes inregaining her continental repose; then she entered the room and greetedMr. Todhunter effusively. He carefully transferred the dolls to his leftarm and stood up and shook hands. 

"Let me take the little dears, " said Patty, kindly; "I'm afraid they'rein your way. "

Mr. Todhunter murmured something about its being a pleasure and aprivilege to hold them. 

Patty plumped up their clothes and rearranged them on the sofa withmotherly solicitude, while Mr. Todhunter watched her gravely, hisnational politeness and his reportorial instinct each struggling for themastery. Finally he began tentatively: "I say, Miss Wyatt, do--er--theyoung ladies spend much time playing with dolls?"

"No, " said Patty, candidly; "I don't think you could say they spend_too_ much. I have never heard of but one girl actually neglecting herwork for it. You mustn't think that we have as many dolls as this here_every_ night, " she went on. "It is rather an unusual occurrence. Once ayear the girls hold what they call a doll show to see who has dressedher doll the best. "

"Ah, I see, " said Mr. Todhunter; "a little friendly rivalry. "

"Purely friendly, " said Patty. 

As they started for the dining-room Mr. Todhunter adjusted his monocleand took a parting look at the doll show. 

"I'm afraid you think us childish, Mr. Todhunter, " said Patty. 

"Not at all, Miss Wyatt, " he assured her hastily. "I think it quitecharming, you know, and so--er--unexpected. I had always been told thatthey played somewhat peculiar games at these women's colleges, but Inever supposed they did anything so feminine as to play with dolls. "

[Illustration: Mr. Algernon Vivian Todhunter, gingerly sitting on theedge of a chair]

 * * * * *

WHEN Patty returned to her room that night, she found Georgie andPriscilla surrounded by grammars and dictionaries, doing German prose. Her appearance was hailed with a cry of indignant protest. 

"When _I_ have a man, " said Priscilla, "I divide him up among myfriends. "

"_Especially_ when he's a curiosity, " added Georgie. 

"And we dressed up in grand clothes, and stood in your way coming out ofchapel, " went on Priscilla, "and you never even looked at us. "

"Englishmen are so bashful, " apologized Patty; "I didn't want tofrighten him. "

Priscilla looked at her suspiciously. "Patty, I hope you didn't imposeon the poor man's credulity. "

"Certainly not!" said Patty, with dignity. "I explained everything heasked me, and was most careful not to exaggerate. But, " she added withengaging frankness, "I cannot be responsible for any _impressions_ hemay have obtained. When an Englishman once gets an idea, you know, it'salmost impossible to change it. "

IV

A Question of Ethics

Patty's class-room methods were the result of a wide experience in theprofessorial type of mind. By her senior year she had reduced the matterof recitation to a system, and could foretell with unvarying precisionthe day she would be called on and the question she would be asked. Hertactics varied with the subject and the instructor, and were the resultof a penetration and knowledge of human nature that might haveaccomplished something in a worthier cause. 

In chemistry, for example, her instructor was a man who had outlived anyearly illusions in regard to the superior conscientiousness of girlsover boys. He was not by nature a suspicious person, but a longexperience in teaching had inculcated an inordinate wariness which wassometimes out of season. He allowed no napping in his classes, and thosewho did not pay attention suffered. Patty discovered his weakness earlyin the year, and planned her campaign accordingly. As long as she didnot understand the experiment in hand, she would watch him with a facebeaming with intelligence; but when she did understand, and wished torecite, she would let her eyes wander to the window with a dreamy, far-away smile, and, being asked a question, would come back to therealities of chemistry with a start, and, after a moment of ostentatiouspondering, make a brilliant recitation. It must be confessed that hermoments of abstraction were rare; she was far too often radiantlyinterested. 

In French her tactics were exactly opposite. The instructor, with allthe native politeness of his race, called on those only who caught hiseye and appeared willing and anxious to recite. This made the mattercomparatively simple, but still required considerable finesse. Pattydropped her pen, spilled the pages from her note-book, tied hershoe-string, and even sneezed opportunely in order not to catch his eyeat inconvenient moments. The rest of the class, who were not artists, contented themselves with merely lowering their eyes as he looked alongthe line--a method which in Patty's scornful estimation said as plainlyas words, "Please don't call on me; I don't know. "

But with Professor Cairnsley, who taught philosophy, it was moredifficult to form a working hypothesis. He had grown old in the serviceof the college, and after thirty years' experience of girl-nature he wasstill as unsuspiciously trustful as he had been in the beginning. Takingit for granted that his pupils were as interested in the contemplationof philosophic truths as he himself, the professor conducted hisrecitations without a suspicion of guile, and based his procedureentirely upon the inspiration of the moment. The key to his method hadalways remained a mystery, and several generations of classes hadsearched for it in vain. Some averred that he called on every seventhgirl; others, that he drew lots. Patty triumphantly announced early inthe course that she had discovered the secret at last--that on Monday hecalled on the red-haired girls; on Tuesday, those with yellow hair; onWednesday and Thursday, those with brown; and on Friday, those withblack. But this solution, like the others, was found to break down inactual practice; and Patty, for one, discovered that it required all heringenuity, and even a good deal of studying, to maintain her reputationfor brilliancy in Professor Cairnsley's classes. And she cared aboutmaintaining it, for she liked the professor and was one of his favoritepupils. She had known his wife before she entered college, and she oftencalled upon them in their home, and, in short, exemplified the idealrelations between faculty and students. 

Owing to the pressure of many interests, Patty's researches intophilosophy were not as deep as the intentions of the course, but she hada very good working knowledge, which, in its details, would haveastonished Professor Cairnsley could he have got behind the scenes. Though her knowledge was not based strictly on the text-book, herreputation in the class was good, and, as Patty admitted with a sigh, "It's a great strain on the imagination to keep up a reputation inphilosophy. "

It had been established, indeed, as far back as her sophomore year, whenthe psychology class was awed into silence by its first introduction tothe abstractions of science, and Patty alone had dared to lift hervoice. The professor, one morning, had been placidly lecturing along onthe subject of sensation, and in the course of the lecture had remarked:"It is probable that the individual experiences all the primarysensations during the first few months of infancy, and that in afterlife there is no such thing as a new sensation. "

"Professor Cairnsley, " Patty piped up, "did you ever shoot the chutes?"

The ice was broken at last, and the class felt at home, even in thesomewhat deep waters of philosophy; and Patty, however undeservedly, hadgained the credit of having a deeper insight than most into matterspsychical. 

And so into her senior year, when she entered upon the study of ethics, she carried along an unearned and fragile reputation, built uponsubterfuges and likely to crumble at the slightest touch. She hadmaintained it very creditably up to the Christmas vacation, and hadargued upon the ultimate ground of moral obligation and the origin ofconscience quite as intelligently as though she had previously read whatthe text-book had to say on the subject. But when they had commenced thestudy of specific theologies, based upon definite historical facts, Patty found her imagination of little use, and on several occasions ithad been purely good luck that had saved her from exposure. Once thebell had rung at an opportune moment, and twice she had been able toavert a direct answer by leading the discussion into side issues. Sherealized, however, that fortune would not always favor her, and as theprofessor usually forgot to call the roll, she formed the nefariouspractice of cutting class when she did not have her lesson. 

For a week or so in particular, her pressure of work in other directions(not all of them scholastic) had prevented her from devoting her usualamount of energy to the task of maintaining her philosophy reputation, and she had, without conscience, cut ethics several days in succession, and had failed to comment upon the fact to the professor. 

"What did he lecture about in ethics--those recitations I missed?" sheinquired of Priscilla, one afternoon. 

"Swedenborg. "

"Swedenborg, " repeated Patty, dreamily. "He got up a new religion, didn't he? Or was it a new system of gymnastics? I've heard about him, but I don't seem to remember any details. "

"You'd better make him up; he's important. "

"I dare say; but I've lived twenty-one years without knowing about him, and I can wait a month longer. I'm saving up Confucius and the Jesuitsfor examination-time, and I'll add Swedenborg to the list. "

"You'd better not. Professor Cairnsley's fond of him, and is likely topop a special examination at any moment. "

"Not Professor Cairnsley, " laughed Patty. "He doesn't want to waste thetime. He's going to lecture straight on for two weeks--nice man; I seeit in his eye. What I admire in a professor is a good, steady, ploddingdisposition that doesn't go in for sensational surprises. "

"You'll find yourself mistaken some day, " warned Priscilla. 

"No danger, my dear Cassandra. I know Professor Cairnsley, and ProfessorCairnsley thinks he knows me; and we just get along togetherbeautifully. I wish there were more like him, " Patty added with a sigh. 

Professor Cairnsley began a lecture the next morning which was evidentlycalculated to extend through the hour, and Patty cast a triumphantglance at Priscilla as she unscrewed the top of her fountain-pen andsettled down to work. In the course of the lecture, however, he hadoccasion to refer to Swedenborg, and, pausing a moment, he casuallyasked a girl on the front seat for a résumé of Swedenborg's philosophy. She, unfortunately confusing him with Schopenhauer, glibly attributed tohim doctrines which would have outraged his soul could he have heardthem. It is written that the worm will turn, and the professor's blandsmile deserted him as he passed the question to a second girl withoutmuch better result. The class in general had evidently been laboringunder Patty's delusion that the time had not come in which to learn backnotes. Amazed and indignant, he pursued the matter with a persistencyand a rancor he seldom showed. He began going straight through theclass, growing more and more sarcastic with each recitation. 

As she saw him finish with the row in front and begin on her row, Pattyknew that she was doomed. She racked her brain for some memory ofSwedenborg. He was a name to her and nothing more. He might have been anancient Greek or a modern American, for all she knew. As ProfessorCairnsley came along the line he was gradually eliciting from theterrified class the superficial points which were more or less common toall philosophers. Patty perceived that her imagination could not helpher out, that for once the placid professor was on the war-path, andthat Swedenborg, and nothing but Swedenborg, would serve. She cast anagonized glance up at Priscilla, and Priscilla grinned back with "I toldyou so" written on every feature. 

Patty looked about desperately. The lecture-room was shaped like anamphitheater, with part of the seats on a level with the main floor, and the rest rising in tiers. Patty sat on the main floor, well towardthe rear. She could barely see the professor's head, but he was comingirrevocably. She did not have to see very clearly to know that. The girlbefore her answered wildly; the professor frowned, and, looking down athis roll-book, slowly and deliberately made a zero. 

When he raised his eyes again Patty's seat was empty. She was kneelingon the floor, with her head bowed behind the girl in front. Theunconscious professor passed over her bent head and called on the girlon the other side, who coughed hysterically once or twice, and flunkedflat; and while he was crediting the fact in his roll-book Patty resumedher seat. A ripple of laughter ran around the room; the professorfrowned, and remarked that he saw no occasion for amusement. The bellrang, and the class somewhat sheepishly filed out. 

That afternoon Patty burst into the study where Priscilla and GeorgieMerriles were making tea. "Did you ever think I had much of aconscience?" she demanded. 

"Never thought it was your strong point, " said Georgie. 

"Well, I've got a perfectly tremendous one! What do you think I've beendoing?"

"Making up your ethics lectures, " suggested Priscilla. 

"Worse than that. "

"You _haven't_ been to gym, Patty!" said Georgie. 

"Goodness, no! I'm not so far gone as that. Well, I'll tell you. I metProfessor Cairnsley by the gate and walked in with him, and, if youplease, he complimented me on my work in ethics!"

"That ought to have been embarrassing, " said Georgie. 

"It was, " acknowledged Patty. "I told him I didn't really know as muchas he thought I did. "

"What did he say?"

"He said I was too modest. He's such a trustful old man, you know, thatyou sort of hate to deceive him. And what do you think? I told him aboutthe seat!"

Priscilla smiled approvingly upon her usually recreant room-mate. "Well, Patty, you certainly are better than I gave you credit for!"

"Thank you, " murmured Patty. 

"I begin to believe you _have_ got a conscience, " said Georgie. 

"An excellent one, " said Patty, complacently. 

"It pays in the end, " said Priscilla. 

"It does, " agreed Patty. "Professor Cairnsley said he would explainSwedenborg to me himself, and he invited me over to dinner to-night!"

V

The Elusive Kate Ferris

The mysterious Kate Ferris, who kept Priscilla on the verge of nervousprostration for a whole semester, entered upon her college career in anentirely unpremeditated and impromptu manner. It began one day away backin November. Georgie Merriles and Patty had just strolled home from theathletic field, where they had been witnessing the start of apaper-chase cross country, in which Priscilla was impersonating a fox. As they entered the study, Georgie stopped to examine some loose sheetsof paper which were impaled upon the door. 

"What's this, Patty?"

"Oh, that's the registration-list for the German Club. Priscilla'ssecretary, you know, and every one who wants to join comes here. Thestudy has been so full of freshmen all the time that I told her to hangit on the door and let them join outside; it works beautifully. " Pattyturned the leaves and ran her eyes down the list of sprawlingsignatures. "It's a popular organization, isn't it? The freshmen aresimply scrambling to get in. "

"They're trying to show Fräulein Scherin how much interest they take inthe subject, " Georgie laughed. 

Patty picked up the pencil. "Would you like to join? I know Priscillawould be gratified. "

"No, thank you; I pay club dues enough already. "

"I'm afraid I'm not exactly eligible myself, as I don't know any German. It's such a beautifully sharp pencil, though, that I hate not to writewith it. " Patty poised the pencil a moment, and abstractedly traced thename "Kate Ferris. "

Georgie laughed. "If there should happen to be a Kate Ferris in college, she would be surprised to find herself a member of the German Club, "and the incident was forgotten. 

A few days later the two came in from class, to find Priscilla and thepresident of the German Club sitting on the divan with their headstogether, frantically turning the leaves of the catalogue. 

"She isn't a sophomore, " the president announced. "She _must_ be afreshman, Priscilla. Look again. "

"I've gone over this list three times, and there isn't a single Ferrisdown. "

Georgie and Patty exchanged glances and inquired the trouble. 

"A girl named Kate Ferris has registered for the German Club, and we'vegone through all the classes, and there simply isn't any such girl incollege. "

"Possibly a special, " Patty suggested. 

"Of course! Why didn't we think of that?" And Priscilla turned to thelist of special students. "No; she isn't here. "

"Let me look"; and Patty ran her eyes down the column. "You've mistakenthe name, " she remarked, handing the book back with a shrug. 

Priscilla produced the registration-list, and triumphantly exhibited anunmistakable Kate Ferris. 

"They forgot to put her in the catalogue. "

"I never knew them to make such a mistake before, " said the president, dubiously. "I don't believe we'd better put her in the roll-book till wefind out who she is. "

"Then you'll hurt her feelings, " said Georgie. "Freshmen are terriblysensitive about being slighted. "

"Oh, very well; it doesn't matter. " And Kate Ferris was accordinglyenrolled in the club records. 

Several weeks later Priscilla was engaged in laboriously turning theminutes of the last meeting into grammatical German, and as she closedthe dictionary and grammar with a sigh of relief, she remarked to Patty:"Do you know, it's very queer about that Kate Ferris. She hasn't paidher dues, and, as far as I can make out, she hasn't attended a singlemeeting. Wouldn't you take her name off the roll? I don't believe she'sin college any more. "

"You might as well, " said Patty, and she listlessly watched Priscilla asshe scratched out the name with a penknife. Patty never made the mistakeof over-acting. 

The next morning, as Priscilla came in from a class, she found a note onher door-block, written in the perpendicular characters of Kate Ferris. It ran:

 DEAR MISS POND: I came to pay my German Club dues, and as you are not in, I have left the money on the bookcase. Am sorry to have missed so many meetings, but have not been able to attend classes lately. KATE FERRIS. 

Priscilla exhibited the note to the president as a tangible proof thatKate Ferris still existed, and reinscribed the name in the roll-book. 

A few weeks later she found a second note on her door-block:

 DEAR MISS POND: As I am very busy with my class work, I find that I have not time to attend the German Club meetings, and so have decided to resign. I left my letter of resignation on the bookcase. 

 KATE FERRIS. 

As Priscilla scratched the name out of the roll-book again she remarkedto Patty: "I am glad this Kate Ferris has left the club at last. She hascaused me more trouble than all the rest of the members put together. "

The next morning a third note appeared on the block:

 DEAR MISS POND: I happened to mention the fact of my having resigned from the German Club to Fräulein Scherin last night, and she said that the club would help me in my work, and advised me to stay in it. So I shall be much obliged if you will not present my letter at the meeting after all, as I have decided to follow her advice. 

 KATE FERRIS. 

Priscilla tossed the note to Patty with a groan, and getting out theroll-book, she turned to the F's and reënrolled Kate Ferris. 

Patty sympathetically watched the process over her shoulder. "The bookis getting so thin in that spot, " she laughed, "that Kate Ferris isactually coming through on the other side. If she changes her mind manymore times there won't be anything left. "

"I'm going to ask Fräulein Scherin about her, " Priscilla declared. "She's made me so much trouble that I'm curious to see what she lookslike. "

She did ask Fräulein Scherin, but Fräulein denied all knowledge of thegirl. "I have so many freshmen, " she apologized, "I cannot all of themwith their queer names remember. "

Priscilla inquired about Kate Ferris from the freshmen she knew, butthough all of them thought that the name sounded familiar, none of themcould exactly place her. She was variously described as tall and darkand small and light, but further inquiry always proved that the girlthey had in mind was some one else. 

Priscilla kept hearing about the girl on all sides, but could nevercatch a glimpse of her. Miss Ferris called several times on business, but Priscilla always happened to be out. Her name was posted on thebulletin-board for having library books that were overdue. She evenwrote a paper for one of the German Club meetings (Georgie was not afacile German scholar, and it had required a whole Saturday); but owingto the fact that she was suddenly called out of town, she did not readit in person. 

A month or two after Kate Ferris's advent, Priscilla had friendsvisiting her from New York, for whom she gave a tea in the study. 

"I am going to invite Kate Ferris, " she announced. "I _insist_ uponfinding out what she looks like. "

"Do, " said Patty. "I should like to find out myself. "

The invitation was despatched, and on the next day Priscilla received aformal acceptance. 

"It's strange that she should send an acceptance for a tea, " sheremarked as she read it, "but I'm glad to get it, anyway. I like tofeel sure that I'm to see her at last. "

On the evening of the tea, after the guests had gone and the furniturehad been moved back, the weary hostesses, in somewhat rumpled eveningdresses (a considerable crush results when fifty are entertained in aroom whose utmost capacity is fifteen), were reëntertaining one or twofriends on the lettuce sandwiches and cakes the obliging guests hadfailed to consume. The company and the clothes having passed in review, the conversation flagged a little, and Georgie suddenly asked: "Was KateFerris here? I was so busy passing cakes that I didn't look, and Iwanted to see her especially!"

