Part 38

"I should think it did! What have you been eating?"

"Only what I get at meals," said Patty, relievedly telling the truth.

"There's something the matter with your blood," diagnosed Miss Sallie. "What you need is a tonic. I shall prescribe boneset tea for you."

"Oh, Miss Sallie!" Patty earnestly remonstrated. "I don't need it, really. I'm sure I'll be all right." She had tried boneset tea before; it was the bitterest brew that was ever concocted.

When Miss Sallie met Mae Van Arsdale suffering from the same complaint, and later still, Rosalie Patton, she commenced to be perturbed. The apple trees under her care at the farm had been afflicted that spring with San Jose scale, but she had hardly expected the disease to spread to the school girls. That afternoon she superintended an infusion of boneset, of gigantic proportions, and at bedtime a reluctant school formed in line and filed past Miss Sallie, who, ladle in hand, presided over the punch bowl. Each received a flowing cupful and drank it with what grace she might, until Patty's turn came. She disposed of hers in a blue china umbrella holder which stood in the hall behind Miss Sallie's back. The remainder of the line successfully followed her lead.

Miss Sallie watched her little charges closely for the next few days; and sure enough, the scales disappeared. (The Associated Sirens had discarded poultices.) She was more than ever convinced of the efficacy of boneset.

Shortly after the founding of the society, Mae Mertelle returned from a week-end visit to her home. (Her mother was ill and she had been sent for. Someone in Mae's family was conveniently ill a great deal of the time.) She brought with her three bracelets of linked scales representing a serpent swallowing his tail. S. A. S. in tiny letters was engraved between the emerald eyes.

"They are perfectly sweet!" said Patty, with grateful appreciation. "But why a snake?"

"It isn't a snake; it's a serpent," Mae explained. "To represent Cleopatra. She was the Serpent of the Nile. We'll be Serpents of the Hudson."

With the appearance of the bracelets, curiosity in the S. A. S. increased, but unlike the other secret societies which had appeared from time to time, its raison d'etre remained a mystery. The school really commenced to believe that the society had a secret. Miss Lord, who had the reputation of being curious, stopped Patty one day as she was leaving the Virgil class, and admired the new bracelet.

"And what may be the meaning of S. A. S.?" she inquired.

"It's a secret society," said Patty.

"Ah, a secret society!" Miss Lord smiled. "Then I suppose the name is a DEEP MYSTERY." She lowered her voice, as she said it, to sepulchral depths.

There was something peculiarly irritating about Miss Lord's manner; it always suggested that she was amused by the vagaries of her little pupils. She did not possess Miss Sallie's happy faculty of meeting them on a level. Miss Lord peered down from above (through lorgnettes).

"Of course the name is a secret," said Patty. "If that got out, it would give the whole thing away."

"And what is the object of this famous society? Or is that too a secret?"

"Why, yes, that is, I mustn't tell you exactly."

Patty smiled up at Miss Lord with the innocent, seraphic gaze that always warned those who knew her best that is was wisest to let her alone.

"It's a sort of branch of the Sunshine Society," she added confidentially. "We're to--well--to smile on people, you know, and make them like us."

"I see!" said Miss Lord, with an air of friendly understanding. "Then S. A. S. stands for 'Sunshine and Smiles?'"

"Oh, please! You mustn't say it out loud," Patty lowered her voice and threw an anxious glance over her shoulder.

"I wouldn't tell anybody for worlds," Miss Lord promised solemnly.

"Thank you," said Patty. "It would be dreadful if it got out."

"It is a very sweet, womanly society," Miss Lord added approvingly. "But you ought not to keep it all to yourselves. Can't you let me be an honorary member of the S. A. S.?"

"Certainly, Miss Lord!" said Patty sweetly. "If you care to belong, we should love to have you."

"Lordy wants to be a Siren!" she announced to her two fellow members when she met them shortly in the gymnasium. The account of the interview was received with hilarity. Miss Lord was anything but the accepted type of siren.

"I thought a few smiles might relieve the gloom of Latin class," Patty explained. "It amuses Lordy to think she's helping the children in their play; and it doesn't hurt the children."

For a time the S. A. S. flourished with the natural health of youth, but as the novelty wore off, the business of becoming beautiful grew onerous. Mae and Rosalie continued to study the beauty book with dogged perseverance,--the subject lay along the line of their natural ambitions--but Patty felt other matters calling. Spring field sports had commenced, and the nearness of the annual match with Highland-Hall, crowded out her interest in cold cream and almond meal. She and Mae were not naturally simpatica, and in spite of Mae's insistence, Patty became an apathetic siren.