r the three faces.

"You're such a comfort, Patty. Upper-classmen take things easily, don't
they?"

"One gets inured to almost anything in time," said Patty. "Examinations
are even entertaining, if you know the right answers."

"But we won't know the right answers!" one of the freshmen wailed, her
terror returning. "We simply don't know _anything_, and Latin comes
to-morrow, and geometry the next day."

"Oh, well, in that case you can't get through anyway, so don't worry.
You must take it philosophically, you know." Patty settled herself among
the cushions and smiled upon her frightened auditors with easy
nonchalance. "As an example of the uselessness of studying at the
eleventh hour when you haven't done anything through the term, I will
tell you my experience with freshman Greek. I was badly prepared when I
came, I didn't study through the term, and, without exaggeration, I
didn't know anything. Three days before examinations I suddenly
comprehended the situation, and I began swallowing that grammar in
chunks. I drank black coffee to keep awake, and worked till two in the
morning, and scarcely stopped cramming irregular verbs for meals. I
simply thought in Greek and dreamed in Greek. And, if you will believe
it, after all that work I flunked in Greek! It shook my faith in
studying for examinations. I've never done it since, and I've never
flunked since. I believe that it's just a matter of fate whether you get
through or not, so I never bother any more."

The freshmen looked at one another disconsolately. "If it's all decided
beforehand, we're lost."

Patty smiled reassuringly.

"A little flunking now and then
Will happen to the best of men."

"But I've heard they send people home, drop them, you know, if they
flunk more than a certain amount. Is that so?" Lady Clara inquired in
hushed tones.

"Oh, yes," said Patty; "they have to. I've known some of the brightest
girls in college to be dropped."

Lady Clara groaned. "I'm awfully shaky in geometry, Patty. Do they flunk
many girls in that?"

"Many!" said Patty. "The mere clerical labor of writing out the notes
occupies the department two days."

"Is the examination terribly hard?"

"I don't remember much about it. It's been such a long time since I was
a freshman, you see. They picked out the hardest theorems, I
know--things you couldn't even draw, let alone demonstrate: the pyramid
that's cut in slices, for one,--I don't remember