"That's so!" Patty exclaimed. "I didn't see her, either. She's the mostabnormally inconspicuous person I ever heard of. What did she look like, Pris?"

Priscilla knit her brows. "She couldn't have come. I kept watching forher all the evening. It's strange, isn't it?--when she was so carefulto send an acceptance. I'm growing positively morbid over the girl; Ibegin to think she's invisible. "

"I begin to think so myself, " said Patty. 

The next morning's mail brought a bunch of violets and an apology fromKate Ferris. "She had been unavoidably detained. "

"It's positively uncanny!" Priscilla declared. "I shall go to theregistrar and tell her that this Kate Ferris is neither down in thecatalogue nor the college directory, and find out where she lives. "

"Don't do anything reckless, " Georgie pleaded. "Take what the gods sendand be grateful. "

But Priscilla was as good as her word, and she returned from theregistrar's office flushed and defiant. "She insists that there isn'tany such person in college, and that I must have made a mistake in thename! Did you ever hear anything so absurd?"

"That seems to me the only reasonable explanation, " Patty agreedamicably. "Perhaps it is Harris instead of Ferris. "

Priscilla faced her ominously. "You read the name yourself. It was asplain as printing. "

"We're all liable to make mistakes, " Patty murmured soothingly. 

"Do you know, " said Georgie, "I begin to think it's all a hallucination, and that there really isn't any Kate Ferris. It's strange, of course, but not any stranger than some of those cases you read about inpsychology. "

"Hallucinations don't send flowers, " said Priscilla, hotly; and shestalked out of the room, leaving Patty and Georgie to review thecampaign. 

"I'm afraid it's gone far enough, " said Georgie. "If she bothers theoffice very much there'll be an official investigation. "

"I'm afraid so, " sighed Patty. "It's been very entertaining, but she isreally getting sensitive on the subject, and I don't dare mention KateFerris's name when we're alone. "

"Shall we tell her?"

Patty shook her head. "Not just now--I shouldn't dare. She believes incorporal punishment. "

A few days later Priscilla received another note directed in the handshe had come to dread. She threw it into the waste-basket unopened; but, curiosity prevailing, she drew it out again and read it:

 DEAR MISS POND: As I have been obliged to leave college on account of my health, I inclose my resignation to the German Club. I thank you very sincerely for your kindness to me this year, and shall always look back upon our friendship as one of the happiest memories of my college life. 

 Yours sincerely, KATE FERRIS. 

When Patty came in she found Priscilla silently and grimly scratching ahole into the roll-book where Kate Ferris's name had been. 

"Changed her mind again?" Patty asked pleasantly. 

"She's left college, " Priscilla snapped, "and don't you ever mention hername to me again. "

Patty sighed sympathetically and remarked to the room in general: "It'ssort of pathetic to have your whole college life summed up in a hole inthe German Club archives. I can't help feeling sorry for her!"

VI

A Story with Four Sequels

It was Saturday, and Patty had been working ever since breakfast, with abrief pause for luncheon, on a paper entitled "Shakspere, the Man. " Atfour o'clock she laid down her pen, pushed her manuscript into thewaste-basket, and faced her room-mate defiantly. 

"What do I care about Shakspere, the man? He's been dead three hundredyears. "

Priscilla laughed unfeelingly. "What do I care about a frog's nervoussystem, for the matter of that? But I am writing an interestingmonograph on it, just the same. "

"Ah, I dare say you are making a valuable addition to the subject. "

"It's quite as valuable as your addition to Shaksperiana. "

Patty dropped a voluble sigh and turned to the window to note that itwas raining dismally. 

"Oh, hand it in, " said Priscilla, comfortingly. "You've worked on it allday, and it's probably no worse than the most of your things. "

"No sense to it, " said Patty. 

"They're used to that, " laughed Priscilla. 

"What are you laughing at, anyway?" Patty asked crossly. "I don't seeanything to laugh at in this beastly place. Always having to do what youdon't want to do when you most don't want to do it. Just the same, dayafter day: get up by bells, eat by bells, sleep by bells. I feel likesome sort of a delinquent living in an asylum. "

Priscilla treated this outburst with the silence it deserved, and Pattyturned back to her perusal of the rain-soaked campus. 

"I wish something would happen, " she said discontentedly. "I think I'llput on a mackintosh and go out in search of adventure. "

"Pneumonia will happen if you do. "

"What business has it to be raining, anyway, when it ought to besnowing?"

As this was unanswerable, Priscilla returned to her frogs, and Pattydrummed gloomily on the window-pane until a maid appeared with a card. 

"A caller?" cried Patty. "A missionary! A rescuer! A deliverer! Heavensend it's for me!"

"Miss Pond, " said Sadie, laying the card on the table. 

Patty pounced upon it. "'Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope. ' Who's he, Pris?"

Priscilla wrinkled up her brows. "I don't know; I never heard of him. What do you suppose it can be?"

"An adventure--I know it's an adventure. Probably your uncle, that younever heard of, has just died in the South Sea Islands, and left you afortune because you're his namesake; or else you're a countess byrights, and were stolen from your cradle in infancy, and he's the lawyercome to tell you about it. I think it might have happened to me, whenI'm so bored to death! But hurry up and tell me about it, at least; asecond-hand adventure's better than no adventure at all. Yes, your hairis all right; never mind looking in the glass. " And Patty pushed herroom-mate out of the door, and, sitting down at her desk again, quitecheerfully pulled her discarded paper out of the waste-basket and beganre-reading it with evident approval. 

Priscilla returned before she had finished. "He didn't ask for me atall, " she announced. "He asked for Miss McKay. "

"Miss McKay?"

"That junior with the hair, " she explained a trifle vaguely. 

"How disgusting!" cried Patty. "I had it all planned how I was going tolive with you in your castle up in the Hartz Mountains, and now it turnsout that Miss McKay is the countess, and I don't even know her. What didthe man look like, and what did he do?"

"Well, he looked rather frightened, and didn't do anything but stammer. There were two men in the reception-room, and of course I picked out thewrong one and begged his pardon and asked if he were Mr. Stanthrope. Hesaid no; his name was Wiggins. So then the only thing left for me to dowas to beg the other one's pardon. 

"He was sitting in that high-backed green chair, with his eyes glued tohis shoes, and holding his hat and cane in front of him likebreastworks, as if he were preparing to repel an attack. He didn't lookvery approachable, but I boldly accosted him and asked if he were Mr. Stanthrope. He stood up and stammered and blushed and looked as if hewanted to deny it, but finally acknowledged that he was, and then stoodpolitely waiting for me to state my business! I explained, and hestammered some more, and finally got out that he had called to see MissMcKay, and that the maid must have made a mistake. He was quite crossabout it, you know, and acted as if I had insulted him; and the otherman--the horrible Wiggins one--laughed, and then looked out of thewindow and pretended he hadn't. I apologized, --though I couldn't for thelife of me see what there was to apologize for, --and told him I wouldsend the maid for Miss McKay, and backed out. "

"Is that all?" Patty asked disappointedly. "If I couldn't have a betteradventure than that, I shouldn't have any. "

"But the funny thing is that when I told Sadie, she _insisted_ that hehad asked for me. "

"Ha! The plot thickens, after all. What does it mean? Did he look like adetective, or merely a pickpocket?"

"He looked like a very ordinarily embarrassed young man. "

Patty shook her head dejectedly. "There's a mystery somewhere, but Idon't see that it affords much entertainment. I dare say that when MissMcKay came he told her he hadn't asked for her at all; he had asked forMiss Higginbotham. The only explanation I can think of is that he isinsane, and there are so many insane people in the world that it isn'teven interesting. "

Patty recounted the story of Priscilla's caller at the dinner-table thatnight. 

"I know the sequel, " said Lucille Carter. "The other man, the Mr. Wiggins, is Bonnie Connaught's cousin; and he told her about some youngman who came out in the car with him, and asked for Miss Pond at thedoor, and then all of a sudden seemed to change his mind, and wenttearing down the corridor after the maid, yelling, 'Hi, there! Hi, there!' at the top of his voice; but he couldn't catch her, and whenMiss Pond came he pretended he had asked for some one else. "

"Is that all?" asked Patty. "I don't think it is much of a sequel. Itjust proves that there's a plot against Priscilla's life, and I alreadyknew that. I intend to ask Miss McKay about him. I don't know her, except by sight, but in a case of life and death like this, I don'tthink it's necessary to wait for an introduction. "

The next evening Patty announced: "Sequel number two! Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope lives in New York, and is Miss McKay's brother's best friend. She has only met him once before, and doesn't know any of his pastaffiliations. But the queer thing is that he never mentioned to heranything about Priscilla. Shouldn't you naturally think he would havetold her about such a funny mistake?

"In my opinion, " Patty continued solemnly, "it was plainly premeditated. He is undoubtedly a villain in disguise, and he used his acquaintancewith Miss McKay as a cloak to elude detection. My theory is this: He gotPriscilla's name out of the catalogue, and came here intending to murderher for her _jools_; but when he saw how big she was he was scared andso abandoned his dastardly intent. Now if he had chosen me, my bodywould, at this moment, have been concealed behind the sofa, and myclass-pin reposing in the murderer's pocket. "

Patty shuddered. "Think what I escaped. And all the time I was grumblingbecause nothing ever happens here!"

A few days later she appeared at the table with a further announcement:"I have the pleasure of offering for your perusal, young ladies, thethird and last sequel in the great Stanthrope-Pond-McKay mystery. And Ihereby take the opportunity of apologizing to Mr. Stanthrope for myunworthy suspicions. He is not a burglar, nor a detective, nor amurderer, nor even a lawyer, but just a poor young man with a buriedromance. "

"How did you find out?"--in a chorus of voices. 

"I just met Miss McKay in the hall, and she has been in New York, whereher brother told her the particulars. It seems that three or four yearsago Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope was engaged to a girl here in collegenamed Alice Pond--she is now Mrs. Hiram Brown, but that has nothing todo with the story. 

"Being in town last Saturday on business, he decided to run out and callon Miss McKay, as he was such a friend of her brother's--and also forthe sake of old times. He amused himself all the way out in the car byresurrecting his buried romance, and he kept getting more and morepensive with every mile. When he finally reached the door and handed hiscard to the maid, he abstractedly called for Miss Pond just as he usedto do four years ago. He didn't realize at first what he had done. Thenit came over him in a flash, but he couldn't catch Sadie. He knew, ofcourse, that the other man had heard, and he sat there scared to death, trying to think of some plausible excuse, and momentarily expecting astrange Miss Pond to pop in and demand an explanation. 

"Sure enough, the curtains parted, and a tall, beautiful, statelycreature (I quote Miss McKay's brother) swept into the room, and, approaching the wrong man, asked him in haughty tones if he were Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope. He very properly denied it, whereupon there wasnothing for the right Mr. Stanthrope to do but stand up and acknowledgeit like a man, which he did; but there he stuck. His imagination wasnumbed, paralyzed; so he turned it off on poor Sadie, and all the timehe knew that the other man knew that he was lying. And that is all, "Patty finished. "It's not much of a story, but such as it is, it's ablessing to have it concluded. "

"Patty, " called Priscilla, from the other end of the table, "have youbeen telling them that absurd story?"

"Why not?" asked Patty. "Having heard so many sequels, they naturallywanted to hear the last. "

Priscilla laughed. "But yours doesn't happen to be the last. I know astill later one. "

"Later than Patty's?" the table demanded. 

"Yes, later than Patty's. It isn't really a sequel; it's just anappendix. I shouldn't tell you, only you'll find it out, so I might aswell. Miss McKay has invited two men for the junior party, and both haveaccepted. As two men are hard to manage, she has (by request) asked meto take care of one of them--namely, Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope. "

Patty sighed. "I see a whole series of sequels stretching away into thefuture. It's worse than the Elsie Books!"

VII

In Pursuit of Old English

"Hello, Patty! Have you read the bulletin-board this morning?" calledCathy Fair, as she caught up with Patty on the way home from athird-hour recitation. 

"No, " said Patty; "I think it's a bad habit. You see too many unpleasantthings there. "

"Well, there's certainly an unpleasant one to-day. Miss Skelling wishesthe Old English class to be provided with writing materials thisafternoon. "

Patty stopped with a groan. "I think it's absolutely abominable to givean examination without a word of warning. "

"Not an examination, " quoted Cathy; "just a 'little test to see howmuch you know. '"

"I don't know a thing, " wailed Patty--"not a blessed thing. "

"Nonsense, Patty; you know more than any one else in the class. "

"Bluff--it's all pure bluff. I come in strong on the literary criticismand the general discussions, and she never realizes that I don't know aword of the grammar. "

"You've got two hours. You can cut your classes and review it up. "

"Two hours!" said Patty, sadly. "I need two days. I've never learned it, I tell you. The Anglo-Saxon grammar is a thing no mortal can carry inhis head, and I thought I might as well wait and learn it beforeexaminations. "

"I don't wish to appear unfeeling, " laughed Cathy, "but I should say, mydear, that it serves you right. "

"Oh, I dare say, " said Patty. "You are as bad as Priscilla"; and shetrailed gloomily homeward. 

She found her friends reviewing biology and eating olives. "Have one?"asked Lucille Carter, who, provided with a hat-pin by way of fork, waspresiding over the bottle for the moment. 

"No, thanks, " returned Patty, in the tone of one who has exhausted lifeand longs for death. 

"What's the matter?" inquired Priscilla. "You don't mean to say thatwoman has given you another special topic?"

"Worse than that!" and Patty laid bare the tragedy. 

A sympathetic silence followed; they realized that while she was, perhaps, not strictly deserving of sympathy, still her impending fatewas of the kind that might overtake any one. 

"You know, Pris, " said Patty, miserably, "that I simply _can't_ pass. "

"No, " said Priscilla, soothingly; "I don't believe you can. "

"I shall flunk _flat_--absolutely _flat_. Miss Skelling will never haveany confidence in me again, and will make me recite every bit ofgrammar for the rest of the semester. "

"I should think you'd cut, " ventured Georgie--that being, in heropinion, the most obvious method of escaping an examination. 

"I can't. I just met Miss Skelling in the hall five minutes before theblow fell, and she knows I'm alive and able to be about; besides, theclass meets again to-morrow morning, and I'd have to cram all night orcut that too. "

"Why don't you go to Miss Skelling and frankly explain the situation, "suggested Lucille the virtuous, "and ask her to let you off for a day ortwo? She would like you all the better for it. "

"Will you listen to the guileless babe!" said Patty. "What is there toexplain, may I ask? I can't very well tell her that I prefer not tolearn the lessons as she gives them out, but think it easier to wait andcram them up at one fell swoop, just before examinations. That _would_ingratiate myself in her favor!"

"It's your own fault, " said Priscilla. 

Patty groaned. "I was just waiting to hear you say that! You always do. "

"It's always true. Where are you going?" as Patty started for the door. 

"I am going, " said Patty, "to ask Mrs. Richards to give me a newroom-mate: one who will understand and appreciate me, and sympathizewith my afflictions. "

Patty walked gloomily down the corridor, lost in meditation. Her way ledpast the door of the doctor's office, which was standing invitinglyopen. Three or four girls were sitting around the room, laughing andtalking and waiting their turns. Patty glanced in, and a radiant smilesuddenly lightened her face, but it was instantly replaced by a look ofsettled sadness. She walked in and dropped into an arm-chair with asigh. 

"What's the matter, Patty? You look as if you had melancholia. "

Patty smiled apathetically. "Not quite so bad as that, " she murmured, and leaned back and closed her eyes. 

[Illustration: What's the matter, Patty?]

"Next, " said the doctor from the doorway; but as she caught sight ofPatty she walked over and shook her arm. "Is this Patty Wyatt? What isthe matter with you, child?"

Patty opened her eyes with a start. "Nothing, " she said; "I'm just alittle tired. "

"Come in here with me. "

"It's not my turn, " objected Patty. 

"That makes no difference, " returned the doctor. 

Patty dropped limply into the consulting-chair. 

"Let me see your tongue. Um-m--isn't coated very much. Your pulse seemsregular, though possibly a trifle feverish. Have you been working hard?"

"I don't think I've been working any harder than usual, " said Patty, truthfully. 

"Sitting up late nights?"

Patty considered. "I was up rather late twice last week, " she confessed. 

"If you girls persist in studying until all hours of the night, Idon't know what we doctors can do. "

Patty did not think it necessary to explain that it was a Welsh-rabbitparty on each occasion, so she merely sighed and looked out of thewindow. 

"Is your appetite good?"

"Yes, " said Patty, in a tone which belied the words; "it seems to bevery good. "

"Um-m, " said the doctor. 

"I'm just a little tired, " pursued Patty, "but I think I shall be allright as soon as I get a chance to rest. Perhaps I need a tonic, " shesuggested. 

"You'd better stay out of classes for a day or two and get thoroughlyrested. "

"Oh, no, " said Patty, in evident perturbation. "Our room is so full ofgirls all the time that it's really more restful to go to classes; and, besides, I can't stay out just now. "

"Why not?" demanded the doctor, suspiciously. 

"Well, " said Patty, a trifle reluctantly, "I have a good deal to do. I've got to cram for an examination, and--"

The word "cram" was to the doctor as a red rag to a bull. "Nonsense!"she ejaculated. "I know what I shall do with you. You are going rightover to the infirmary for a few days--"

"Oh, doctor!" Patty pleaded, with tears in her eyes, "there's _truly_nothing the matter with me, and I've _got_ to take that examination. "

"What examination is it?"

"Old English--Miss Skelling. "

"I will see Miss Skelling myself, " said the doctor, "and explain thatyou cannot take the examination until you come out. And now, " she added, making a note of Patty's case, "I will have you put in the convalescentward, and we will try the rest cure for a few days, and feed you up onchicken-broth and egg-nog, and see if we can get that appetite back. "

"Thank you, " said Patty, with the resigned air of one who has given upstruggling against the inevitable. 

"I like to see you take an interest in your work, " added the doctor, kindly; "but you must always remember, my dear, that health is the firstconsideration. "

Patty returned to the study and executed an impromptu dance in themiddle of the floor. 

"What's the matter?" exclaimed Priscilla. "Are you crazy?"

"No, " said Patty; "only ill. " And she went into her bedroom and beganslinging things into a dress-suit case. 

Priscilla stood in the doorway and watched her in amazement. "Are yougoing to New York?" she asked. 

"No, " said Patty; "to the infirmary. "

"Patty Wyatt, you're a wretched little hypocrite!"

"Not at all, " said Patty, cheerfully. "I didn't ask to go, but thedoctor simply insisted. I told her I had an examination, but she said itdidn't make any difference; health must be the first consideration. "

"What's in that bottle?" demanded Priscilla. 

