Part 44

"Well," said Patty, "there are proctors, you know, that mark you when you are absent; and then, if they find that you've over-cut, the Self-Government Committee calls you up and asks the reason. If you can't produce a good excuse you are deprived of your privileges for a month, and you can't be on committees or in plays or get leave of absence to go out of town."

"I see," said the bishop; "and will you have to suffer all of those penalties?"

"Oh, no," said Patty, comfortably; "I shall produce a good excuse."

"What will you say?" he inquired.

"I don't know, exactly; I shall have to depend on the inspiration of the moment."

The bishop regarded her quizzically. "Do you mean," he asked, "that, having broken the rule, you intend to evade the penalty by--to put it flatly--a falsehood?"

"Oh, no, bishop," said Patty, in a shocked tone. "Of course I shall tell the truth, only"--she looked up in the bishop's face with an irresistible smile--"the committee probably won't understand it."

For an instant the bishop's face relaxed, and then he grew grave again. "By a subterfuge?" he asked.

"Y-yes," acknowledged Patty; "I suppose you might call it a subterfuge. I dare say I am pretty bad," she added, "but you have to have a reputation for something in a place like this or you get overlooked. I can't compete in goodness or in athletics or in anything like that, so there's nothing left for me but to surpass in badness--I have quite a gift for it."

The corners of the bishop's mouth twitched. "You don't look like one with a criminal record."

"I'm young yet," said Patty. "It hasn't commenced to show."

"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."