When Patty Went to College. Jean Webster
one," said Priscilla, peering into the stein where the lemons were kept.
"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 sake of the tea, but for the conversation which accompanies it, and one must not let accidents annoy him. You see, young ladies," she went on, in the tone of an instructor giving a lecture, "though I have just spilled the alcohol over the sugar, I appear not to notice it, but keep up an easy flow of conversation to divert my guests. A repose of manner is above all things to be cultivated." Patty leaned languidly back in her chair. "To-morrow is Founder's Day," she resumed in a conversational tone. "I wonder if many—"
"That reminds me," interrupted the Twin. "You girls needn't save any dances for my brother. I got a letter from him this morning saying he couldn'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 about Founder's time."
"No; he was called out of town on important business."
"Important business!" Patty laughed. "Dear man! why couldn't he have thought of something new?"
"I think myself it was just an excuse," the Twin acknowledged. "He seemed 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 be Founder's if half the guests didn't develop serious illness or important business or dead relations the last minute. The only safe way is to invite 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, and before we know it we shall be packing them again for Christmas."
"Yes; and before we know it we'll be unpacking them again, with examinations three weeks ahead," said Georgie the pessimist.
"Oh, for the matter of that," returned Patty the optimist, "before we know it we'll be walking up one side of the platform for our diplomas and coming down the other side blooming alumnæ."
"And then," sighed Georgie, "before we even have time to decide on a career, we'll be old ladies, telling our grandchildren to stand up straight and remember their rubbers."
"And," said Priscilla, "before any of us get any tea we'll be in our graves, 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 a golf-club. "Young ladies," she said, with a wave of the kettle, "there is nothing like a college education to teach you a way out of every difficulty. 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 my lecture. When, as I say, you are out in the wide, wide world, making five-o'clock tea some afternoon for one of the young men popularly supposed to be there, who have dropped in to make an afternoon call—Do you follow me, young ladies, or do I speak too fast? If, while you are engaged in conversation, the kettle should become too hot, do not put your finger in your mouth and shriek 'Ouch!' and coquettishly say to the young man, 'You take it off,' as might a young woman who has not enjoyed your advantages; but, rather, rise to the emergency; say to him calmly, 'This kettle has become over-heated; may I trouble you to go into the hall and bring an umbrella?' and when he returns you can hook it off gracefully and expeditiously as you have seen me do, young ladies, 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 boiling water poured over you."
The Bartlet Twin sniffed. "I smell burning rug."
Patty groaned. "I resign, Pris; I resign. Here, you preside. I'll never ask to make it again."
"I should like," observed the Twin, "to see Patty entertaining a young man."
"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 much pleasure."
"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 from the 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 him yourself?"
"Oh, no; I don't expect to dance more than ten with him myself—I haven'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 party since 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 a fright when he was young."
"A fright? What was it?"
"Well," said Patty, "it happened this way: It was while I was at boarding-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 on me. As it happened, the butler had left two days before, and had taken with him all the knives and forks, and all the money he could find, and Nancy Lee's gold watch and two hat-pins, and my silver hair-brush, and a bottle of brandy, and a pie," she enumerated with a conscientious regard for details; "and Mrs. Trent—that's the principal—had advertised for a new butler."
"I should have thought the old one would have discouraged her from keeping butlers," said Georgie.
"You would think so," said Patty; "but she was a very persevering woman. On the day that Raoul—that's his name—came to call, nineteen