"That's for my appetite, " said Patty, with a grin; "the doctor hopes toimprove it. I didn't like to discourage her, but I don't much believeshe can. " She dropped an Old English grammar and a copy of "Beowulf"into her suit-case. 

"They won't let you study, " said Priscilla. 

"I shall not ask them, " said Patty. "Good-by. Tell the girls to drop inoccasionally and see me in my incarceration. Visiting hour from five tosix. " She stuck her head in again. "If any one wants to send violets, Ithink they might cheer me up. "

 * * * * *

THE next afternoon Georgie and Priscilla presented themselves at theinfirmary, and were met at the door by the austere figure of the headnurse. "I will see if Miss Wyatt is awake, " she said dubiously, "but Iam afraid you will excite her; she's to be kept very quiet. "

"Oh, no; we'll do her good, " remonstrated Georgie; and the two girlstiptoed in after the nurse. 

The convalescent ward was a large, airy room, furnished in green andwhite, with four or five beds, each surrounded with brass poles andcurtains. Patty was lying in one of the corner beds near a window, propped up on pillows, with her hair tumbled about her face, and a tablebeside her covered with flowers and glasses of medicine. This elaborateparaphernalia of sickness created a momentary illusion in the minds ofthe visitors. Priscilla ran to the bedside and dropped on her kneesbeside her invalid room-mate. 

"Patty dear, " she said anxiously, "how do you feel?"

A seraphic smile spread over Patty's face. "I've been able to take alittle nourishment to-day, " she said. 

"Patty, you're a scandalous humbug! Who gave you those violets? 'Withlove, from Lady Clara Vere de Vere'--that blessed freshman!--and you'veborrowed every drop of alcohol the poor child ever thought of owning. And whom are those roses from? Miss Skelling! Patty, you ought to beashamed. "

Patty had the grace to blush slightly. "I was a trifle embarrassed, " sheadmitted; "but when I reflected upon how sorry she would have been tofind out how little I knew, and how glad she will be to find out howmuch I know, my conscience was appeased. "

"Have you been studying?" asked Georgie. 

"Studying!" Patty lifted up the corner of her pillow and exhibited ablue book. "Two days more of this, and I shall be the chief authority inAmerica on Anglo-Saxon roots. "

"How do you manage it?"

"Oh, " said Patty, "when the rest-hour begins I lie down and shut myeyes, and they tiptoe over and look at me, and whisper, 'She's asleep, 'and softly draw the curtains around the bed; and I get out the book andput in two solid hours of irregular verbs, and am still sleeping whenthey come to look at me. They're perfectly astonished at the amount Isleep. I heard the nurse telling the doctor that she didn't believe I'dhad any sleep for a month. And the worst of it is, " she added, "that I_am_ tired, whether you believe it or not, and I should just love tostay over here and sleep all day if I weren't so beastly conscientiousabout that old grammar. "

"Poor Patty!" laughed Georgie. "She will be imposing on herself next, aswell as on the whole college. "

Friday morning Patty returned to the world. 

"How's Old English?" inquired Priscilla. 

"Very well, thank you. It was something of a cram, but I think I knowthat grammar by heart, from the preface to the index. "

"You're back in all your other work. Do you think it paid?"

"That remains to be seen, " laughed Patty. 

She knocked on Miss Skelling's door, and, after the first politegreetings, stated her errand: "I should like, if it is convenient foryou, to take the examination I missed. "

"Do you feel able to take it to-day?"

"I feel much better able to take it to-day than I did on Tuesday. "

Miss Skelling smiled kindly. "You have done very good work in OldEnglish this semester, Miss Wyatt, and I should not ask you to take theexamination at all if I thought it would be fair to the rest of theclass. "

"Fair to the rest of the class?" Patty looked a trifle blank; she hadnot considered this aspect of the question, and a slow red flush creptover her face. She hesitated a moment, and rose uncertainly. "When itcomes to that, Miss Skelling, " she confessed, "I'm afraid it wouldn't bequite fair to the rest of the class for me to take it. "

Miss Skelling did not understand. "But, Miss Wyatt, " she expostulated ina puzzled tone, "it was not difficult. I am sure you could pass. "

Patty smiled. "I am sure I could, Miss Skelling. I don't believe youcould ask me a question that I couldn't answer. But the point is thatit's all learned since Tuesday. The doctor was laboring under a littledelusion--very natural under the circumstances--when she sent me to theinfirmary, and I spent my time there studying. "

"But, Miss Wyatt, this is very unusual. I shall not know how to markyou, " Miss Skelling murmured in some distress. 

"Oh, mark me zero, " said Patty, cheerfully. "It doesn't matter in theleast--I know such a lot that I'll get through on the finals. Good-by;I'm sorry to have troubled you. " And she closed the door and turnedthoughtfully homeward. 

"Did it pay?" asked Priscilla. 

Patty laughed and murmured softly:

 "'The King of France rode up the hill with full ten thousand men; The King of France did gain the top, and then rode down again. '"

"What are you talking about?" demanded Priscilla. 

"Old English, " said Patty, as she sat down at her desk and commenced onthe three days' work she had missed. 

VIII

The Deceased Robert

It was ten o'clock, and Patty, having just read her ethics over for thethird time without comprehending it, had announced sleepily, "I shallhave to be good by inspiration; I can't seem to grasp the rule, " when aknock sounded on the door and a maid appeared with the announcement, "Mrs. Richards wishes to see Miss Wyatt. "

"At this hour!" Patty cried in dismay. "It must be something serious. Think, Priscilla. What have I been doing lately that would outrage thewarden sufficiently to call me up at ten o'clock? You don't suppose I'mgoing to be suspended or rusticated or expelled or anything like that, do you? I _honestly_ can't think of a thing I've done. "

"It's a telegram, " the maid said sympathetically. 

"A telegram?" Patty's face turned pale, and she left the room without aword. 

Priscilla and Georgie sat on the couch and looked at each other withtroubled faces. All ordinary telegrams came directly to the students. They knew that something serious must have happened to have it sent tothe warden. Georgie got up and walked around the room uncertainly. 

"Shall I go away, Pris?" she asked. "I suppose Patty would rather bealone if anything has happened. But if she's going home and has to packher trunk to-night, come and tell me and I will come down and help. "

They stood at the door a few moments talking in low tones, and asGeorgie started to turn away, Patty's step suddenly sounded in thecorridor. She came in with a queer smile on her lips, and sat down onthe couch. 

"The warden has certainly reduced the matter of scaring people to afine art, " she said. "I was never more frightened in my life. I thoughtthat the least that had happened was an earthquake which had engulfedthe entire family. "

"What was the matter?" Georgie and Priscilla asked in a breath. 

Patty spread out a crumpled telegram on her knee, and the girls read itover her shoulder:

 Robert died of an overdose of chloroform at ten this morning. Funeral to-morrow. 

 THOMAS M. WYATT. 

"Thomas M. Wyatt, " said Patty, grimly, "is my small brother Tommy, andRobert is short for Bobby Shafto, which was the name of Tommy's bullpup, the homeliest and worst-tempered dog that was ever received intothe bosom of a respectable family. "

"But why in the world did he telegraph?"

"It's a joke, " said Patty, shaking her head dejectedly. "Joking runs inthe family, and we've all inherited the tendency. One time myfather--but, as my friend Kipling says, that's another story. This dog, you see--this Robert Shafto--has cast a shadow over my vacations formore than a year. He killed my kitten, and ate my Venetian lacecollar--it didn't even give him indigestion. He went out and wallowed inthe rain and mud and came in and slept on my bed. He stole the beefsteakfor breakfast and the rubbers and door-mats for blocks around. Propertyon the street appreciably declined, for prospective purchasers refusedto purchase so long as Tommy Wyatt kept a dog. Robert was threatenedwith death time and again, but Tommy always managed to conceal him fromimpending justice until the trouble had blown over. But this time Isuppose he committed some supreme enormity--probably chewed up the babyor one of my father's Persian rugs, or something like that. And Tommy, knowing how I detested the beast, evidently thought it would be a goodjoke to telegraph, though wherein lies the point I can't make out. "

"Ah, I see, " said Georgie; "and Mrs. Richards thought that Robert was arelation. What did she say?"

"She said, 'Come in, Patty dear, ' when I knocked on the door. Usuallywhen I have had the honor of being received by her she has somewhatfrigidly called me 'Miss Wyatt. ' I opened the door with my knees shakingwhen I heard that 'Patty dear, ' and she took my hand and said, 'I amsorry to have to tell you that I have heard bad news from your brother. '

"'Tommy?' I gasped. 

"'No; Robert. '

"I was dazed. I racked my brains, but I couldn't remember any brotherRobert. 

"'He is very ill, ' she went on. 'Yes, I must tell you the truth, Patty;poor little Robert passed away this morning'; and she laid the telegrambefore me. Then, when it flashed over me what it meant, I was sorelieved that I put my head down on her desk and simply laughed till Icried; and she thought I was crying all the time, and kept patting myhead and quoting Psalms. Well, then I didn't dare to tell her, after shehad expended all that sympathy; so as soon as I could stop laughing(which wasn't very soon, for I had got considerable momentum) I raisedmy head and told her--trying to be truthful and at the same time nothurt her feelings--that Robert was not a brother, but just a sort offriend. And, do you know, she immediately jumped to the conclusion thathe was a fiancé, and began stroking my hair and murmuring that it wassometimes harder to lose friends than relatives, but that I was stillyoung, and I must not let it blast my life, and that maybe in the futurewhen time had dulled the pain--and then, remembering that it wouldn't doto advise me to adopt a second fiancé before I had buried my first, shestopped suddenly and asked if I wished to go home to the funeral. 

"I told her no, that I didn't think it would be best; and she saidperhaps not if it hadn't been announced, and she kissed me and told meshe was glad to see me bearing up so bravely. "

"Patty!" Priscilla exclaimed in horror, "it's dreadful. How could youlet her think it?"

"How could I help it?" Patty demanded indignantly. "What with beingfrightened into hysterics first, and then having a strange fiancé thrustat me without a moment's notice, I think that I carried off thesituation with rare delicacy and finesse. Do you think it would havebeen tactful to tell her it was nothing but a bull pup she was quotingScripture about?"

"I don't see how it was exactly your fault, " Georgie acknowledged. 

"Thank you, " said Patty. "If you had a brother like Tommy Wyatt youwould know how to sympathize with me. I suppose I ought to be gratefulto know that the dog is dead, but I should like to have had the newsbroken a little less gently. "

"Patty, " exclaimed Priscilla, as a sudden thought struck her, "do youhappen to remember that you are on the reception committee of theDramatic Club cotillion to-morrow night? What will Mrs. Richards thinkwhen she sees you in evening dress, receiving at a party, on the veryday your fiancé has been buried?"

"I wonder?" said Patty, doubtfully. "Do you really think I ought to stayaway? After working like a little buzz-saw making tissue-paper favorsfor the thing, I hate to have to miss it just because my brother's bullpup, that I never even _liked_, is dead. 

"I'll go, " she added, brightening, "and receive the guests with a forcedand mechanical smile; and every time I feel the warden's eyes upon me Ishall with difficulty choke back the tears, and she will say to herself:

"'Brave girl! How nobly she is struggling to present a composed face tothe world! None would dream, to look at that seemingly radiantcreature, that, while she is outwardly so gay, she is in realityconcealing a great sorrow which is gnawing at her very vitals. '"

IX

Patty the Comforter

It was on the eve of the mid-year examinations, and a gloom had fallenover the college. The conscientious ones who had worked all the yearwere working harder than ever, and the frivolous ones who had played allthe year were working with a desperate frenzy calculated to render theirminds a blank when the crucial hour should have arrived. But Patty wasnot working. It was a canon of her college philosophy, gained by threeand a half years' of personal experience, that the day beforeexaminations is not the time to begin to study. One has impressed theinstructor with one's intelligent interest in the subject, or one hasnot, and the result is as sure as if the marks were already down inblack and white in the college archives. And so Patty, who at leastlived up to her lights, was, with the exception of a few points whichshe intended to learn for this period only, conscientiously neglectingthe "judicious review" recommended by the faculty. 

Her friends, however, who, though perhaps equally philosophic, were lessconsistent, were subjecting themselves to what was known as a "regularfreshman cram"; and as no one had any time to talk to Patty, or to makeanything to eat, she found it an unprofitable period. Her own room-mateeven drove her from the study because she laughed out loud over the bookshe was reading; and, an exile, she wandered around to the studies ofher friends, and was confronted by an "engaged" on every door. She wassitting on a window-sill in the corridor, pondering on the generalbarrenness of things, when she suddenly remembered her friends thefreshmen in study 321. She had not visited them for some time, andfreshmen are usually interesting at this period. She accordingly turneddown the corridor that led to 321, and found a "POSITIVELY ENGAGED TOEVERY ONE!!" in letters three inches high, across the door. Thispromised a richness of entertainment within, and Patty heaved adisappointed sigh loud enough to carry through the transom. 

The turning of leaves and rustling of paper ceased; evidently they werelistening, but they gave no sign. Patty wrote a note on the door-blockwith reverberating punctuation-points, and then retired noisily, andtiptoed back a moment later, and leaned against the wall. Curiosityprevailed; the door opened, and a face wearing a hunted look peered out. 

"Oh, Patty Wyatt, was that you?" she asked. "We thought it was FrancesStoddard coming down to have geometry explained, and so we kept still. Come in. "

"Goodness, no; I wouldn't come in over an 'engaged' like that foranything. I'm afraid you're busy. "

The freshman grasped her by the arm. "Patty, if you love us come in andcheer us up. We're so scared we don't know what to do. "

Patty consented to be drawn across the threshold. "I don't want tointerrupt you, " she remonstrated, "if you have anything to do. " Thestudy was occupied by three girls. Patty smiled benignly at the twohaggard faces before her. "Where's Lady Clara Vere de Vere?" she asked. "She surely isn't wasting these precious last moments in anythingfrivolous. "

"She's in her bedroom, with a geometry in one hand and a Greek grammarin the other, trying to learn them both at once. "

"Tell her to come out here; I want to give her some good advice"; andPatty sat down on the divan and surveyed the dictionary-bestrewn roomwith an appreciative smile. 

"Oh, Patty, I'm so glad to see you!" Lady Clara exclaimed, appearing inthe doorway. "The sophomores have been telling us the most _dreadful_stories about examinations. They aren't true, are they?"

"Mercy, no! Don't believe a word those sophomores tell you. They werefreshmen themselves last year, and if the examinations were as bad asthey say, they wouldn't have passed them, either. "

A relieved expression stole over the three faces. 

"You're such a comfort, Patty. Upper-classmen take things easily, don'tthey?"

"One gets inured to almost anything in time, " said Patty. "Examinationsare even entertaining, if you know the right answers. "

"But we won't know the right answers!" one of the freshmen wailed, herterror returning. "We simply don't know _anything_, and Latin comesto-morrow, and geometry the next day. "

"Oh, well, in that case you can't get through anyway, so don't worry. You must take it philosophically, you know. " Patty settled herself amongthe cushions and smiled upon her frightened auditors with easynonchalance. "As an example of the uselessness of studying at theeleventh hour when you haven't done anything through the term, I willtell you my experience with freshman Greek. I was badly prepared when Icame, I didn't study through the term, and, without exaggeration, Ididn't know anything. Three days before examinations I suddenlycomprehended the situation, and I began swallowing that grammar inchunks. I drank black coffee to keep awake, and worked till two in themorning, and scarcely stopped cramming irregular verbs for meals. Isimply thought in Greek and dreamed in Greek. And, if you will believeit, after all that work I flunked in Greek! It shook my faith instudying for examinations. I've never done it since, and I've neverflunked since. I believe that it's just a matter of fate whether you getthrough or not, so I never bother any more. "

The freshmen looked at one another disconsolately. "If it's all decidedbeforehand, we're lost. "

Patty smiled reassuringly. 

 "A little flunking now and then Will happen to the best of men. "

"But I've heard they send people home, drop them, you know, if theyflunk more than a certain amount. Is that so?" Lady Clara inquired inhushed tones. 

"Oh, yes, " said Patty; "they have to. I've known some of the brightestgirls in college to be dropped. "

Lady Clara groaned. "I'm awfully shaky in geometry, Patty. Do they flunkmany girls in that?"

"Many!" said Patty. "The mere clerical labor of writing out the notesoccupies the department two days. "

"Is the examination terribly hard?"

"I don't remember much about it. It's been such a long time since I wasa freshman, you see. They picked out the hardest theorems, Iknow--things you couldn't even draw, let alone demonstrate: the pyramidthat's cut in slices, for one, --I don't remember its name, --and thatsprawling one that looks like a snail crawling out of its shell: thedevil's coffin, I believe it's called technically. And--oh, yes! theygive you originals--_frightful_ originals, like nothing you've ever hadbefore; and they put a little note at the top of the page telling you todo them first, and you get so muddled trying to think fast that youcan't think at all. I know a girl who spent all the two hours trying tothink out an original, and just as she got ready to write it down thebell rang and she had to hand in her paper. "

"And what happened?"

"Oh, she flunked. You couldn't really blame the instructor, you know, for not reading between the lines, for there weren't any lines to readbetween; but it was sort of a pity, for the girl really knew an awfullot--but she couldn't express it. "

"That's just like me. "

"Ah, it's like a good many people. " A silence ensued, and the freshmenlooked at one another dejectedly. "But you can live, even if you shouldflunk math, " Patty continued reassuringly. "Other people have done itbefore you. "

"If it were only geometry--but we're scared over Latin. "

"Oh, Latin! There's no use studying for that, for you can't possiblyread it all over, and if you just pick out a part, it's sure not to bethe same part _they_ pick out. The best way is to say incantations overthe book, and open it with your eyes blindfolded, and study the page itopens to; then, in case you don't pass, --and you probably won't, --youcan throw the blame on fate. My freshman year, if I remember right, theygave us for prose composition one of Emerson's essays to translate intoLatin, and we couldn't even tell what it meant in English. "

The three looked at one another again. 

"I couldn't do anything like that. "

"Nor I. "

"Nor I. "

"Nor any one else, " said Patty. 

"We can flunk Latin and math; but if we flunk any more we're gone. "

"I believe so, " said Patty. 

