When Patty Went to College | Page 5

at the
end of the corridor; our bottle's empty. I'd do it myself, only I've
borrowed such a lot lately, and they don't know you, you see. And--oh,
Georgie, you're an obliging dear; just run down-stairs to the store and
get some sugar. I think I saw some money in that silver inkstand on
Priscilla's desk."
"We've got some sugar," objected Priscilla. "I bought a whole pound
yesterday."
"No, my lamb; we haven't got it any more. I lent it to Bonnie
Connaught last night. Just hunt around for the spoons," she added. "I
think I saw them on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, behind Kipling."
"And what, may I ask, are you going to do?" inquired Priscilla.
"I?" said Patty. "Oh, I am going to sit in the arm-chair and preside."
Ten minutes later, the company being disposed about the room on
cushions, and the party well under way, it was discovered that there

were no lemons.
"Are you sure?" asked Patty, anxiously.
"Not 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