Kitabı oku: «When Patty Went to College», sayfa 8

XIV
The Mystery of the Shadowed Sophomore

"OH, I say, Bonnie—Bonnie Connaught! Priscilla! Wait a minute," called a girl from across the links, as the two were strolling homeward one afternoon, dragging their caddie-bags behind them. They turned and waited while Bonnie's sophomore cousin, Mildred Connaught, dashed up. She grasped them excitedly, and at the same time glanced over her shoulder with the air of a criminal who is being tracked.

"I want to tell you something," she panted. "Come in here where no one will see us"; and she dived into a clump of pine-trees growing by the path.

Priscilla and Bonnie followed more leisurely, and dropped down on the soft 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 there was not a person within a hundred yards. "I am being followed," she said solemnly.

"Followed!" exclaimed Bonnie, in amazement. "Are you crazy, child? You act 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 the ceremonies. Everything is ready—the costumes are finished and the plans all arranged so that the class can get out to the place without being seen. 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 you please,"—Mildred's eyes grew wide with excitement,—"they've been tracking me for a week. They have relays of girls appointed to watch me, and I can't stir without a freshman tagging along behind. When I went down to order the ice-cream, there was one right at my elbow, and I had to pretend that I'd come for soda-water. I have simply had to let the rest of the committee do all of the work, because I was so afraid the freshmen would find out the time. It was funny at first, but I am getting nervous. It's horrible to think that you're being watched all the time. I feel as if I'd committed a murder, and keep looking over my shoulder like—like Macbeth."

"It's awful," Bonnie shuddered. "I'm thrilled to the bone to think of the 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 those freshmen 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. "They have another engagement. We chose to-night because there's a lecture before the Archæological Society by some alumna person who's been digging up remains in Rome. The freshmen have been told to go and hear her on account of their Latin. Imagine their feelings when they are cooped up in the auditorium, trying to look intelligent about the Roman Forum, and listening to our yells outside!"

Priscilla and Bonnie smiled appreciatively. It was not so long, after all, since they themselves were sophomores, and they recalled their own tree ceremonies, when the freshmen had not been cooped up.

"But the trouble is," pursued Mildred, "that it's more important for me to get there than any one else, because I have to dig the hole,—Peters is really going to dig it, you know; I just take out the first shovelful,—but I can't get there on account of that beastly scout. As soon 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 after chapel, and loiter sort of inconspicuously among the trees, you know, I would come that way a little later, and then, when the detective person came 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 till you hear us yelling—take her for a walk. She'd feel honored."

Bonnie laughed. The program struck her as entertaining. "I don't see anything very immoral in delaying a freshman who is going where she has no 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 as for 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. Right after 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 be put in during chapel. Do you see anybody lurking about? I guess I can get off without being seen. Good-by"; and she sped away like a hunted animal.

Bonnie looked after her and laughed. "'Youth is a great time, but somewhat 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 she allowed herself to be interrupted long enough to hear the story of their proposed adventure.

"You babies!" she exclaimed. "Haven't you grown up yet? Don't you think it's a little undignified for seniors—one might almost say alumnæ—to be kidnapping freshmen?"

"We're not kidnapping freshmen," Bonnie remonstrated; "we're teaching them 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 you children. Cathy Fair and I are going to do Old English to-night."

That evening, as Patty, keyed to the point of grappling with and throwing whole pages of "Beowulf," stood outside the chapel door waiting for 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 to lecture to-night before the Archæological Society. She has not been back for several years, and wishes to see the new buildings. Have you time to show her around the campus a little before the lecture begins?"

Patty bowed and murmured that she would be most happy, and cast an agonized glance back at Cathy as she led the lecturer off. As they strolled about, Patty poured out all the statistics she knew about the various buildings, and Miss Henderson received them with exclamations of delighted surprise. She was rather young and gushing for a Ph.D. and an archæologist, Patty decided, and she wondered desperately how she could dispose of her and get back to "Beowulf" and Cathy.

They rounded the top of a little hill, and Miss Henderson exclaimed delightedly, "There is the lake, just as it used to be!"

Patty stifled a desire to remark that lakes had a habit of staying where they used to be, and asked politely if Miss Henderson would like to take a row.