"And I'm awfully shaky in German. "

"And I in French. "

"And I in Greek. "

"I don't know anything about German, " said Patty. "Never had it myself. But I remember hearing Priscilla say that the printed examination papersdidn't come but in time, and Fräulein Scherin, who writes a frightfulhand, wrote the questions on the board in German script, and theycouldn't even read them. In French I believe the first question was towrite out the 'Marseillaise'; there are seven verses, and no one hadlearned them, and the 'Marseillaise, ' you know, is a thing that yousimply _can't_ make up on the spur of the moment. As for Greek, I toldyou my own experience; I am sure nothing could be worse than that. "

The freshmen looked at one another hopelessly. "There's only Englishand hygiene and Bible history left. "

"English is something you can't tell anything about, " said Patty. "They're as likely as not to ask you to write a heroic poem in iambicpentameters, if you know what they are. You have to depend oninspiration; you can't study for it. "

"I hope, " sighed Lady Clara, "to get through hygiene and Bible history, though, as they only count one hour apiece, I suppose it isn't much. "

"You mustn't be too sanguine, " said Patty. "It all depends on chance. The class in hygiene is so big that the professor hasn't time to readthe papers; he just goes down the list and flunks every thirteenth girl. I'm not sure about Bible history, but I think he does the same, becauseI know, freshman year, that I made a mistake and handed in my map of theHoly Lands done in colored chalk to the hygiene professor, and my chartof the digestive system to the Bible professor, and neither of themnoticed it. They did look a good deal alike, but not so much but whatyou could tell them apart. All I have to say is that I hope none of youwill be number thirteen. "

The freshmen stared at one another in speechless horror, and Patty rose. "Well, good-by, my children, and, above all things, don't worry. I'mglad if I've been able to cheer you up a little, for so much depends onnot being nervous. Don't believe any of the silly stories the sophomorestell, " she called back over her shoulder; "they're just trying tofrighten you. "

X

"Per l'Italia"

College is a more or less selfish place. Everybody is so busy with herown affairs that she has no time to give to her neighbor, unless herneighbor has something to give in return. Olivia Copeland apparently hadnothing to give in return. She was quiet and inconspicuous, and it tooka second glance to realize that her face was striking and that there wasa look in her eyes that other freshmen did not have. By an unfelicitouschance she was placed in the same study with Lady Clara Vere de Vere andEmily Washburn. They thought her foreign and queer, and she thought themcrude and boisterous, and after the first week or two of politely tryingto get acquainted the effort was dropped on both sides. 

The year wore on, and nobody knew, or at least no one paid any attentionto the fact, that Olivia Copeland was homesick and unhappy. Herroom-mates thought that they had done their duty when they occasionallyasked her to play golf or go skating with them (an invitation they werevery safe in giving, as she knew how to do neither). Her instructorsthought that they had done their duty when they called her up to thedesk after class and warned her that her work was not as good as it hadbeen, and that if she wished to pass she must improve in it. 

The English class was the only one in which she was not warned; but shehad no means of knowing that her themes were handed about among thedifferent instructors and that she was referred to in the department as"that remarkable Miss Copeland. " The department had a theory that ifthey let a girl know she was doing good work she would immediately stopand rest upon her reputation; and Olivia, in consequence, did notdiscover that she was remarkable. She merely discovered that she wasmiserable and out of place, and she continued to drip tears ofhomesickness before a sketch of an Italian villa that hung above herdesk. 

It was Patty Wyatt who first discovered her. Patty had dropped into thefreshmen's room one afternoon on some errand or other (probably toborrow alcohol), and had idly picked up a pile of English themes thatwere lying on the study table. 

"Whose are these? Do you care if I look at them?" she asked. 

"No; you can read them if you want to, " said Lady Clara. "They'reOlivia's, but she won't mind. "

Patty carelessly turned the pages, and then, as a title caught her eye, she suddenly looked up with a show of interest. "'The Coral-fishers ofCapri'! What on earth does Olivia Copeland know about the coral-fishersof Capri?"

"Oh, she lives somewhere near there--at Sorrento, " said Lady Clara, indifferently. 

"Olivia Copeland lives at Sorrento!" Patty stared. "Why didn't you tellme?"

"I supposed you knew it. Her father's an artist or something of thesort. She's lived in Italy all her life; that's what makes her soqueer. "

Patty had once spent a sunshiny week in Sorrento herself, and the verymemory of it was intoxicating. "Where is she?" she asked excitedly. "Iwant to talk to her. "

"I don't know where she is. Out walking, probably. She goes off walkingall by herself, and never speaks to any one, and then when we ask her todo something rational, like golf or basket-ball, she pokes in the houseand reads Dante in Italian. Imagine!"

"Why, she must be interesting!" said Patty, in surprise, and she turnedback to the themes. 

"I think these are splendid!" she exclaimed. 

"Sort of queer, I think, " said Lady Clara. "But there's one that'srather funny. It was read in class--about a peasant that lost hisdonkey. I'll find it"; and she rummaged through the pile. 

Patty read it soberly, and Lady Clara watched her with a shade ofdisappointment. 

"Don't you think it's pretty good?" she asked. 

"Yes; I think it's one of the best things I ever read. "

"You never even smiled!"

"My dear child, it isn't funny. "

"Isn't funny! Why, the class simply roared over it. "

Patty shrugged. "Your appreciation must have gratified Olivia. And hereit's February, and I've barely spoken to her. "

The next afternoon Patty was strolling home from a recitation, when shespied Olivia Copeland across the campus, headed for Pine Bluff andevidently out for a solitary walk. 

"Olivia Copeland, wait a moment, " Patty called. "Are you going for awalk? May I come too?" she asked, as she panted up behind. 

Olivia assented with evident surprise, and Patty fell into step besideher. "I just found out yesterday that you live in Sorrento, and I wantedto talk to you. I was there myself once, and I think it's the mostglorious spot on earth. "

Olivia's eyes shone. "Really?" she gasped. "Oh, I'm so glad!" And beforeshe knew it she was telling Patty the story of how she had come tocollege to please her father, and how she loved Italy and hated America;and what she did not tell about her loneliness and homesickness Pattydivined. 

She realized that the girl _was_ remarkable, and she determined in thefuture to take an interest in her and make her like college. But asenior's life is busy and taken up with its own affairs, and for thenext week or two Patty saw little of the freshman beyond an occasionalchat in the corridors. 

One evening she and Priscilla had returned late from a dinner in town, to be confronted by a dark room and an empty match-safe. 

"Wait a moment and I'll get some matches, " said Patty; and she knockedon a door across the corridor where a freshman lived with whom they hada borrowing acquaintance. She found within her own freshman friends, Lady Clara Vere de Vere and Emily Washburn. It was evident by the threeheads close together, and the hush that fell on the group as sheentered, that some momentous piece of gossip had been interrupted. Pattyforgot her room-mate waiting in the dark, and dropped into a chair withthe evident purpose of staying out the evening. 

"Tell me all about it, children, " she said cordially. 

The freshmen looked at one another and hesitated. 

"A new president?" Patty suggested, "or just a class mutiny?"

"It's about Olivia Copeland, " Lady Clara returned dubiously; "but Idon't know that I ought to say anything. "

"Olivia Copeland?" Patty straightened up with a new interest in hereyes. "What's Olivia Copeland been doing?"

"She's been flunking and--"

"Flunking!" Patty's face was blank. "But I thought she was so bright!"

"Oh, she is bright; only, you know, she hasn't a way of making peoplefind it out; and, besides, " Lady Clara added with meaning emphasis, "shewas scared over examinations. "

Patty cast a quick look at her. "What do you mean?" she asked. 

Lady Clara was fond of Patty, but she was only human, and she had beenfrightened herself. "Well, " she explained, "she had heard a lot ofstories from--er--upper-classmen about how hard the examinations are, and the awful things they do to you if you don't pass, and being astranger, she believed them. Of course Emily and I knew better; but shewas just scared to death, and she went all to pieces, and--"

"Nonsense!" said Patty, impatiently. "You can't make me believe that. "

"If it had been a sophomore that had tried to frighten us, " pursued LadyClara, "we shouldn't have minded so much: but a senior!"

"Now, Patty, aren't you sorry that you told us all those things?" askedEmily. 

Patty laughed. "For the matter of that, I never say anything I'm notsorry for half an hour later. I'm going to get out a book some dayentitled 'Things I Wish I Hadn't Said: A Collection of _Faux Pas_, ' byPatty Wyatt. "

"I think it's more than a _faux pas_ when you frighten a girl so she--"

"I suppose you think you're rubbing it in, " said Patty, imperturbably;"but girls don't flunk because they're frightened: they flunk becausethey don't know. "

"Olivia knew five times as much geometry as I did, and I got through andshe didn't. "

Patty examined the carpet in silence. 

"She thinks she's going to be dropped, and she's just crying terribly, "pursued Emily, with a certain relish in the details. 

"Crying!" said Patty, sharply. "What's she crying for?"

"Because she feels bad, I suppose. She'd been out walking, and gotcaught in the rain, and she didn't get back in time for dinner, and thenfound those notes waiting for her. She's up there lying on the bed, andshe's got hysterics or Roman fever or something like that. She told usto go away and let her alone. She's awfully cross all of a sudden. "

Patty rose. "I think I'll go and cheer her up. "

"Let her alone, Patty, " said Emily. "I know the way you cheer people up. If you hadn't cheered her up before examinations she wouldn't haveflunked. "

"I didn't know anything about her then, " said Patty, a trifle sulkily;"and, anyway, " she added as she opened the door, "I didn't say anythingthat affected her passing, one way or the other. " She turned towardOlivia's room, however, with a conscience that was not quitecomfortable. She could not remember just what she _had_ told thosefreshmen about examinations, but she had an uneasy feeling that itmight not have been of a reassuring nature. 

"I wish I could ever learn when it is time for joking and when it isnot, " she said to herself as she knocked on the study door. 

No one answered, and she turned the knob and entered. A stifled sob camefrom one of the bedrooms, and Patty hesitated. 

She was not in the habit of crying herself, and she always feltuncomfortable when other people did it. Something must be done, however, and she advanced to the threshold and silently regarded Olivia, who wasstretched face downward on the bed. At the sound of Patty's step sheraised her head and cast a startled glance at the intruder, and thenburied her face in the pillows again. Patty scribbled an "engaged" signand pinned it on the study door, and drawing up a chair beside the bed, she sat down with the air of a physician about to make a diagnosis. 

"Well, Olivia, " she began in a business-like tone, "what is thetrouble?"

Olivia opened her hands and disclosed some crumpled papers. Patty spreadthem out and hastily ran her eyes over the official printed slips:

 Miss _Copeland_ is hereby informed that she has been found deficient in _German_ (_three_ hours). 

 Miss _Copeland_ is hereby informed that she has been found deficient in _Latin prose_ (_one_ hour). 

 Miss _Copeland_ is hereby informed that she has been found deficient in _geometry_ (_four_ hours). 

Patty performed a rapid calculation, --"three and one are four and fourare eight, "--and knit her brows. 

"Will they send me home, Patty?"

"Mercy, no, child; I hope not. A person who's done as good work as youin English ought to have the right to flunk every other blessed thing, if she wants to. "

"But you're dropped if you flunk eight hours; you told me so yourself. "

"Don't believe anything I told you, " said Patty, reassuringly. "I don'tknow what I'm talking about more than half the time. "

"I'd hate to be sent back, and have my father know I'd failed, when hespent so much time preparing me; but"--Olivia began to cry again--"Iwant to go back so much that I don't believe I care. "

"You don't know what you're talking about, " said Patty. She put her handon the girl's shoulder. "Mercy, child, you're sopping wet, and you'reshivering! Sit up and take those shoes off. "

Olivia sat up and pulled at the laces with ineffectual fingers, andPatty jerked them open and dumped the shoes in a squashy heap on thefloor. 

"Do you know what's the matter with you?" she asked. "You're not cryingbecause you've flunked. You're crying because you've caught cold, andyou're tired and wet and hungry. You take those wet clothes off thisminute and get into a warm bath-robe, and I'll get you some dinner. "

"I don't want any dinner, " wailed Olivia, and she showed signs ofturning back to the pillows again. 

"Don't act like a baby, Olivia, " said Patty, sharply; "sit up and bea--a man. "

Ten minutes later Patty returned from a successful looting expedition, and deposited her spoils on the bedroom table. Olivia sat on the edge ofthe bed and watched her apathetically, a picture of shiveringdespondency. 

"Drink this, " commanded Patty, as she extended a steaming glass. 

Olivia obediently raised it to her lips, and drew back. "What's in it?"she asked faintly. 

"Everything I could find that's hot--quinine and whisky and Jamaicaginger and cough syrup and a dash of red pepper, and--one or two otherthings. It's my own idea. You can't take cold after _that_. "

"I--I don't believe I want any. "

"Drink it--every drop, " said Patty, grimly; and Olivia shut her eyes andgulped it down. 

"Now, " said Patty, cheerfully bustling about, "I'll get dinner. Have youa can-opener? And any alcohol, by chance? That's nice. We'll have threecourses, --canned soup, canned baked beans, and preserved ginger, --all ofthem hot. It's mighty lucky Georgie Merriles was in New York or she'dnever have lent them to me. "

Olivia, to her own astonishment, presently found herself laughing (shehad thought that she would never smile again) as she sipped mulligatawnysoup from a tooth-mug and balanced a pin-trayful of steaming baked beanson her knee. 

"And now, " said Patty, as, the three courses disposed of, she tucked thefreshman into bed, "we'll map out a campaign. While eight hours arepretty serious, they are not of necessity deadly. What made you flunkLatin prose?"

"I never had any before I came, and when I told Miss--"

"Certainly; she thought it her duty to flunk you. You shouldn't havementioned the subject. But never mind. It's only one hour, and it won'ttake you a minute to work it off. How about German?"

"German's a little hard because it's so different from Italian andFrench, you know; and I'm sort of frightened when she calls on me, and--"

"Pretty stupid, on the whole?" Patty suggested. 

"I'm afraid I am, " she confessed. 

"Well, I dare say you deserved to flunk in that. You can tutor it up andpass it off in the spring. How about geometry?"

"I thought I knew that, only she didn't ask what I expected and--"

"An unfortunate circumstance, but it will happen. Could you review it upa little and take a reëxamination right away?"

"Yes; I'm sure I could, only they won't give me another chance. They'llsend me home first. "

"Who's your instructor?"

"Miss Prescott. "

Patty frowned, and then she laughed. "I thought if it were Miss HawleyI could go to her and explain the matter and ask her to give you areëxamination. Miss Hawley's occasionally human. But Miss Prescott! Nowonder you flunked. I'm afraid of her myself. She's the only woman thatever got a degree at some German university, and she simply hasn't athought in the world beyond mathematics. I don't believe the woman hasany soul. If one of those mediums should come here and dematerializeher, all that would be left would be an equilateral triangle. "

Patty shook her head. "I'm afraid there's not much use in arguing with aperson like that. If she once sees a truth, you know, she sees it forall time. But never mind; I'll do the best I can. I'll tell her you'rean undiscovered mathematical genius; that it's latent, but if she'llexamine you again she'll find it. That ought to appeal to her. Good-night. Go to sleep and don't worry; I'll manage her. "

"Good night; and thank you, Patty, " called a tolerably cheerful voicefrom under the covers. 

Patty closed the door, and stood a moment in the hall, pondering thesituation. Olivia Copeland was too valuable to throw away. The collegemust be made to realize her worth. But that was difficult. Patty hadtried to make the college realize things before. Miss Prescott was theonly means of salvation that she could think of, and Miss Prescott was adoubtful means. She did not at all relish the prospect of calling onher, but there seemed to be nothing else to do. She made a littlegrimace and laughed. "I'm acting like a freshman myself, " she thought. "Walk up, Patty, and face the guns"; and without giving herself time tohesitate she marched up-stairs and knocked on Miss Prescott's door. Shereflected after she had knocked that perhaps it would have been morepolitic to have postponed her business until the morrow. But the dooropened before she had time to run away, and she found herself ratherconfusedly bowing to Miss Prescott, who held in her hand, not a book oncalculus, but a common, every-day magazine. 

"Good evening, Miss Wyatt. Won't you come in and sit down?" said MissPrescott, in a very cordially human tone. 

As she sank into a deep rush chair Patty had a blurred vision of lowbookcases, pictures, rugs, and polished brass thrown into soft relief bya shaded lamp which stood on the table. Before she had time to mentallyshake herself and reconstruct her ideas she was gaily chatting to MissPrescott about the probable outcome of a serial story in the magazine. 

Miss Prescott did not seem to wonder in the least at this unusual visit, but talked along easily on various subjects, and laughed and toldstories like the humanest of human beings. Patty watched her, fascinated. "She's _pretty_, " she thought to herself and she began towonder how old she was. Never before had she associated any age whateverwith Miss Prescott. She had regarded her much in the same light as ascientific truth, which exists, but is quite irrespective of time orplace. She tried to recall some story that had been handed about amongthe girls her freshman year. She remembered vaguely that it had in itthe suggestion that Miss Prescott had once been in love. At the timePatty had scoffingly repudiated the idea, but now she was half willingto believe it. 

Suddenly, in the midst of the conversation, the ten-o'clock bell rang, and Patty recalled her errand with a start. 

"I suppose, " she said, "you are wondering why I came. "

"I was hoping, " said Miss Prescott, with a smile, "that it was just tosee me, without any ulterior motive. "

"It will be the next time--if you will let me come again; but to-night Ihad another reason, which I'm afraid you'll think impertinent--and, " sheadded frankly, "I don't know just what's the best way to tell it so thatyou _won't_ think it impertinent. "

"Tell it to me any way you please, and I will try not to think so, "said Miss Prescott, kindly. 

"Don't you think sometimes the girls can tell more of one another'sability than the instructors?" Patty asked. "I know a girl, " shecontinued, "a freshman, who is, in some ways, the most remarkable personI have ever met. Of course I can't be sure, but I should say that she isgoing to be very good in English some day--so good, you know, that thecollege will be proud of her. Well, this girl has flunked such a lotthat I am afraid she is in danger of being sent home, and the collegesimply can't afford to lose her. I don't know anything about your rules, of course, but what seems to me the easiest way is for you to give heranother examination in geometry immediately, --she really knows it, --andthen tell the faculty about her and urge them to give her anothertrial. "

Patty brought out this astounding request in the most matter-of-fact waypossible, and the corners of Miss Prescott's mouth twitched as sheasked: "Of whom are you speaking?"

"Olivia Copeland. "

Miss Prescott's mouth grew firm, and she looked like the instructor inmathematics again. 

"Miss Copeland did absolutely nothing on her examination, Miss Wyatt, and what little she has recited during the year does not betoken anyunusual ability. I am sorry, but it would be impossible. "

"But, Miss Prescott, " Patty expostulated, "the girl has worked undersuch peculiar disadvantages. She's an American, but she lives abroad, and all our ways are new to her. She has never been to school a day inher life. Her father prepared her for college, and, of course, not inthe same way that the other girls have been prepared. She is shy, andnot being used to reciting in a class, she doesn't know how to show off. I am sure, Miss Prescott, that if you would take her and examine heryourself, you would find that she understands the work--that is, if youwould let her get over being afraid of you first. I know you're busy, and it's asking a good deal, " Patty finished apologetically. 

