Grace Harlowes Fourth Year at Overton College | Page 8

where I stood. I'm a sophomore, if you please."
Grace burst into merry laughter. "Won't the girls be surprised!" she
exclaimed. "We all thought you were a freshman."
"I hadn't stopped to think of what any one else thought of me," said

Patience, "or I might have enlightened the girls at the breakfast table as
to my superior sophomore estate. They'll find out soon enough. I have a
great mind to let them stumble upon the truth gradually."
"Oh, do," begged Grace gleefully. "It will be great fun to let matters
take their own course."
Miss Sheldon smiled indulgently, but made no comment. She was
versed in the ways of college girls. She, too, had been a student at
Overton.
"I should like to stay longer, Miss Sheldon, but I know you are very
busy." Patience rose at last to go, Grace following her example. "Now
that I have come to headquarters, been identified, had my thumb marks
registered and become a unit in this great and glorious organization,"
went on the tall girl calmly, "I shall feel free to go forth and replace
Mrs. Elwood's demolished china. I should like to put the new set on the
washstand before I tell her of the accident. Good-bye, Miss Sheldon."
She held out her hand. "May I come to see you soon?"
"You know you will always be welcome, my dear."
"I wish you wouldn't tell even your roommate that I am a sophomore,"
said Patience Eliot as they left the campus and turned into College
Street.
"I won't," promised Grace. "I'll be a positive clam. But what about your
roommate? She will be sure to find out first, and then----"
Remembering Patience Eliot's roommate Grace broke off suddenly.
"And then what?" asked the tall girl with disconcerting directness.
"Nothing," murmured Grace.
"Then we don't need to become alarmed, do we?" was the next
question.
"No, not in the least," said Grace, smiling faintly. She was trying to

decide whether or not she ought even to intimate to the tall,
matter-of-fact girl, whom she already liked, that Kathleen West was
likely to prove a disappointment in the way of a roommate.
But the decision was not left to her, for Patience Eliot said with calm
amusement in her tones: "I have a better idea of what you are thinking
than you know. All I have to say is, don't waste a minute worrying over
me. Patience Eliot will take care of herself regardless of who her
roommate may be."
CHAPTER IV
PATIENCE PROMISES TO STAND BY
For the next three days Patience Eliot passed successfully for a
freshman. Then came the sudden dismaying rumor that she was
registered in the sophomore theme class. A little later it was announced
positively that she had passed up freshman French. The truth suddenly
burst upon certain members of the sophomore class who had selected
Miss Eliot as a splendid subject for sophomore grinds, when, on the
occasion of their first class meeting, she walked quietly into the class
room where it was to be held, and took her place with a cheerful,
matter-of-course air that was very disturbing to various abashed
sophomores who had planned mischief.
Far from being angry, the astonished sophomores treated the New
England girl's mild deception as a joke, and by it she sprang into instant
popularity with her class. There were a few disgruntled students who
criticized her, but these were so far in the minority that they counted for
little. Kathleen West was among this minority. On the evening when
the girl from New England had been shown into the room at the end of
the hall, Kathleen had conceived a strong dislike for this calm-faced,
independent young woman, whose quiet self-assurance nettled her, and
mentally decided that she belonged to the preaching, narrow-minded
class of girls who made life a burden for those who did not live up to a
certain impossible standard. Patience Eliot had been even less
favorably impressed with the newspaper girl. "She has a frightful

temper," had been her mental observation, "and looks the reverse of
agreeable." Aside from a brief exchange of conversation, silence had
reigned in the room, and remembering the happy faces of the girls she
had seen at the breakfast table that morning, Patience had felt not
wholly pleased with her new quarters and not a little lonely.
The incident of the broken china had been fortunate in that it had
brought about a friendly, informal meeting between Grace and herself.
After that everything had glided smoothly along. Patience and Grace
received an invitation to take dinner with Miss Sheldon the following
Sunday, and this occasion served to strengthen the New England girl's
favorable impression of Grace to such an extent that by the end of the
week the knot of friendship