Miss Henderson thought that it would be pleasant; but she had forgotten her watch, and was afraid there would not be time.

Patty glanced about vaguely for some further object of interest, and spied Mildred Connaught sauntering toward the lake. She had forgotten all about the Sherlock Holmes adventure, and she suddenly had an inspiration. Be it said to her credit that she hesitated a moment; but the lecturer's next remark led to her own undoing. She was murmuring something about feeling like a stranger, and wishing that she might know the 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 for a little row, Miss Henderson. You walk on, and I will run back and get my watch; it won't take a minute."

"I wouldn't have you do that; it is too much trouble," remonstrated Miss Henderson.

"It's no trouble whatever," Patty protested kindly. "I can take a cross cut, 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 girl over there"; and she darted away.

The lecturer gazed dubiously after her a moment, and then started on after the girl, who cast a look over her shoulder and quickened her pace. It was growing quite dusky under the trees, and the lecturer hurried on, trying to keep the girl in sight; but she unexpectedly turned a corner and disappeared, and at the same moment two strange girls 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 soon as she could regain her composure, she replied politely that she was strolling 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 one of the students."

Priscilla and Bonnie exchanged delighted glances. They had evidently caught a resourceful young person.

"Oh, no; it's too late for a row. You might get malaria," Priscilla remonstrated. "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 to have 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 just met her."

Miss Henderson was growing more and more puzzled. In her day the students had not been in the habit of way-laying strangers with invitations to go walking and sit on fences.

"Ah, do stay with us," Bonnie begged, laying a hand on her arm. "We're lonely 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'm sure you'll be interested. The sophomores are going to have their tree ceremonies to-night!"

"And you know," Priscilla broke in, "that the freshmen really ought to attend them too—it doesn't matter if they aren't invited. But where do you suppose the freshmen are to-night? They're attending a foolish little lecture on the Roman Forum."

"And though we don't wish to seem insistent," Bonnie added, "we should really like to have your company until the lecture is over."

"Until the lecture is over! But I am the lecturer," gasped Miss Henderson.

Bonnie grinned delightedly. "I am happy to meet you," she said, with a bow. "And perhaps you do not recognize us. I am Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend Dr. Watson."

Dr. Watson bowed, and remarked that it was an unexpected pleasure. He had 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 was an insane asylum in the neighborhood, and the thought was not reassuring.

"We'll not handcuff you," said Bonnie, magnanimously, "if you'll come with 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 side grasping an elbow. A light was beginning to break upon her, together with a poignant realization of the fact that she was seeing more of the real 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 the croaking 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 on the fence all night, when suddenly there burst out from across the campus 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, they started to run. "Come on and see the fun," they laughed. "You're perfectly welcome; it's no secret any more." And, in spite of breathless protestations that she much preferred to walk, Miss Henderson found herself dashing across the campus in the direction of the sounds.

Heads suddenly appeared in the dormitory windows, doors banged, and girls came running from every quarter with excited exclamations: "The sophomores 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 the scene with laughing interest. A wide circle of colored lanterns swayed in the breeze, and, within, a line of white-robed figures wound and unwound about a tiny tree to the music of a solemn chant.

"Isn't it pretty? Aren't you glad we brought you?" Bonnie demanded as they pushed through the crowd.

The lecturer did not answer, for she caught sight of the Latin professor hurrying toward them.

"Miss Henderson! I was afraid you were lost. It is nearly half-past eight. The audience has been waiting, and we have been filling in the time with reports."

For a moment the lecturer was silent, being occupied with an amused scrutiny of the faces of her captors; and then she rose to the occasion like a lady and a scholar, and delivered a masterly apology, with never a reference to her sojourn on the fence.

Bonnie and Priscilla stared at each other without a word, and as Miss Henderson was led away to the remnants of her audience Patty suddenly appeared.

"Good evening, Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Did you solve your mystery?" 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," she murmured, "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 are funnier."

"What do you mean?" Bonnie demanded.

"I mean," said Patty, "that I wish you never to mention the Lick Observatory again."

XV
Patty and the Bishop

THE dressing-bell rang for Sunday morning service, and Patty laid down her book with a sigh and went and stood by the open window. The outside world was a shimmering green and yellow, the trees showed a feathery fringe against the sky, and the breeze was redolent of violets and fresh earth.