"It is not that, Miss Wyatt, for of course I do not wish to mark anystudent unjustly; but I cannot help feeling that you have overestimatedMiss Copeland's ability. She has really had a chance to show what is inher, and if she has failed in as many courses as you say--The college, you know, must keep up the standard of its work, and in questions likethis it is not always possible to consider the individual. "

Patty felt that she was being dismissed, and she groped about wildly fora new plea. Her eye caught a framed picture of the old monastery ofAmalfi hanging over the bookcase. 

"Perhaps you've lived in Italy?" she asked. 

Miss Prescott started slightly. "No, " she said; "but I've spent sometime there. "

"That picture of Amalfi, up there, made me think of it. Olivia Copeland, you know, lives near there, at Sorrento. "

A gleam of interest flashed into Miss Prescott's eye. 

"That's how I first came to notice her, " continued Patty; "but shedidn't interest me so much until I talked to her. It seems that herfather is an artist, and she was born in Italy, and has only visitedAmerica once when she was a little girl. Her mother is dead, and she andher father live in an old villa on that road along the coast leading toSorrento. She has never had any girl friends; just her father'sfriends--artists and diplomats and people like that. She speaks Italian, and she knows all about Italian art and politics and the church and theagrarian laws and how the people are taxed; and all the peasants aroundSorrento are her friends. She is so homesick that she nearly dies, andthe only person here that she can talk to about the things she isinterested in is the peanut man down-town. 

[Illustration: Olivia Copeland]

"The girls she rooms with are just nice exuberant American girls, andare interested in golf and basket-ball and Welsh rabbit and RichardHarding Davis stories and Gibson pictures--and she never even _heard_ ofany of them until four months ago. She has a water-color sketch of thevilla, that her father did. It's white stucco, you know, with terracesand marble balustrades and broken statues, and a grove of ilex-treeswith a fountain in the center. Just think of _belonging_ to a place likethat, Miss Prescott, and then being suddenly plunged into a place likethis without any friends or any one who even knows about the things youknow--think how lonely you would be!"

Patty leaned forward with flushed cheeks, carried away by her owneloquence. "You know what Italy's like. It's a sort of disease. If youonce get fond of it you'll never forget it, and you just can't be happytill you get back. And with Olivia it's her home, besides. She's neverknown anything else. And it's hard at first to keep your mind onmathematics when you're dreaming all the time of ilex groves andfountains and nightingales and--and things like that. "

She finished lamely, for Miss Prescott suddenly leaned back in theshadow, and it seemed to Patty that her face had grown pale and the handthat held the magazine trembled. 

Patty flushed uncomfortably and tried to think what she had said. Shewas always saying things that hurt people's feelings without meaning to. Suddenly that old story from her freshman year flashed into her mind. Hehad been an artist and had lived in Italy and had died of Roman fever;and Miss Prescott had gone to Germany to study mathematics, and hadnever cared for anything else since. It sounded rather made up, but itmight be true. Had she stumbled on a forbidden subject? she wonderedmiserably. She had, of course; it was just her way. 

The silence was becoming unbearable; she struggled to think of somethingto say, but nothing came, and she rose abruptly. 

"I'm sorry to have taken so much of your time, Miss Prescott. I hope Ihaven't bored you. Good night. "

Miss Prescott rose and took Patty's hand. "Good night, my dear, andthank you for coming to me. I am glad to know of Olivia Copeland. I willsee what can be done about her geometry, and I shall be glad, besides, to know her as--as a friend; for I, too, once cared for Italy. "

Patty closed the door softly and tiptoed home through the dim corridors. 

"Did you bring the matches?" called a sleepy voice from Priscilla'sbedroom. 

Patty started. "Oh, the matches!" she laughed. "No; I forgot them. "

"I never knew you to accomplish anything yet that you started out to do, Patty Wyatt. "

"I've accomplished something to-night, just the same, " Patty retorted, with a little note of triumph in her voice; "but I haven't an idea howI happened to do it, " she added frankly to herself. 

And she went to bed and fell asleep, quite unaware of how much she _had_accomplished; for unconsciously she had laid the foundation of afriendship which was to make happy the future of a lonely freshman andan equally lonely instructor. 

XI

"Local Color"

The third senior table had discovered a new amusement with which toenlighten the tedium of waiting while Maggie was in the kitchen foragingfor food. The game was called "local color, " in honor of Patty Wyatt'sfamous definition in English class, "Local color is that which makes alie seem truthful. " The object of the game was to see who could tell thebiggest lie without being found out; and the one rule required that thevictims be disillusionized before they left the table. 

Patty was the instigator, the champion player, and the final victim ofthe game. Baron Münchhausen himself would have blushed at some of hercreations, and her stories were told with such an air of ingenuoushonesty that the most outrageous among them obtained credence. 

The game in its original conception may have been innocent enough, butthe rule was not always as carefully observed as it should have been, and the most unaccountable scandals began to float about college. Thepresident of "Christians" had been called up for cutting chapel. Theshark of the class had flunked her ethics, and even failed to getthrough on the "re. " Cathy Fair was an own cousin of ProfessorHitchcock's, and called him "Tommy" to his face. These, and far worse, were becoming public property; and even personal fabrications in regardto the faculty, intended solely for undergraduate consumption, werereaching the ears of the faculty themselves. 

One day Patty dropped into an under-classman's room on some committeework, and she found the children, in the manner of their elders, regaling themselves on dainty bits of college gossip. 

"I heard the funniest thing about Professor Winters yesterday, " pipedup a sophomore. 

"Tell it to us. What was it?" cried a chorus of voices. 

"I'd like to hear something funny about Professor Winters; he's thesolemnest-looking man I ever saw, " remarked a freshman. 

"Well, " resumed the sophomore, "it seems he was going to get marriedlast week, and the invitations were all out, and the presents all there, when the bride came down with the mumps. "

"Really? How funny!" came in a chorus from the delighted auditors. 

"Yes--on both sides; and the clergyman had never had it, so the ceremonyhad to be postponed. "

Patty's blood froze. She recognized the tale. It was one of her ownoffspring, only shorn of its unessential adornments. 

"Where in the world did you hear any such absurd thing as that?" shedemanded severely. 

"I heard Lucille Carter tell it at a fudge party up in BonnieConnaught's room last night, " answered the sophomore, stoutly, sure thatthe source was a reputable one. 

Patty groaned. "And I suppose that every blessed one of that dozen girlshas told it to another dozen by this time, and that it's only bounded bythe boundaries of the campus. Well, there's not a word of truth in it. Lucille Carter doesn't know what she is talking about. That's a likelystory, isn't it?" she added with fine scorn. "Does Professor Winterslook like a man who'd ever dare propose to a girl, let alone marry her?"And she stalked out of the room and up to the single where Lucillelived. 

"Lucille, " said Patty, "what do you mean by spreading that story aboutProfessor Winters's bride's mumps?"

"You told it to me yourself, " answered Lucille, with some warmth. Shewas a believing creature with an essentially literal mind, and she hadalways been out of her element in the lofty imaginative realms of localcolor. 

"I told it to you!" said Patty, indignantly. "You goose, you don't meanto tell me you believed it? I was just playing local color. "

"How should I know that? You told it as if it were true. "

"Of course, " said Patty; "that's the game. You wouldn't have believed meif I hadn't. "

"But you never said it wasn't true. You don't follow the rule. "

"I didn't think it was necessary. I never supposed any one would believeany such absurd story as that. "

"I don't see how it was my fault. "

"Of course it was your fault. You shouldn't be spreading malicious talesabout the faculty; it's irreverent. The story's all over college by thistime, and Professor Winters has probably heard it himself. He'll flunkyou on the finals to pay for it; see if he doesn't. " And Patty wenthome, leaving a conscience-smitten and thoroughly indignant Lucillebehind her. 

 * * * * *

ABOUT a month before the introduction of local color, Patty had enteredupon a new activity, which she referred to impartially as "moldingpublic opinion" and "elevating the press. " The way of it was this:

The college, which was a modest and retiring institution craving only tobe unmolested in its atmosphere of academic calm, had been recentlyexploited by a sensational newspaper. The fact that none of the storieswas true did not mitigate the annoyance. The college was besieged byreporters who had heard rumors and wished to have them corroborated forexclusive publication in the "Censor" or "Advertiser" or "Star. " Andthey would also like a photograph of Miss Bentley as she appeared in thecharacter of Portia; and since she refused to give it to them, theystated their intention of "faking" one, which, they gallantly assuredher, would be far homelier than the original. 

The climax was reached when Bonnie Connaught was unfortunate enough tosprain her ankle in basket-ball. Something more than a life-sizeportrait of her, clothed in a masculine-looking sweater, with abasket-ball under her arm, appeared in a New York evening paper, andscare-heads three inches high announced in red ink that the championathlete and most popular society girl in college was at death's door, owing to injuries received in basket-ball. 

Bonnie's eminently respectable family descended upon the college in anindignant body for the purpose of taking her home, and were withdifficulty soothed by an equally indignant faculty. The alumnæ wrotethat in their day such brutal games as basket-ball had not beencountenanced, and that they feared the college had deteriorated. Parentswrote that they would remove their daughters from college if they wereto be subjected to such publicity; and the poor president was, ofcourse, quite helpless before the glorious American privilege of freespeech. 

Finally the college hit upon a partially protective measure--that offurnishing its own news; and a regularly organized newspaper corps wasformed among the students, with a member of the faculty at the head. Themore respectable of the papers were very glad to have a correspondentfrom the inside whose facts needed no investigation, and the lessrespectable in due time betook themselves to more fruitful fields ofscandal and happily forgot the existence of the college. 

Patty, having the reputation of being an "English shark, " had been dulyempaneled and presented with a local paper. At first she had been filledwith a fit sense of the responsibility of the position, and hadconscientiously neglected her college work for its sake; but in time thenovelty wore off, and her weekly budgets became more and moreperfunctory in character. 

The choice of Patty for this particular paper perhaps had not been veryfar-sighted, for the editor wished a column a week of what he designatedas "chatty news, " whereas it would have been wiser to have given her acity paper which required only a brief statement of important facts. Patty's own tendencies, it must be confessed, had a slightly yellowtinge, and, with a delighted editor egging her on, it was hard for herto suppress her latent love for "local color. " The paper, however, had awide circulation among the faculty, which circumstance tended to have achastening effect. 

The day following Patty's bride-with-the-mumps contretemps with Lucillehappened to be Friday, and she was painfully engaged in her weeklymolding of public opinion. It had been a barren week, and there wasnothing to write about. 

She reviewed at length a set of French encyclopedias which had beengiven to the library, and spoke with enthusiasm of a remarkablecollection of jaw-bones of the prehistoric cow which had been presentedto the department of paleontology. She gave in full the list of theseventeen girls who had been honored with scholarships, laboriouslywriting out their full names, with "Miss" attached to each, and the nameof the town and the State in its unabbreviated length. And still it onlymounted up to ten pages, and it took eighteen of Patty's writing to makea column. 

She strolled down to examine the bulletin-board again, and discovered anew notice which she had overlooked before:

 Friday, January 17. Professor James Harkner Wallis of the Lick Observatory will lecture in the auditorium, at eight o'clock, upon "Theories of the Sidereal System. "

Patty regarded the notice without emotion. It did not look capable ofexpansion, and she did not feel the remotest interest in the siderealsystem. The brief account of the lecturer, however, which was appendedto the notice, stated that Professor Wallis was one of the best known ofliving astronomers, and that he had conducted important originalinvestigations. 

"If I knew anything about astronomy, " she thought desperately, "I mightbe able to spread him out over two pages. "

An acquaintance of Patty's strolled up to the bulletin-board. 

"Did you ever hear of that man?" asked Patty, pointing to the notice. 

"Never; but I'm not an astronomer. "

"I'm not, either, " said Patty. "I wonder who he is?" she addedwistfully. "It seems he's very famous, and I'd really like to knowsomething about him. "

The girl opened her eyes in some surprise at this thirst for gratuitousinformation; it did not accord with Patty's reputation: and ever after, when it was affirmed in her presence that Patty Wyatt was brilliant butsuperficial, she stoutly maintained that Patty was deeper than peoplethought. She pondered a moment, and then returned, "Lucille Carter takesastronomy; she could tell you about him. "

"So she does. I'd forgotten it"; and Patty swung off toward Lucille'sroom. 

She found a number of girls sitting around on the various pieces offurniture, eating fudge and discussing the tragedies of one Maeterlinck. 

"What's this?" said Patty. "A party?"

"Oh, no, " said Lucille; "just an extra session of the Dramatic Theoryclass. Don't be afraid; there's your room-mate up on the window-seat. "

"Hello, Pris. What are you doing here?" said Patty, dipping out somefudge with a spoon. (There had been a disagreement as to how long itshould boil. )

"Just paying a social call. What are you doing? I thought you were goingto hurry up and get through so you could go down-town to dinner. "

"I am, " said Patty, vaguely; "but I got lonely. "

The conversation drifting off to Maeterlinck again, she seized theopportunity to inquire of Lucille: "Who's this astronomy man that'sgoing to lecture to-night? He's quite famous, isn't he?"

"Very, " said Lucille. "Professor Phelps has been talking about him everyday for the last week. "

"Where's the Lick Observatory, anyway?" pursued Patty. "I can'tremember, for the life of me, whether it's in California or on Pike'sPeak. "

Lucille considered a moment. "It's in Dublin, Ireland. "

"Dublin, Ireland?" asked Patty, in some surprise. "I could have swornthat it was in California. Are you sure you know where it is, Lucille?"

"Of course I'm sure. Haven't we been having it for three days steady?California! You must be crazy, Patty. I think you'd better electastronomy. "

"I know it, " said Patty, meekly. "I was going to, but I heard that itwas terribly hard, and I thought senior year you have a right to takesomething a little easy. But, you know, that's the funniest thing aboutthe Lick Observatory, for I really know a lot about it--read an articleon it just a little while ago; and I don't know how I got theimpression, but I was almost sure it was in the United States. It justshows that you can never be sure of anything. "

"No, " said Lucille; "it isn't safe. "

"Is it connected with Dublin University?" asked Patty. 

"I believe so, " said Lucille. 

"And this astronomy person, " continued Patty, warming to her work--"Isuppose he's an Irishman, then. "

"Of course, " said Lucille. "He's very noted. "

"What's he done?" asked Patty. "It said on the bulletin-board he'd madesome important discoveries. I suppose, though, they're frightfultechnicalities that no one ever heard of. "

"Well, " said Lucille, considering, "he discovered the rings of Saturnand the Milky Way. "

"The rings of Saturn! Why, I thought those had been discovered _ages_ago. He must be a terribly old man. I remember reading about them whenI was an infant in arms. "

"It was a good while ago, " said Lucille. "Eight or nine years, atleast. "

"And the Milky Way!" continued Patty, with a show of incredulity. "Idon't see how people could have helped discovering that long ago. Icould have done it myself, and I don't pretend to know anything aboutastronomy. "

"Oh, of course, " Lucille hastened to explain, "the phenomenon had beenobserved before, but had never been accounted for. "

"I see, " said Patty, surreptitiously taking notes. "He must really be anawfully important man. How did he happen to do all this?"

"He went up in a balloon, " said Lucille, vaguely. 

"A balloon! What fun!" exclaimed Patty, her reportorial instinct wakingto the scent. "They use balloons a lot more in Europe than they dohere. "

"I believe he has his balloon with him here in America, " said Lucille. "He never travels without it. "

"What's the good of it?" inquired Patty. "I suppose, " she continued, furnishing her own explanation, "it gets him such a lot nearer to thestars. "

"That's without doubt the reason, " said Lucille. 

"I wish he'd send it up here, " sighed Patty. "Do you know any moreinteresting details about him?"

"N--no, " said Lucille; "I can't think of any more at present. "

"He's certainly the most interesting professor I ever heard of, " saidPatty, "and it's strange I never heard of him before. "

"There seem to be a good many things you have never heard of, " observedLucille. 

"Yes, " acknowledged Patty; "there are. "

"Well, Patty, " said Priscilla, emerging from the discussion on the otherside of the room, "if you're going to dinner with me, you'd better stopfooling with Lucille, and go home and get your work done. "

"Very well, " said Patty, rising with obliging promptitude. "Good-by, girls. Come and see me and I'll give you some fudge that's done. Thankyou for the information, " she called back to Lucille. 

 * * * * *

THE Monday afternoon following, Patty and Priscilla, with two or threeother girls, came strolling back from the lake, jingling their skatesover their arms. 

"Come in, girls, and have some hot tea, " said Priscilla, as they reachedthe study door. 

"Here's a note for Patty, " said Bonnie Connaught, picking up an envelopfrom the table. "Terribly official-looking. Must have come in thecollege mail. Open it, Patty, and let's see what you've flunked. "

"Dear me!" said Patty, "I thought that was a habit I'd outgrown freshmanyear. "

They crowded around and read the note over her shoulder. Patty had nosecrets. 

 THE OBSERVATORY, January 20. Miss Patty Wyatt. 

 DEAR MISS WYATT: I am informed that you are the correspondent for the "Saturday Evening Post-Despatch, " and I take the liberty of calling your attention to a rather grave error which occurred in last week's issue. You stated that the Lick Observatory is in Dublin, Ireland, while, as is a matter of general information, it is situated near San Francisco, California. Professor James Harkner Wallis is not an Irishman; he is an American. Though he has carried on some very important investigations, he is the discoverer of neither the rings of Saturn nor the Milky Way. 

 Very truly yours, HOWARD D. PHELPS. 

"It's from Professor Phelps--what can he mean?" said the Twin, inbewilderment. 

"Oh, Patty, " groaned Priscilla, "you don't mean to say that you actuallybelieved all that stuff?"

"Of course I believed it. How could I know she was lying?"

"She wasn't lying. Don't use such reckless language. "

"I'd like to know what you call it, then?" said Patty, angrily. 

"Local color, my dear, just local color. The worm will turn, you know. "

"Why didn't you tell me?" wailed Patty. 

"Never supposed for a moment you believed her. Thought you were jokingall the time. "

"What's the matter, Patty? What have you done?" the others demanded, divided between a pardonable feeling of curiosity and a sense that theyought to retire before this domestic tragedy. 

"Oh, tell them, " said Patty, bitterly. "Tell every one you see. Shout itfrom the dome of the observatory. You might as well; it'll be all overcollege in a couple of hours. "

Priscilla explained, and as she explained the funny side began to strikeher. By the time she had finished they were all--except Patty--reducedto hysterics. 

"The poor editor, " gurgled Priscilla. "He's always after a scoop, andhe's certainly got one this time. "

"Where is it, Patty--the paper?" gasped Bonnie. 

