Part 10

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--"

"Not the shadow of one. Just stayed away because I didn't feel like going."

"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 of your privileges. You can't afford that, you know, for you're chairman of the Senior Prom."

"But I didn't have any excuse, and I can't make one up," said Patty. "I will soon be thirty, and then forty, and then fifty. Do you think a woman of that age is attractive if she deals in subterfuges and evasions? 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," she said, "but I suppose you do. Anyway," she added, "I'm sorry about the chairmanship; but I'm--well, I'm sort of glad, too." She laid a hand on Patty's shoulder. "Of course I've always liked you, Patty,--everybody does,--but I don't believe I've ever appreciated you, and I'm glad to find it out before we leave college."

Patty's face flushed a trifle and she drew away half sheepishly. "You'd best postpone your felicitations until to-morrow," she laughed, "for I may 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 with the 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 the bishop."

"You'd better be careful, Patty Wyatt," warned Bonnie Connaught. "Self-Government will get you if you don't watch out, and _then_ you'll be 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, I shall 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 cutting chapel."

"It's a shame!" said Georgie, indignantly. "That Self-Government Committee is going a little too far when it takes a senior's privileges away without even hearing her case." She grasped Patty by the arm and started toward the door. "Come on and tell Cathy Fair about it. She will fix it all right."

Patty hung back and disengaged her wrist from Georgie's grasp. "Let me alone," she said sulkily. "There's nothing to be done. I told her myself I hadn't any excuse."

"You told her?" Georgie stared her incredulity, and Bonnie Connaught laughed.

"Patty reminds me of the burglar who crawled out the back window with the silver, and then rang the front door-bell and handed it back."

"What's the matter, Patty?" Priscilla asked solicitously. "Don't you feel 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 you think 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 must be planted early."

"You went and told the committee voluntarily,--of your own accord,--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 I said before, character is a plant--"

Georgie looked at the others and shook her head in bewilderment, and Bonnie Connaught laughed and murmured to the room in general: "When Patty gets to heaven I'm afraid the Recording Angel will have some trouble in balancing his books."

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

The original text had each Chapter number and title twice. The first of these 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.

End of Project Gutenberg's When Patty Went to College, by Jean Webster