"Patty," called Priscilla, from her bedroom, "you'll have to hurry if you want me to fasten your dress. I have to go to choir rehearsal."

Patty turned back with another sigh, and began slowly unhooking her collar. Then she sat down on the edge of the couch and stared absently out of the window.

A vigorous banging of bureau drawers in Priscilla's room was presently followed by Priscilla herself in the doorway. She surveyed her room-mate suspiciously. "Why aren't you dressing?" she demanded.

"I'll fasten my own dress; you needn't wait," said Patty, without removing her eyes from the window.

"Bishop Copeley's going to preach to-day, and he's such an old dear; you mustn'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 Priscilla beseechingly. "It's such a lovely day," she pleaded, "and I'd so much rather spend the time out of doors; I'm sure it would be a lot better for 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 when the Self-Government Committee asks for an explanation?"

"'Sufficient unto the day,'" laughed Patty. "When the time comes I'll think 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 to all sorts of petty rules?" asked Patty, wearily.

"I don't know why you have a right to live outside of rules any more than 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't be any law left in college if they did. I should a good deal rather play out of doors myself than go to chapel, but I've used up all my cuts and I 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 put things 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?" she demanded.

"I am not."

Priscilla closed the door—not quite as softly as a door should be closed—and Patty was left alone. She sat thinking a few minutes with slightly flushed cheeks, and then as the chapel bell rang she shook herself and laughed. Even had she wished to go it was too late now, and all feeling of responsibility vanished. As soon as the decorous swish of Sunday silks had ceased in the corridor outside, she caught up a book and a cushion, and, creeping down by the side stairs, set gaily out across the sunlit lawn, with the deliciously guilty thrill of a truant little boy who has run away from school.

From the open windows of the chapel she could hear the college chanting: "Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law." 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 their commandments 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 was in her blood, and she felt as though she owned the world. The campus had never seemed so radiant. She paused on the little rustic bridge to watch the excited swirling of the brook, and she nearly lost her balance while trying to launch a tiny boat made of a piece of bark. She dropped pebbles into the pool in order to watch the startled frogs splash back into the water, and she threw her cushion at a squirrel, and laughed aloud at its angry chattering. She raced up the side of Pine Bluff, and dropped down panting on the fragrant needles in the shadow of a tall pine.

Below her the ivy-covered buildings of the college lay clustered among the trees; and in the Sunday quiet, with the sunlight shining on the towers, it looked like some medieval village sleeping in the valley. Patty gazed down dreamily with half-shut eyes, and imagined that presently a band of troubadours and ladies would come riding out on milk-white mules. But the sight of Peters, strolling to the gateway in his Sunday clothes, spoiled the illusion, and she turned to her book with a smile. Presently she closed it, however. This was not the time for reading. One could read in winter and when it rained, and even in the college library with every one else turning pages; but out here in the open, with the real things of life happening all about, it was a waste of opportunity.

Her eyes wandered back to the campus again, and she suddenly grew sober as the thought swept over her that in a few weeks more it would be hers no longer. This happy, irresponsible community life, which had come to be the only natural way of living, was suddenly at an end. She remembered the first day of being a freshman, when everything but herself had looked so big, and she had thought desperately, "Four years of this!" It had seemed like an eternity; and now that it was over it seemed 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 opening day in the fall—and Priscilla lived in California and Georgie in South Dakota and Bonnie in Kentucky and she in New England, and they were the only people in the world she particularly cared to talk to. She would have to get acquainted with her mother's friends—with chronically grown-up people, who talked about husbands and children and servants. And there would be men. She had never had time to know many men; but some 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 old lady, telling her grandchildren stories about when she was a girl.

Patty gazed mournfully down on the campus, almost on the verge of tears over her lost youth, when a step suddenly sounded on the gravel path, and she looked up with a startled glance to see a churchly figure rounding the hill. Involuntarily she prepared for flight; but the bishop had spied her, together with a little rustic seat under a tree, and he smiled upon the one and dropped down upon the other with a sigh of content.

"A beautiful view," he gasped; "but a very steep hill."

"It is steep," Patty agreed politely; and as there seemed to be no chance of escape, she resumed her seat and added, with a laugh: "I have just run away from you, Bishop Copeley, and here you come following along behind like an accusing conscience."