"I threw it away, " said Patty, sulkily. 

Priscilla rummaged it out of the waste-basket, and the four bent over itdelightedly. 

 Ireland's eminent astronomer spending a few weeks in America lecturing at the principal colleges--His famous discovery of the rings of Saturn made during a balloon ascension three thousand feet in the air--Though this is his first visit to the States, he speaks with only a slight brogue--Loyal son of old Erin

"Patty, Patty! And you, of all people, to be so gullible!"

"Professor James Harkner Wallis's parents will be writing to Prexy nextto say that their son can't lecture here any more if he is to besubjected to this sort of thing. "

"It's disgusting!" said Bonnie Connaught, feelingly. 

"When you've got through laughing, I wish you'd tell me what to do. "

"Tell Professor Phelps it was a slip of the pen. "

"A slip of the pen to the extent of half a column is good, " said theTwin. 

"I think you girls are beastly to laugh when I am probably beingexpelled this minute. "

"Faculty meeting doesn't come till four, " said Bonnie. 

Patty sat down by the desk and buried her head in her arms. 

"Patty, " said Priscilla, "you aren't crying, are you?"

"No, " said Patty, savagely; "I'm thinking. "

"You will never think of anything that will explain that. "

Patty looked up with the air of one who has received an inspiration. "I'm going to tell him the truth. "

"Don't do anything so rash, " pleaded the Twin. 

"That is, of course, the only thing you can do, " said Priscilla. "Sitdown and write him a note, and I'll promise not to laugh till you getthrough. "

Patty stood up. "I think, " she said, "I'll go and see him. "

"Oh, no. Write him a note. It's loads easier. "

"No, " said Patty, with dignity; "I think I owe him a personalexplanation. Is my hair all right? If you girls reveal this to a singleperson before I come back, I'll not tell you a thing he says, " she addedas she closed the door. 

Patty returned half an hour later, just as they were finally settlingdown to tea. She peered around the darkening room; finding only fourexpectant faces, she leisurely seated herself on a cushion on the floorand stretched out her hand for a steaming cup. 

"What did he say? What kept you so long?"

"Oh, I stopped in the office to change my electives, and it delayed me. "

"You don't mean to tell me that man made you elect astronomy?"Priscilla asked indignantly. 

"Certainly not, " said Patty. "I shouldn't have done it if he had. "

"Oh, Patty, I know you like to tease, but I think it's odious. You knowwe're in suspense. Tell us what happened. "

"Well, " said Patty, placidly gathering her skirts about her, "I told himexactly how it was. I didn't hide anything--not even the bride with themumps. "

"Was he cross, or did he laugh?"

"He laughed, " said Patty, "till I thought he was going to fall off hischair, and I looked anxiously around for some water and a call-bell. Hereally has a surprising sense of humor for a member of the faculty. "

"Was he nice?"

"Yes, " said Patty; "he was a dear. When he got through discussingUniversal Truth, I asked him if I might elect astronomy, and he said Iwould find it pretty hard the second semester; but I told him I waswilling to work, and he said I really showed a remarkable aptitude forexplaining phenomena, and that if I were in earnest he would be glad tohave me in the class. "

"I think a man as forgiving as that _ought_ to be elected, " saidPriscilla. 

"You certainly have more courage than I gave you credit for, " saidBonnie. "I never could have gone over and explained to that man in thewide world. "

Patty smiled discreetly. "When you have to explain to a woman, " she saidin the tone of one who is stating a natural law, "it is better to writea note; but when it is a man, always explain in person. "

XII

The Exigencies of Etiquette

"If I had been the one to invent etiquette, " said Patty, "I should havemade party calls payable one year after date, and then should haveallowed three days' grace at the end. "

"In which case, " said Priscilla, "I suppose you would get out of callingon Mrs. Millard altogether. "

"Exactly, " said Patty. 

Mrs. Millard--more familiarly referred to as Mrs. Prexy--annuallyinvited the seniors to dinner in parties of ten. Patty, whose turn hadcome a short time before, owing to an untoward misfortune, had been inthe infirmary at the time; but, though she had missed the fun, she nowfound it necessary to pay the call. 

"Of course, " she resumed, "I can see why you should be expected to callif you attend the function and partake of the food; but what I _can't_understand is why a peaceable citizen who desires only to gang his aingait should, upon the reception of an entirely unsolicited invitation, suddenly find it incumbent upon him to put on his best dress and hisbest hat and gloves in order to call upon people he barely knows. "

"Your genders, " said Priscilla, "are a trifle mixed. "

"That, " said Patty, "is the fault of the language. The logic, I think, you will find correct. You can see what would happen, " she pursued, "ifyou carry it out to its logical conclusion. Suppose, for instance, thatevery woman I have ever met in this town should suddenly take it intoher head to invite me to a dinner. Here I--perfectly unsuspicious andinnocent of any evil, because of a purely arbitrary law which I did nothelp to make--would not only have to sit down and write a hundredregrets, but would have to pay a hundred calls within the next twoweeks. It makes me shudder to think of it!"

"I don't believe you need worry about it, Patty; of course we knowyou're popular, but you're not as popular as that. "

"No, " said Patty; "I didn't mean that I thought I really _should_ getthat many invitations. It's only that one is open to the constantdanger. "

During the progress of this conversation Georgie Merriles had beenlounging on the couch by the window, reading the "Merchant of Venice" ina critically unimpassioned way that the instructor in Dramatic Theorycould not have praised too much. The room finally having become too darkfor reading, she threw down the book with something like a yawn. "Itwould have been a joke on Portia, " she remarked, "if Bassanio had chosenthe wrong casket"; and she turned her attention to the campus outside. Groups of girls were coming along the path from the lake, and the soundof their voices, mingled with laughter and the jingling of skates, floated up through the gathering dusk. Across the stretches of snow andbare trees lights were beginning to twinkle in the other dormitories, while nearer at hand, and more clearly visible, rose the irregularoutline of the president's house. 

"Patty, " said Georgie, with her nose against the pane, "if you reallywant to get that call out of the way, now's your chance. Mrs. Millardhas just gone out. "

Patty dashed into her bedroom and began jerking out bureau drawers. "Priscilla, " she called in an agonized tone, "do you remember where Ikeep my cards?"

"It's ten minutes of six, Patty; you can't go now. "

"Yes, I can. It doesn't matter what time it is, so long as she's out. I'll go just as I am. "

"Not in a golf-cape!"

Patty hesitated an instant. "Well, " she admitted, "I suppose the butlermight tell her. I'll put on a hat"--this with the air of one who ismaking a really great concession. Some more banging of bureau drawers, and she appeared in a black velvet hat trimmed with lace, with the brownjacket of her suit over her red blouse, and a blue golf-skirt and verymuddy boots showing below. 

"Patty, you're a disgrace to the room!" cried Priscilla. "Do you mean totell me that you are going to Mrs. Millard's in a short skirt and thoseawful skating-shoes?"

"The butler won't look at my feet; I'm so beautiful above"; and Pattybanged the door behind her. 

Georgie and Priscilla flattened themselves against the window to watchthe progress of the call. 

"Look, " gasped Priscilla. "There's Mrs. Millard going in at the backdoor. "

"And there's Patty. My, but she looks funny!"

"Call her back, " cried Priscilla, wildly trying to open the window. 

"Let her alone, " laughed Georgie; "it will be such fun to gloat overher. "

The window came up with a jerk. "Patty! Patty!" shrieked Priscilla. 

Patty turned and waved her hand airily. "Can't stop now--will be back ina moment"; and she sped on around the corner. 

The two stood watching the house for several minutes, vaguely expectingan explosion of some sort to occur. But nothing happened. Patty wasswallowed as if by the grave, and the house gave no sign. Theyaccordingly shrugged their shoulders and dressed for dinner with thephilosophy which a life fraught with alarms and surprises gives. 

 * * * * *

DINNER was half over, and the table had finished discussing Patty'sdemise, when that young lady trailed placidly in, smiled on theexpectant faces, and inquired what kind of soup they had had. 

"Bean soup; it wasn't any good, " said Georgie, impatiently. "Whathappened? Did you have a nice call?"

"No, Maggie, I don't care for any soup to-night. Just bring me somesteak, please. "

"Patty!" in a pleading chorus, "what happened?"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, " said Patty, sweetly. "Yes, thank you, I had avery pleasant call. May I trouble you for the bread, Lucille?"

"Patty, I think you're obnoxious, " said Georgie. "Tell us whathappened. "

"Well, " began Patty, in a leisurely manner, "I said to the butler, 'IsMrs. Millard in?' and he said to me (without even a smile), 'I am notsure, miss; will you please step into the drawing-room and I'll see. ' Iwas going to tell him that he needn't bother, as I knew she was out; butI thought that perhaps it would look a little better if I waited and lethim find out for himself. So I walked in and sat down in apink-and-white embroidered _Louis-Quatorze_ chair. There was a bigmirror in front of me, and I had plenty of time to study the effect, which, I will acknowledge, was a trifle mixed. "

"A trifle, " Georgie assented. 

"I was beginning, " pursued Patty, "to feel nervous for fear some of thefamily might drop in, when the man came back and said, 'Mrs. Millardwill be down in a minute. '

"If I had seen you at that moment, Georgie Merriles, there would havebeen battle, murder, and sudden death. My first thought was of flight;but the man was guarding the door, and Mrs. Prexy had my card. While Iwas frenziedly trying to think of a valid excuse for my costume the ladycame in, and I rose and greeted her graciously, one might almost saygushingly. I talked very fast and tried to hypnotize her, so that shewould keep her eyes on my face; but it was no use: I saw them travelingdownward, and pretty soon I knew by the amused expression that they hadarrived at my shoes. 

"Concealment was no longer possible, " pursued Patty, warming to hersubject. "I threw myself upon her mercy and confessed the whole damningtruth. What kind of ice-cream is that?" she demanded, leaning forwardand gazing anxiously after a passing maid. "_Don't_ tell me they'regiving us raspberry again!"

"No; it's vanilla. Go on, Patty. "

"Well, where was I?"

"You'd just told her the truth. "

"Oh, yes. She said she'd always wanted to meet the college girlsinformally and know them just as they are, and she was very glad of thisopportunity. And there I sat, looking like a kaleidoscope and feelinglike a fool, and she taking it for granted that I was being perfectlynatural. Complimentary, wasn't it? At this point dinner was announced, and she invited me to stay--quite insisted, in fact, to make up, shesaid, for the one I had missed when I was ill in the infirmary. " Pattylooked around the table with a reminiscent smile. 

"What did you say? Did you refuse?" asked Lucille. 

"No; I accepted, and am over there at present, eating _pâté de foiegras_. "

"No, really, Patty; what did you say?"

"Well, " said Patty, "I told her that this was ice-cream night at thecollege, and that I sort of hated to miss it; but that to-morrow wouldbe mutton night, which I didn't mind missing in the least; so if shewould just as leave transfer her invitation, I would accept forto-morrow with pleasure. "

"Patty, " exclaimed Lucille, in a horrified tone, "you didn't say that!"

"Just a little local color, Lucille, " laughed Priscilla. 

"But, " objected Lucille, "we'd promised not to play local color anymore. "

"Have you not learned, " said Priscilla, "that Patty can no more livewithout local color than she can live without food? It's ingrained inher nature. "

"Never mind, " said Patty, good-naturedly; "you may not believe me now, but to-morrow night, when I'm all dressed up in beautiful clothes, swapping stories with Prexy and eating lobster salad, while you are overhere having mutton, _then_ maybe you'll be sorry. "

XIII

A Crash Without

"I love the smell of powder, " said Patty. 

"Gunpowder or baking-powder?"

As Patty at the moment had her nose buried in a box of face-powder shethought it unnecessary to answer. 

"It brings back my youth, " she pursued. "The best times of my life havebeen mixed up with powder and rouge--Washington's Birthday nights, andminstrel shows, and masquerades, and plays at boarding-school, and evenMother Goose tableaux when I was a--"

Patty's reminiscences were interrupted by Georgie, who was anxiouslypacing up and down the wings. "It's queer some of the cast don't come. Itold them to be here early, so we could get them all made up and nothave a rush at the end. "

"Oh, there's time enough, " said Patty, comfortably. "It isn't seven yet, and if they're going to dress in their rooms it won't take any time overhere just to make them up and put on their wigs. It's a comparativelysmall cast, you see. Now, on the night of the Trig. Ceremonies, when wehad to make up three whole ballets and only had one box of make-up, we_were_ rushed. I thought I'd never live to see the curtain go down. Doyou remember the suit of chain-mail we made for Bonnie Connaught out ofwire dish-cloths? It took sixty-three, and the ten-cent store wasterribly dubious about renting them to us; and then, after working everyspare second for three days over the thing, we found, the last minute, that we hadn't left a big enough hole for her to get into, and--"

"Oh, do keep still, Patty, " said Georgie, nervously; "I can't rememberwhat I have to do when you talk all the time. "

A manager on the eve of producing a new play, with his reputation atstake, may be excused for being a trifle irritable. Patty merelyshrugged her shoulders and descended through the stage-door to thehalf-lighted hall, where she found Cathy Fair strolling up and down thecenter aisle in an apparently aimless manner. 

"Hello, Cathy, " said Patty; "what are you doing over here?"

"I'm head usher, and I wanted to see if those foolish sophomores hadmixed up the numbers again. "

"It strikes me they're a trifle close together, " said Patty, sittingdown and squeezing in her knees. 

"Yes, I know; but you can't get eight hundred people into this hall anyother way. When we once get them packed they'll have to sit still, that's all. What are you doing over here yourself?" she continued. "Ididn't know you were on the committee. Or are you just helpingGeorgie?"

"I'm in the cast, " said Patty. 

"Oh, are you? I saw the program to-day, but I'd forgotten it. I've oftenwondered why you haven't been in any of the class plays. "

"Fortune and the faculty are against it, " sighed Patty. "You see, theydidn't discover my histrionic ability before examinations freshman year, and after examinations, when I was asked to be in the play, the facultythought I could spend the time to better advantage studying Greek. Atthe time of the sophomore play I was on something else and couldn'tserve, and this year I had just been deprived of my privileges forcoming back late after Christmas. "

"But I thought you said you were in it?"

"Oh, " said Patty, "it's a minor part, and my name doesn't appear. "

"What sort of a part is it?"

"I'm a crash. "

"A crash?"

"Yes, 'a crash without. ' Lord Bromley says, 'Cynthia, I will brave allfor your sake. I will follow you to the ends of the earth. ' At thispoint a crash is heard without. I, " said Patty, proudly, "am the crash. I sit behind a moonlit balcony in a space about two feet square, anddrop a lamp-chimney into a box. It may not sound like a very importantpart, but it is the pivot upon which the whole plot turns. "

"I hope you won't be taken with stage-fright, " laughed Cathy. 

"I'll try not, " said Patty. "There comes the butler and Lord Bromley andCynthia. I've got to go and make them up. "

"Why are you making people up, if you are not on the committee?"

"Oh, once, during a period of mental weakness, I took china-paintinglessons, and I'm supposed to know how. Good-by. "

"Good-by. If you get any flowers I'll send them in by an usher. "

"Do, " said Patty. "I'm sure to get a lot. "

Behind the scenes all was joyful confusion. Georgie, in a short skirt, with her shirt-waist sleeves rolled up and a note-book in her hand, wasstanding in the middle of the stage directing the scene-shifters anddistracted committee. Patty, in the "green-room, " was presiding over thecast, with a hare's foot in one hand and the other daubed with red andblue grease-paints. 

"Oh, Patty, " remonstrated Cynthia, with a horrified glance in themirror, "I look more like a soubrette than a heroine. "

"That's the way you ought to look, " returned Patty. "Here, hold stilltill I put another dab on your chin. "

Cynthia appealed to the faithful Lord Bromley, who was sitting in thebackground, politely letting the ladies go first. "Look, Bonnie, don'tyou think I'm too red? I know it'll all come off when you kiss me. "

"If it comes off as easily as that, you'll be more fortunate than mostof the people I make up"; and Patty smiled knowingly as she rememberedhow Priscilla had soaked half the night on the occasion of a previousplay, and then had appeared at breakfast the next morning with loweringeyebrows and a hectic flush on each cheek. "You must remember thatfoot-lights take a lot of color, " she explained condescendingly. "You'dlook ghastly if I let you go the way you wanted to at first. Next!

"No, " said Patty, as the butler presented himself; "you don't come tillthe second act. I'll take the Irate Parent first. " The Irate Parent wasdragged from a corner where he had been anxiously mumbling over hislines. "What's the matter?" asked Patty, as she began daubing inwrinkles with a liberal hand; "are you afraid?"

"N-no, " said the Parent; "I'm not afraid, only I'm afraid that I will beafraid. "

"You'd just better change your mind, then, " said Patty, sternly. "Wearen't going to allow any stage-fright to-night. "

"Patty, you can manage Georgie Merriles; make her let me go on withoutany wig, " cried Cynthia, returning and holding up to view a mass ofyellow curls of a shade that was never produced in the course of nature. 

Patty looked at the wig critically. "It is, perhaps, a trifle golden forthe part. "

"Golden!" said Cynthia. "It's positively _orange_. Wait till you see howit lights up. He calls me his dark-eyed beauty: and I'm sure no one withdark eyes, or any other kind of eyes, would have hair like that. My ownlooks a great deal better. "

"Why don't you wear your own, then? Wrinkle up your forehead, Parent, and let me see which way they run. "

"Georgie paid two dollars for renting it, and she's bound to get themoney's worth of wear out of it, even if she makes me look like a frightand spoils the play. "

"Nonsense, " said Patty, pushing away the Parent and giving her undividedattention to the question. "Your own hair does look better. Just mislaythe wig and keep out of Georgie's way till the curtain goes up. Theaudience are beginning to come, " she announced to the room in general, "and you've got to keep still back there. You're making an awful racket, and they can hear you all over the house. Here, what are you making sucha noise for?" she demanded of Lord Bromley, who came clumping up withfootfalls which reverberated through the flies. 

"I can't help it, " he said crossly. "Look at these boots. They're so bigthat I can step out of them without unlacing them. "

"It's not my fault. I haven't anything to do with the costumes. "

"I know it; but what can I do?"

"Never mind, " said Patty, soothingly; "they don't look so awfully bad. You'll have to try and walk without raising your feet. "

She went out on the stage, where Georgie was giving her last directionsto the scene-shifters. "The minute the curtain goes down on the firstact change this forest to the drawing-room scene, and don't make anynoise hammering. If you have to hammer, do it while the orchestra'splaying. How does it look?" she asked anxiously, turning to Patty. 

"Beautiful, " said Patty. "I'd scarcely recognize it. "

The "forest scene" had served in every outdoor capacity for the lastfour years, and it was usually hailed with a groan on the part of theaudience. 

