"Nonsense, Patty; you know more than any one else in the cla.s.s."
"Bluff--it"s all pure bluff. I come in strong on the literary criticism and the general discussions, and she never realizes that I don"t know a word of the grammar."
"You"ve got two hours. You can cut your cla.s.ses 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 in his head, and I thought I might as well wait and learn it before examinations."
"I don"t wish to appear unfeeling," laughed Cathy, "but I should say, my dear, that it serves you right."
"Oh, I dare say," said Patty. "You are as bad as Priscilla"; and she trailed 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, was presiding over the bottle for the moment.
"No, thanks," returned Patty, in the tone of one who has exhausted life and longs for death.
"What"s the matter?" inquired Priscilla. "You don"t mean to say that woman 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 fate was of the kind that might overtake any one.
"You know, Pris," said Patty, miserably, "that I simply _can"t_ pa.s.s."
"No," said Priscilla, soothingly; "I don"t believe you can."
"I shall flunk _flat_--absolutely _flat_. Miss Skelling will never have any confidence in me again, and will make me recite every bit of grammar for the rest of the semester."
"I should think you"d cut," ventured Georgie--that being, in her opinion, the most obvious method of escaping an examination.
"I can"t. I just met Miss Skelling in the hall five minutes before the blow fell, and she knows I"m alive and able to be about; besides, the cla.s.s meets again to-morrow morning, and I"d have to cram all night or cut 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 or two? She would like you all the better for it."
"Will you listen to the guileless babe!" said Patty. "What is there to explain, may I ask? I can"t very well tell her that I prefer not to learn the lessons as she gives them out, but think it easier to wait and cram 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 new room-mate: one who will understand and appreciate me, and sympathize with my afflictions."
Patty walked gloomily down the corridor, lost in meditation. Her way led past the door of the doctor"s office, which was standing invitingly open. Three or four girls were sitting around the room, laughing and talking and waiting their turns. Patty glanced in, and a radiant smile suddenly lightened her face, but it was instantly replaced by a look of settled sadness. She walked in and dropped into an arm-chair with a sigh.
"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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: What"s the matter, Patty?]
"Next," said the doctor from the doorway; but as she caught sight of Patty she walked over and shook her arm. "Is this Patty Wyatt? What is the matter with you, child?"
Patty opened her eyes with a start. "Nothing," she said; "I"m just a little 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 seems regular, 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, I don"t know what we doctors can do."
Patty did not think it necessary to explain that it was a Welsh-rabbit party on each occasion, so she merely sighed and looked out of the window.
"Is your appet.i.te good?"
"Yes," said Patty, in a tone which belied the words; "it seems to be very good."
"Um-m," said the doctor.
"I"m just a little tired," pursued Patty, "but I think I shall be all right as soon as I get a chance to rest. Perhaps I need a tonic," she suggested.
"You"d better stay out of cla.s.ses for a day or two and get thoroughly rested."
"Oh, no," said Patty, in evident perturbation. "Our room is so full of girls all the time that it"s really more restful to go to cla.s.ses; 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I know what I shall do with you. You are going right over 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."