The bishop chuckled. "I've run away myself," he returned; "I knew I should 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, with a twinkle in his eye. "Out of doors is the best church on a day like this."

"That's what I think," said Patty, cordially; "but I had no idea that bishops were so sensible."

They chatted along in a friendly manner on various subjects, and exchanged 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 the same sermon."

"The same sermon?" inquired the bishop, somewhat aghast.

"Practically the same," said Patty. "I've heard it for four years, and I think 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 they urge us to remember that reason and science are not the only things that count in the world—that feeling is, after all, the main factor; and they quote a little poem about the flower being beautiful, I know not why. 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 to college. I remember once we had a man from Yale or Harvard or some such place, 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 inquired mildly.

"No; I don't have a chance when I room with Priscilla. But obligatory chapel makes you want to run away," she added. "It's not the chapel I object 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, but Sunday 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—the obligatoriness. And besides," she added frankly, "my legitimate cuts were used up days ago, and when I once begin over-cutting, I am reckless."

"And may I ask what happens when you over-cut?" the bishop inquired.

"Well," said Patty, "there are proctors, you know, that mark you when you are absent; and then, if they find that you've over-cut, the Self-Government Committee calls you up and asks the reason. If you can't produce 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 go out of town."

"I see," said the bishop; "and will you have to suffer all of those penalties?"

"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 the moment."

The bishop regarded her quizzically. "Do you mean," he asked, "that, having broken the rule, you intend to evade the penalty by—to put it flatly—a falsehood?"

"Oh, no, bishop," said Patty, in a shocked tone. "Of course I shall tell the truth, only"—she looked up in the bishop's face with an irresistible 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 a subterfuge. I dare say I am pretty bad," she added, "but you have to have a reputation for something in a place like this or you get overlooked. I can't compete in goodness or in athletics or in anything like that, so there's nothing left for me but to surpass in badness—I have quite a gift for it."

The corners of the bishop's mouth twitched. "You don't look like one with 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 one sermon to-day, which you didn't come to hear, and I can't undertake to preach another for your benefit,"—Patty looked relieved,—"but there is one question I should like to ask you. In after years, when you are through 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 the answer 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 in an entirely casual way about a young woman—a class-mate of your own—who is the daughter of an old friend of mine. The answer was immediate and unhesitating, and you can imagine how much it gratified me. 'There is not a finer girl in college,' he replied. 'She is honest in work and honest in play, and thoroughly conscientious in everything she does.'"

"Um-m," said Patty; "that must have been Priscilla."

"No," smiled the bishop, "it was not Priscilla. The young woman of whom I am speaking is the president of your Student Association, Catherine Fair."

"Yes, it's true," said Patty, critically. "Cathy Fair hits straight from the 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. You may 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," he added. "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 in subterfuges and evasions?"

Patty squirmed a trifle, and dug a little hole in the pine-needles with her toe.

"You must remember that you cannot form your character in a moment, my dear. Character is a plant of slow growth, and the seeds must be planted early."

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 the hill. "I have preached you a sermon, after all," he said apologetically; "but preaching is my trade, and you must forgive an old man for being prosy."

Patty held out her hand with a smile as they stopped before the door of Phillips Hall. "Good-by, bishop," she said, "and thank you for the sermon; I guess I needed it—I am getting old."

She climbed the stairs slowly, and, hesitating a moment outside her own room, where the sound of laughing voices through the transom betokened that the clan was gathered, she kept on to the door of a single at the end 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 you busy?"

"Of course not. Come in and talk to me."

Patty shut the door and leaned with her back against it. "This isn't a social call," she announced impressively. "I've come to see you officially."

"Officially?"

"You're president of students, I believe?"

"I believe I am," sighed Cathy; "and if the President of the United States 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 week running around to the different cottages making speeches to those blessed 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. "But I," she added, "am getting old, and it's time I was getting good. I've called to tell you that I've over-cut four times, and I haven't any excuse."

"What are you talking about?" asked Cathy, in amazement.

"Chapel excuses. I've over-cut four times,—I think it's four, though I've rather lost count,—and I haven't any excuse."

"But, Patty, don't tell me that. You must have some excuse, some reason for—"