"I was just coming in to see if the cast were ready, " said Georgie. 

"They're all made up, and are sitting in the green-room gettingstage-fright. What shall I do now?"

"Let me see, " said Georgie, consulting her book. "One of the committeeis to prompt, one is to stay with the men and see that they manage thecurtain and the lights in the right places, one is to give the cues, andtwo are to help change costumes. Cynthia has to change from ariding-habit to a ball-gown in four minutes. I think you'd better helpher, too. "

"Anything you please, " said Patty, obligingly. "I'll stand on a stoolwith the ball-gown in the air ready to drop it over her head the momentshe appears, like a harness on a fire-horse. Is everything out heredone? What time is it?"

"Yes; everything's done, and it's five minutes of eight. We can begin assoon as the audience is ready. "

They peered through the folds of the heavy velvet curtain at the sea offaces in front. Eight hundred girls in light evening-gowns were talkingand laughing and singing. Snatches of song would start up in one cornerand sweep gaily over the house, and sometimes two would meet and clashin the center, to the horror of those who preferred harmony to volume. 

"Here come the old girls!" said Patty, as a procession of some fiftyfiled into reserved seats near the front. "There are loads of lastyear's class back. What are the juniors doing? Look; I believe they aregoing to serenade them. "

The juniors rose in a body, and, turning to their departed sister class, sang a song notable for its sentiment rather than its meter. 

"I do hope it will be a success, " sighed Georgie. "If it doesn't come upto last year's senior play I shall _die_. "

"Oh, it will, " said Patty, reassuringly. "Anything would be better thanthat. "

"Now the glee club's going to sing two songs, " said Georgie. "Thankheaven, they're new!" she added fervently. "And the orchestra plays anoverture, and then the curtain goes up. Run and tell them to come outhere, ready for the first act. "

Lord Bromley was standing in the wings disgustedly viewing thebanquet-table. "See here, Patty, " he called as she hurried past. "Lookat this stuff Georgie Merriles has palmed off on us for wine. You can'texpect me to drink any such dope as _that_. "

Patty paused for an instant. "What's the matter with it?" she inquired, pouring out some in a glass and holding it up to the light. 

"Matter? It's made of currant jelly and water, with cold tea mixed in. "

"I made it myself, " said Patty, with some dignity. "It's a beautifulcolor. "

"But I have to drain my glass at a draught, " expostulated the outragedlord. 

"I'm sure there's nothing in currant jelly or tea to hurt you. You canbe thankful it isn't poisonous. " And Patty hurried on. 

The glee club sang the two new songs, punctuated with the appreciativeapplause of a long-suffering audience, and the orchestra commenced theoverture. 

"Everybody clear the stage, " said Georgie, in a low tone, "and you keepyour eyes on the book, " she added sternly to the prompter; "you lostyour place twice at the dress rehearsal. "

The overture died down; a bell tinkled, and the curtain parted in themiddle, discovering Cynthia sitting on a garden-seat in the castle park(originally the Forest of Arden). 

As the curtain fell at the end of the act, and the applause gave way toan excited buzz in the audience, Patty hugged Georgie gleefully. "It'sfifty times better than last year!"

"Heaven send Theo Granby is out there!" piously ejaculated Georgie. (Theo Granby had been the chairman of last year's senior play. )

 * * * * *

THE curtain had risen on the fourth act, and Patty squeezed herself intothe somewhat close quarters behind the balcony. There wasfortunately--or rather unfortunately--a window in the rear of thebuilding at this point, and Patty opened it and perched herself at oneend of the sill, with the lamp-chimney ready for use at the other end. The crash was not due for some time, and Patty, having lately electedastronomy, whiled away the interval by examining the stars. 

On the stage matters were approaching a climax. Lord Bromley was makingan excellent lover, as was proved by the fact that the audience wastaking him seriously instead of laughing through the love scenes asusual. 

"Cynthia, " he implored, "say that you will be mine, and I will brave allfor your sake. I will follow you to the ends of the earth. " He gazedtenderly into her eyes, and waited for the crash. A silence as of thetomb prevailed, and he continued to gaze tenderly, while a grin rapidlyspread over the audience. 

"Hang Patty!" he murmured savagely. "Might have known she'd do somethinglike this. --What was that? Did you hear a noise?" he asked aloud. 

"No, " said Cynthia, truthfully; "I did not hear anything. "

"Pretend you did, " he whispered, and they continued to improvise. Aftersome five minutes of hopeless floundering, the prompter got them back onthe track again, and the act proceeded, with the audience happilyunaware that anything was missing. 

Ten minutes later Lord Bromley was declaiming: "Cynthia, let us fleethis place. Its dark rooms haunt me; its silence oppresses me--" And thecrash came. 

For the first moment the audience was too startled to notice that theactors were also taken by surprise. Then Lord Bromley, who was gettingused to emergencies, pulled himself together and ejaculated, "Hark! Whatwas that sound?"

"I think it was a crash, " said Cynthia. 

He grasped her hand and ran back toward the balcony. "Give us ourlines, " he said to the prompter, as he went past. 

The prompter had dropped the book, and couldn't find the place. 

"Make them up, " came in a piercing whisper from behind the balcony. 

A silence ensued while the two dashed back and forth, looking excitedlyup and down the stage. Then the despairing Lord Bromley stretched outhis arms in a gesture of supplication. "Cynthia, " he burst out in tonesof realistic longing, "I cannot bear this horrible suspense. Let usflee. " And they fled, fully three pages too early, forgetting to leavethe letter which should have apprised the Irate Parent of thecircumstance. 

Georgie was tramping up and down the wings, wringing her hands andlamenting the day that ever Patty had been born. 

"Hurry up that Parent before they stop clapping, " said Lord Bromley, "and they'll never know the difference. "

The poor old man, with his wig over one ear, was unceremoniously hustledon to the stage, where he raved up and down and swore never to forgivehis ungrateful daughter in so realistic a manner that the audienceforgot to wonder how he found it out. In due time the runaways returnedfrom the notary's, overcame the old man's harshness, received theparental blessing, and the curtain fell on a scene of domestic felicitythat delighted the freshmen in the gallery. 

Patty crawled out from under the balcony and fell on her knees atGeorgie's feet. 

Lord Bromley raised her up. "Never mind, Patty. The audience doesn'tknow the difference; and, anyway, it was all for the best. My mustachewouldn't have stayed on more than two minutes longer. "

They could hear some one shouting in the front, "What's the matter withGeorgie Merriles?" and a hundred voices replied, "She's all right!"

"Who's all right?"

"G-e-o-r-g-i-e M-e-r-r-i-l-e-s. "

"What's the matter with the cast?"

"They're all right!"

The stage-door burst open and a crowd of congratulatory friends burst inand gathered around the disheveled actors and committee. "It's the bestsenior play since we've been in college. " "The freshmen are simply crazyover it. " "Lord Bromley, your room will be full of flowers for a month. ""Patty, " called the head usher, over the heads of the others, "let mecongratulate you. I was in the very back of the room, and never heard athing but your crash. It sounded _fine_!"

"Patty, " demanded Georgie, "what in the world were you doing?"

"I was counting the stars, " said the contrite Patty, "and then Iremembered too late, and I turned around suddenly, and it fell off. I amterribly sorry. "

"Never mind, " laughed Georgie; "since it turned out well, I'll forgiveyou. All the cast and committee, " she said, raising her voice, "come upto my room for food. I'm sorry I can't invite you all, " she added to thegirls crowded in the doorway, "but I live in a single. "

XIV

The Mystery of the Shadowed Sophomore

"Oh, I say, Bonnie--Bonnie Connaught! Priscilla! Wait a minute, " calleda girl from across the links, as the two were strolling homeward oneafternoon, dragging their caddie-bags behind them. They turned andwaited while Bonnie's sophomore cousin, Mildred Connaught, dashed up. She grasped them excitedly, and at the same time glanced over hershoulder with the air of a criminal who is being tracked. 

"I want to tell you something, " she panted. "Come in here where no onewill see us"; and she dived into a clump of pine-trees growing by thepath. 

Priscilla and Bonnie followed more leisurely, and dropped down on thesoft needles with an air of amused tolerance. 

"Well, Mildred, what's the matter?" Bonnie inquired mildly. 

The sophomore lowered her voice to an impressive whisper, although therewas not a person within a hundred yards. "I am being _followed_, " shesaid solemnly. 

"Followed!" exclaimed Bonnie, in amazement. "Are you crazy, child? Youact like a boy who's been reading dime novels. "

"Listen, girls. You mustn't tell a soul, because it's a great secret. We're going to plant the class tree to-night, and I am chairman of theceremonies. Everything is ready--the costumes are finished and the plansall arranged so that the class can get out to the place without beingseen. The freshmen haven't a suspicion that it's going to be to-night. But they have found out that I'm chairman of the committee, and, if youplease, "--Mildred's eyes grew wide with excitement, --"they've been_tracking_ me for a week. They have _relays_ of girls appointed towatch me, and I can't stir without a freshman tagging along behind. WhenI went down to order the ice-cream, there was one right at my elbow, andI had to pretend that I'd come for soda-water. I have simply had to letthe rest of the committee do all of the work, because I was so afraidthe freshmen would find out the time. It was funny at first, but I amgetting nervous. It's horrible to think that you're being watched allthe time. I feel as if I'd committed a murder, and keep looking over myshoulder like--like Macbeth. "

"It's _awful_, " Bonnie shuddered. "I'm thrilled to the bone to think ofthe peril a member of my family is braving for the sake of her class. "

"You needn't laugh, " said Mildred. "It's a serious matter. If thosefreshmen come to our tree ceremonies, we'll never hear the last of it. But they are not going to come, " she added with a meaning smile. "Theyhave another engagement. We chose to-night because there's a lecturebefore the Archæological Society by some alumna person who's beendigging up remains in Rome. The freshmen have been told to go and hearher on account of their Latin. Imagine their feelings when they arecooped up in the auditorium, trying to look intelligent about the RomanForum, and listening to our yells outside!"

Priscilla and Bonnie smiled appreciatively. It was not so long, afterall, since they themselves were sophomores, and they recalled their owntree ceremonies, when the freshmen had _not_ been cooped up. 

"But the trouble is, " pursued Mildred, "that it's more important for meto get there than any one else, because I have to dig the hole, --Petersis really going to dig it, you know; I just take out the firstshovelful, --but I can't get there on account of that beastly scout. Assoon as she saw me acting suspicious, she'd run and warn the class. "

"I see, " said Bonnie; "but what have Priscilla and I to do with it?"

"Well, " said Mildred, tentatively, "you're both pretty big, you know, and you're our sister class, and you ought to help us. "

"Certainly, " acquiesced Bonnie; "but in just what way?"

"Well, my idea was this. If you would just stroll down by the lake afterchapel, and loiter sort of inconspicuously among the trees, you know, Iwould come that way a little later, and then, when the detective personcame along after me, you could just nab her and--"

"Chuck her in the lake?" asked Bonnie. 

"No, of course not. Don't use any force. Just politely detain her tillyou hear us yelling--take her for a walk. She'd feel honored. "

Bonnie laughed. The program struck her as entertaining. "I don't seeanything very immoral in delaying a freshman who is going where she hasno business to go. What do you say, Pris?"

"It's not exactly a Sunday-school excursion, " acknowledged Priscilla, "but I don't see why it isn't as legitimate for us to play detective asfor them. "

"By all means, " said Bonnie. "Behold Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson about to solve the Mystery of the Shadowed Sophomore. "

"You've saved my life, " said Mildred, feelingly. "Don't forget. Rightafter chapel, by the lake. " She peered warily out through the branches. "I've got to get the keys to the gymnasium, so the refreshments can beput in during chapel. Do you see anybody lurking about? I guess I canget off without being seen. Good-by"; and she sped away like a huntedanimal. 

Bonnie looked after her and laughed. "'Youth is a great time, butsomewhat fussy, '" she quoted; and the two took their homeward way. 

They found Patty, who was experiencing a periodical fit of studying, immersed in dictionaries and grammars. It was under protest that sheallowed herself to be interrupted long enough to hear the story of theirproposed adventure. 

"You babies!" she exclaimed. "Haven't you grown up yet? Don't you thinkit's a little undignified for seniors--one might almost say alumnæ--tobe kidnapping freshmen?"

"We're not kidnapping freshmen, " Bonnie remonstrated; "we're teachingthem manners. It's my duty to protect my little cousin. "

"You can come with us and help detect, " said Priscilla, generously. 

"Thank you, " said Patty, loftily. "I haven't time to play with youchildren. Cathy Fair and I are going to do Old English to-night. "

That evening, as Patty, keyed to the point of grappling with andthrowing whole pages of "Beowulf, " stood outside the chapel door waitingfor Cathy to appear, the professor of Latin came out with a stranger. 

"Oh, Miss Wyatt!" she exclaimed in a relieved tone, pouncing upon Patty. "I wish to present you to Miss Henderson, one of our alumnæ who is tolecture to-night before the Archæological Society. She has not been backfor several years, and wishes to see the new buildings. Have you time toshow her around the campus a little before the lecture begins?"

Patty bowed and murmured that she would be most happy, and cast anagonized glance back at Cathy as she led the lecturer off. As theystrolled about, Patty poured out all the statistics she knew about thevarious buildings, and Miss Henderson received them with exclamations ofdelighted surprise. She was rather young and gushing for a Ph. D. And anarchæologist, Patty decided, and she wondered desperately how she coulddispose of her and get back to "Beowulf" and Cathy. 

They rounded the top of a little hill, and Miss Henderson exclaimeddelightedly, "There is the lake, just as it used to be!"

Patty stifled a desire to remark that lakes had a habit of staying wherethey used to be, and asked politely if Miss Henderson would like to takea row. 

Miss Henderson thought that it would be pleasant; but she had forgottenher watch, and was afraid there would not be time. 

Patty glanced about vaguely for some further object of interest, andspied Mildred Connaught sauntering toward the lake. She had forgottenall about the Sherlock Holmes adventure, and she suddenly had aninspiration. Be it said to her credit that she hesitated a moment; butthe lecturer's next remark led to her own undoing. She was murmuringsomething about feeling like a stranger, and wishing that she might knowthe students informally and see a little of the real college life. 

"It would be a pity not to gratify her when I can do it so easily, "Patty told herself; and she added out loud, "I am sure we have time fora little row, Miss Henderson. You walk on, and I will run back and getmy watch; it won't take a minute. "

"I wouldn't have you do that; it is too much trouble, " remonstrated MissHenderson. 

"It's no trouble whatever, " Patty protested kindly. "I can take a crosscut, and meet you at the little summer-house where the boats are moored. It's straight down this path; you can't miss it. Just follow that girlover there"; and she darted away. 

The lecturer gazed dubiously after her a moment, and then started onafter the girl, who cast a look over her shoulder and quickened herpace. It was growing quite dusky under the trees, and the lecturerhurried on, trying to keep the girl in sight; but she unexpectedlyturned a corner and disappeared, and at the same moment two strangegirls suddenly dropped into the path, apparently from the tree-tops. 

"Good evening, " they said pleasantly. "Are you taking a walk?"

The lecturer started back with an exclamation of surprise; but as soonas she could regain her composure, she replied politely that she wasstrolling about and looking at the campus. 

"Perhaps you would like to stroll with us?" they inquired. 

"Thank you, you are very kind; but I have an engagement to row with oneof the students. "

Priscilla and Bonnie exchanged delighted glances. They had evidentlycaught a resourceful young person. 

"Oh, no; it's too late for a row. You might get malaria, " Priscillaremonstrated. "Come and sit on the fence with us and admire the stars;it's a lovely night. "

The lecturer cast an alarmed glance toward the fence, which appeared tohave an unusually narrow top rail. "You are very kind, " she stammered, "but I really can't stop. The girl will be waiting. "

"Who is the girl?" they inquired. 

"I don't know that I remember her name. "

"Mildred Connaught?" Bonnie suggested. 

"No; I don't think that is it, but I really can't say. I have only justmet her. "

Miss Henderson was growing more and more puzzled. In her day thestudents had not been in the habit of way-laying strangers withinvitations to go walking and sit on fences. 

"Ah, _do_ stay with us, " Bonnie begged, laying a hand on her arm. "We'relonely and want some one to talk to--we'll tell you a secret if you do. "

"I am sorry, " Miss Henderson murmured confusedly, "but--"

"We'll tell you the secret anyway, " said Bonnie, generously, "and I'msure you'll be interested. The sophomores are going to have their treeceremonies to-night!"

"And you know, " Priscilla broke in, "that the freshmen really ought toattend them too--it doesn't matter if they aren't invited. But where doyou suppose the freshmen are to-night? They're attending a foolishlittle lecture on the Roman Forum. "

"And though we don't wish to seem insistent, " Bonnie added, "we shouldreally like to have your company until the lecture is over. "

"Until the lecture is over! But I am the lecturer, " gasped MissHenderson. 

Bonnie grinned delightedly. "I am happy to meet you, " she said, with abow. "And perhaps you do not recognize us. I am Mr. Sherlock Holmes, andthis is my friend Dr. Watson. "

Dr. Watson bowed, and remarked that it was an unexpected pleasure. Hehad often heard of the famous lecturer, but had never hoped to meet her. 

Miss Henderson, who was not very conversant with recent literature, looked more dazed than ever. It flashed across her mind that there wasan insane asylum in the neighborhood, and the thought was notreassuring. 

"We'll not handcuff you, " said Bonnie, magnanimously, "if you'll comewith us quietly. "

The lecturer, in spite of fervid protestations that she was a lecturer, presently found herself sitting on the fence, with a girl on either sidegrasping an elbow. A light was beginning to break upon her, togetherwith a poignant realization of the fact that she was seeing more of thereal college life than she cared for. 

"What time is it?" she asked anxiously. 

"Ten minutes past eight by my watch, but I think it's a little slow, "said Bonnie. 

"I am afraid you're going to be late for your lecture, " said Priscilla. "It seems a pity to waste it. Suppose you tell it to us instead. "

"Yes, do, " urged Bonnie. "I just dote on the Roman Forum. "

The lecturer preserved a dignified silence, which was broken only by thecroaking of the frogs and the occasional remarks of the two detectives. She had relinquished all hope of ever seeing the Archæological Society, and had philosophically resigned herself to the prospect of sitting onthe fence all night, when suddenly there burst out from across thecampus a song of victory, mingled with cheers and inarticulate yells. 

At the first sound, Bonnie and Priscilla tumbled down from the fence, bringing the lecturer with them, and, each grasping her by a hand, theystarted to run. "Come on and see the fun, " they laughed. "You'reperfectly welcome; it's no secret any more. " And, in spite of breathlessprotestations that she much preferred to walk, Miss Henderson foundherself dashing across the campus in the direction of the sounds. 

