"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—"