Heads suddenly appeared in the dormitory windows, doors banged, andgirls came running from every quarter with excited exclamations: "Thesophomores are having their tree ceremonies!" "Where are the freshmen?""Why didn't they get there?"

A crowd quickly gathered in the shadow of the trees and watched thescene with laughing interest. A wide circle of colored lanterns swayedin the breeze, and, within, a line of white-robed figures wound andunwound about a tiny tree to the music of a solemn chant. 

"Isn't it pretty? Aren't you glad we brought you?" Bonnie demanded asthey pushed through the crowd. 

The lecturer did not answer, for she caught sight of the Latin professorhurrying toward them. 

"Miss Henderson! I was afraid you were lost. It is nearly half-pasteight. The audience has been waiting, and we have been filling in thetime with reports. "

For a moment the lecturer was silent, being occupied with an amusedscrutiny of the faces of her captors; and then she rose to the occasionlike a lady and a scholar, and delivered a masterly apology, with nevera reference to her sojourn on the fence. 

Bonnie and Priscilla stared at each other without a word, and as MissHenderson was led away to the remnants of her audience Patty suddenlyappeared. 

"Good evening, Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Did you solve yourmystery?" she asked sweetly. 

Priscilla turned her to the light and scrutinized her face. 

Patty smiled back with wide-open, innocent eyes. 

Priscilla knew the expression, and she shook her. "You little wretch!"she exclaimed. 

Patty squirmed out from under her grasp. "If you remember, " shemurmured, "I once said that the Lick Observatory was in Dublin, Ireland. It was a very funny mistake, of course, but I know of others that arefunnier. "

"What do you mean?" Bonnie demanded. 

"I mean, " said Patty, "that I wish you never to mention the LickObservatory again. "

XV

Patty and the Bishop

The dressing-bell rang for Sunday morning service, and Patty laid downher book with a sigh and went and stood by the open window. The outsideworld was a shimmering green and yellow, the trees showed a featheryfringe against the sky, and the breeze was redolent of violets and freshearth. 

"Patty, " called Priscilla, from her bedroom, "you'll have to hurry ifyou want me to fasten your dress. I have to go to choir rehearsal. "

Patty turned back with another sigh, and began slowly unhooking hercollar. Then she sat down on the edge of the couch and stared absentlyout of the window. 

A vigorous banging of bureau drawers in Priscilla's room was presentlyfollowed by Priscilla herself in the doorway. She surveyed her room-matesuspiciously. "Why aren't you dressing?" she demanded. 

"I'll fasten my own dress; you needn't wait, " said Patty, withoutremoving her eyes from the window. 

"Bishop Copeley's going to preach to-day, and he's such an old dear; youmustn't be late. "

Patty elevated her chin a trifle and shrugged her shoulders. 

"Aren't you going to chapel?"

Patty brought her gaze back from the window and looked up at Priscillabeseechingly. "It's such a lovely day, " she pleaded, "and I'd so muchrather spend the time out of doors; I'm sure it would be a lot betterfor my spiritual welfare. "

"It's not a question of spiritual welfare; it's a question of cuts. You've already over-cut twice. What excuse do you intend to give whenthe Self-Government Committee asks for an explanation?"

"'Sufficient unto the day, '" laughed Patty. "When the time comes I'llthink of a beautiful new excuse that will charm the committee. "

"You ought to be ashamed to evade the rules the way you do. "

"Where is the fun of living if you are going to make yourself a slave toall sorts of petty rules?" asked Patty, wearily. 

"I don't know why you have a right to live outside of rules any morethan the rest of us. "

Patty shrugged. "I take the right, and every one else can do the same. "

"Every one else can't, " returned Priscilla, hotly, "for there wouldn'tbe any law left in college if they did. I should a good deal rather playout of doors myself than go to chapel, but I've used up all my cuts andI can't. You couldn't either if you had a shred of proper feeling left. The only way you can get out of it is by lying. "

"Priscilla dear, " Patty murmured, "people in polite society don't putthings quite so baldly. If you would be respected in the best circles, you must practise the art of equivocation. "

Priscilla frowned impatiently. "Are you coming, or are you not?" shedemanded. 

"I am not. "

Priscilla closed the door--not quite as softly as a door should beclosed--and Patty was left alone. She sat thinking a few minutes withslightly flushed cheeks, and then as the chapel bell rang she shookherself and laughed. Even had she wished to go it was too late now, andall feeling of responsibility vanished. As soon as the decorous swish ofSunday silks had ceased in the corridor outside, she caught up a bookand a cushion, and, creeping down by the side stairs, set gaily outacross the sunlit lawn, with the deliciously guilty thrill of a truantlittle boy who has run away from school. 

From the open windows of the chapel she could hear the collegechanting: "Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep thislaw. " She laughed happily to herself; she was not keeping laws to-day. They might stay in there in the gloom, if they wanted to, with theircommandments and their litanies. She was worshiping under the blue sky, to the jubilant chanting of the birds. 

She was the only person alive and out that morning, and the spring wasin her blood, and she felt as though she owned the world. The campus hadnever seemed so radiant. She paused on the little rustic bridge to watchthe excited swirling of the brook, and she nearly lost her balance whiletrying to launch a tiny boat made of a piece of bark. She droppedpebbles into the pool in order to watch the startled frogs splash backinto the water, and she threw her cushion at a squirrel, and laughedaloud at its angry chattering. She raced up the side of Pine Bluff, anddropped down panting on the fragrant needles in the shadow of a tallpine. 

Below her the ivy-covered buildings of the college lay clustered amongthe trees; and in the Sunday quiet, with the sunlight shining on thetowers, it looked like some medieval village sleeping in the valley. Patty gazed down dreamily with half-shut eyes, and imagined thatpresently a band of troubadours and ladies would come riding out onmilk-white mules. But the sight of Peters, strolling to the gateway inhis Sunday clothes, spoiled the illusion, and she turned to her bookwith a smile. Presently she closed it, however. This was not the timefor reading. One could read in winter and when it rained, and even inthe college library with every one else turning pages; but out here inthe open, with the real things of life happening all about, it was awaste of opportunity. 

Her eyes wandered back to the campus again, and she suddenly grew soberas the thought swept over her that in a few weeks more it would be hersno longer. This happy, irresponsible community life, which had come tobe the only natural way of living, was suddenly at an end. Sheremembered the first day of being a freshman, when everything butherself had looked so big, and she had thought desperately, "Four yearsof this!" It had seemed like an eternity; and now that it was over itseemed like a minute. She wanted to clutch the present and hold it fast. It was a terrible thing--this growing old. 

And there were the girls. She would have to say good-by, with no openingday in the fall--and Priscilla lived in California and Georgie in SouthDakota and Bonnie in Kentucky and she in New England, and they were theonly people in the world she particularly cared to talk to. She wouldhave to get acquainted with her mother's friends--with chronicallygrown-up people, who talked about husbands and children and servants. And there would be men. She had never had time to know many men; butsome day she would probably be marrying one of them, and then all_would_ be over; and before she had time to think, she would be an oldlady, telling her grandchildren stories about when she was a girl. 

[Illustration: I have just run away from you, Bishop Copeley]

Patty gazed mournfully down on the campus, almost on the verge of tearsover her lost youth, when a step suddenly sounded on the gravel path, and she looked up with a startled glance to see a churchly figurerounding the hill. Involuntarily she prepared for flight; but the bishophad spied her, together with a little rustic seat under a tree, and hesmiled upon the one and dropped down upon the other with a sigh ofcontent. 

"A beautiful view, " he gasped; "but a very steep hill. "

"It is steep, " Patty agreed politely; and as there seemed to be nochance of escape, she resumed her seat and added, with a laugh: "I havejust run away from you, Bishop Copeley, and here you come followingalong behind like an accusing conscience. "

The bishop chuckled. "I've run away myself, " he returned; "I knew Ishould have to be introduced to a hundred or so of you after service, so I just slipped out the back way for a quiet stroll. "

Patty eyed him appreciatively, with a new sense of fellow-feeling. 

"I should like to have run away from church as well, " he confessed, witha twinkle in his eye. "Out of doors is the best church on a day likethis. "

"That's what I think, " said Patty, cordially; "but I had no idea thatbishops were so sensible. "

They chatted along in a friendly manner on various subjects, andexchanged lay opinions on the college and the clergy. 

"It's a funny thing about this place, " said Patty, ruminatingly, "that, though we have a different preacher every Sunday, we always have thesame sermon. "

"The same sermon?" inquired the bishop, somewhat aghast. 

"Practically the same, " said Patty. "I've heard it for four years, and Ithink I could almost preach it myself. They all seem to think, you know, that because we come to college we must be monsters of reason, and theyurge us to remember that reason and science are not the only things thatcount in the world--that feeling is, after all, the main factor; andthey quote a little poem about the flower being beautiful, I know notwhy. That wasn't what yours was about?" she asked anxiously. 

"Not this time, " said the bishop; "I preached an old one. "

"It's the best way, " said Patty. "We're human beings, if we do come tocollege. I remember once we had a man from Yale or Harvard or some suchplace, and he preached an old sermon: he urged us to become more manly. It was very refreshing. "

The bishop smiled. "Do you run away from church very often?" he inquiredmildly. 

"No; I don't have a chance when I room with Priscilla. But obligatorychapel makes you want to run away, " she added. "It's not the chapel Iobject to; it's the obligatoriness. "

"But you have a system of--er--cuts, " he suggested. 

"Three a month, " said Patty, sadly. "Evening chapel counts as one, butSunday morning church as two. "

"So you expended two cuts to escape me?" he asked with a smile. 

"Oh, it wasn't you, " Patty remonstrated hastily. "It was just--theobligatoriness. And besides, " she added frankly, "my legitimate cutswere used up days ago, and when I once begin over-cutting, I amreckless. "

"And may I ask what happens when you over-cut?" the bishop inquired. 

"Well, " said Patty, "there are proctors, you know, that mark you whenyou are absent; and then, if they find that you've over-cut, theSelf-Government Committee calls you up and asks the reason. If you can'tproduce a good excuse you are deprived of your privileges for a month, and you can't be on committees or in plays or get leave of absence to goout of town. "

"I see, " said the bishop; "and will you have to suffer all of thosepenalties?"

"Oh, no, " said Patty, comfortably; "I shall produce a good excuse. "

"What will you say?" he inquired. 

"I don't know, exactly; I shall have to depend on the inspiration of themoment. "

The bishop regarded her quizzically. "Do you mean, " he asked, "that, having broken the rule, you intend to evade the penalty by--to put itflatly--a falsehood?"

"Oh, no, bishop, " said Patty, in a shocked tone. "Of course I shall tellthe truth, only"--she looked up in the bishop's face with anirresistible smile--"the committee probably won't understand it. "

For an instant the bishop's face relaxed, and then he grew grave again. "By a subterfuge?" he asked. 

"Y-yes, " acknowledged Patty; "I suppose you _might_ call it asubterfuge. I dare say I am pretty bad, " she added, "but you have tohave a reputation for something in a place like this or you getoverlooked. I can't compete in goodness or in athletics or in anythinglike that, so there's nothing left for me but to surpass in badness--Ihave quite a gift for it. "

The corners of the bishop's mouth twitched. "You don't look like onewith a criminal record. "

"I'm young yet, " said Patty. "It hasn't commenced to show. "

"My dear little girl, " said the bishop, "I have already preached onesermon to-day, which you didn't come to hear, and I can't undertake topreach another for your benefit, "--Patty looked relieved, --"but there isone question I should like to ask you. In after years, when you arethrough college and the question is asked of some of your class-mates, 'Did you know--' You have not told me your name. "

"Patty Wyatt. "

"'Did you know Patty Wyatt, and what sort of a girl was she?' will theanswer be what you would wish?"

Patty considered. "Ye-yes; I think, on the whole, they'd stand by me. "

"This morning, " the bishop continued placidly, "I asked a professor inan entirely casual way about a young woman--a class-mate of yourown--who is the daughter of an old friend of mine. The answer wasimmediate and unhesitating, and you can imagine how much it gratifiedme. 'There is not a finer girl in college, ' he replied. 'She is honestin work and honest in play, and thoroughly conscientious in everythingshe does. '"

"Um-m, " said Patty; "that must have been Priscilla. "

"No, " smiled the bishop, "it was not Priscilla. The young woman of whomI am speaking is the president of your Student Association, CatherineFair. "

"Yes, it's true, " said Patty, critically. "Cathy Fair hits straight fromthe shoulder. "

"And wouldn't you like to go out with that reputation?"

"I'm really not _very_ bad, " pleaded Patty, "that is, as badness goes. But I couldn't be as good as Cathy; it would be going against nature. "

"I am afraid, " suggested the bishop, "that you do not try very hard. Youmay not think that it matters what people think now that you are young, but how will it be when you grow older? And it will not be long, " headded. "Age slips upon you before you realize it. "

Patty looked sober. 

"You will soon be thirty, and then forty, and then fifty. "

Patty sighed. 

"And do you think that a woman of that age is attractive if she deals insubterfuges and evasions?"

Patty squirmed a trifle, and dug a little hole in the pine-needles withher toe. 

"You must remember that you cannot form your character in a moment, mydear. Character is a plant of slow growth, and the seeds must be plantedearly. "

The bishop rose, and Patty scrambled to her feet with a look of relief. He took the pillow and the book under his arm, and they started down thehill. "I have preached you a sermon, after all, " he said apologetically;"but preaching is my trade, and you must forgive an old man for beingprosy. "

Patty held out her hand with a smile as they stopped before the door ofPhillips Hall. "Good-by, bishop, " she said, "and thank you for thesermon; I guess I needed it--I _am_ getting old. "

She climbed the stairs slowly, and, hesitating a moment outside her ownroom, where the sound of laughing voices through the transom betokenedthat the clan was gathered, she kept on to the door of a single at theend of the corridor. 

"Come in, " a voice called in response to her knock. 

Patty turned the knob and stuck her head in. "Hello, Cathy! Are youbusy?"

"Of course not. Come in and talk to me. "

Patty shut the door and leaned with her back against it. "This isn't asocial call, " she announced impressively. "I've come to see youofficially. "

"Officially?"

"You're president of students, I believe?"

"I believe I am, " sighed Cathy; "and if the President of the UnitedStates has half as much trouble with his subjects as I have with mine, he has my sincerest sympathy. "

"I suppose we are a great deal of trouble, " said Patty, contritely. 

"Trouble! My dear, " said Cathy, solemnly. "I've spent the entire weekrunning around to the different cottages making speeches to thoseblessed freshmen. They _won't_ hand in chapel excuses, and they _will_run off with library books, and, altogether, they're an immoral lot. "

"They can afford to be; they're young, " sighed Patty, enviously. "ButI, " she added, "am getting old, and it's time I was getting good. I'vecalled to tell you that I've over-cut four times, and I haven't anyexcuse. "

"What are you talking about?" asked Cathy, in amazement. 

"Chapel excuses. I've over-cut four times, --I think it's four, thoughI've rather lost count, --and I haven't any excuse. "

"But, Patty, don't tell me that. You must have some excuse, some reasonfor--"

"Not the shadow of one. Just stayed away because I didn't feel likegoing. "

"But you must give me _some_ reason, " remonstrated Cathy, in distress, "or I'll have to report it to the committee and you'll be deprived ofyour privileges. You can't afford that, you know, for you're chairman ofthe Senior Prom. "

"But I didn't have any excuse, and I can't make one up, " said Patty. "Iwill soon be thirty, and then forty, and then fifty. Do you think awoman of that age is attractive if she deals in subterfuges andevasions? Character, " she added solemnly, "is a plant of slow growth, and the seeds must be planted early. "

Cathy looked puzzled. "I don't know what you're talking about, " shesaid, "but I suppose you do. Anyway, " she added, "I'm sorry about thechairmanship; but I'm--well, I'm sort of glad, too. " She laid a hand onPatty's shoulder. "Of course I've always liked you, Patty, --everybodydoes, --but I don't believe I've ever appreciated you, and I'm glad tofind it out before we leave college. "

Patty's face flushed a trifle and she drew away half sheepishly. "You'dbest postpone your felicitations until to-morrow, " she laughed, "for Imay think of some good excuse in the night. Good-by. "

She was greeted in the study with a cry of welcome. 

"Well, Patty, " said Priscilla, "I hear you've been taking a walk withthe bishop. Did you tell him you'd cut chapel?"

"I did; and he said he wished he might have cut, too. "

"She's incorrigible, " sighed Georgie; "she's even been corrupting thebishop. "

"You'd better be careful, Patty Wyatt, " warned Bonnie Connaught. "Self-Government will get you if you don't watch out, and _then_ you'llbe sorry when they take you off the Senior Prom. "

Patty sobered for a moment, but she hastily assumed a nonchalant air. "They have got me, " she laughed, "and I'm already off--or, at least, Ishall be as soon as they have a meeting. "

"Patty!" cried the room, in a horrified chorus. "What do you mean?"

Patty shrugged. "Just what I say: deprived of my privileges for cuttingchapel. "

"It's a shame!" said Georgie, indignantly. "That Self-GovernmentCommittee is going a little too far when it takes a senior's privilegesaway without even hearing her case. " She grasped Patty by the arm andstarted toward the door. "Come on and tell Cathy Fair about it. Shewill fix it all right. "

Patty hung back and disengaged her wrist from Georgie's grasp. "Let mealone, " she said sulkily. "There's nothing to be done. I told her myselfI hadn't any excuse. "

"You told her?" Georgie stared her incredulity, and Bonnie Connaughtlaughed. 

"Patty reminds me of the burglar who crawled out the back window withthe silver, and then rang the front door-bell and handed it back. "

"What's the matter, Patty?" Priscilla asked solicitously. "Don't youfeel well?"

Patty sighed. "I'm getting old, " she said. 

"You're getting what?"

"Old. Soon I'll be thirty, and then forty, and then fifty; and do youthink any one will love me then if I deal in subterfuges and evasions?Character, my dear girls, is a plant of slow growth, and the seeds mustbe planted early. "

"You went and told the committee voluntarily, --of your ownaccord, --without even waiting to be called up?" Georgie persisted, determined to get at the facts of the case. 

"I'm getting old, " repeated Patty. "It's time I was getting good. As Isaid before, character is a plant--"

Georgie looked at the others and shook her head in bewilderment, andBonnie Connaught laughed and murmured to the room in general: "WhenPatty gets to heaven I'm afraid the Recording Angel will have sometrouble in balancing his books. "

 * * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired. 

The original text had each Chapter number and title twice. The first ofthese was deleted to aid in ease of reading. 

Page 198, the text that begins "Ireland's eminent astronomer spending"ends without punctuation to indicate that the reader broke off suddenly. This was retained.