her brows.

"Will they send me home, Patty?"

"Mercy, no, child; I hope not. A person who's done as good work as you
in English ought to have the right to flunk every other blessed thing,
if she wants to."

"But you're dropped if you flunk eight hours; you told me so yourself."

"Don't believe anything I told you," said Patty, reassuringly. "I don't
know what I'm talking about more than half the time."

"I'd hate to be sent back, and have my father know I'd failed, when he
spent so much time preparing me; but"--Olivia began to cry again--"I
want to go back so much that I don't believe I care."

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Patty. She put her hand
on the girl's shoulder. "Mercy, child, you're sopping wet, and you're
shivering! Sit up and take those shoes off."

Olivia sat up and pulled at the laces with ineffectual fingers, and
Patty jerked them open and dumped the shoes in a squashy heap on the
floor.

"Do you know what's the matter with you?" she asked. "You're not crying
because you've flunked. You're crying because you've caught cold, and
you're tired and wet and hungry. You take those wet clothes off this
minute and get into a warm bath-robe, and I'll get you some dinner."

"I don't want any dinner," wailed Olivia, and she showed signs of
turning back to the pillows again.

"Don't act like a baby, Olivia," said Patty, sharply; "sit up and be
a--a man."

Ten minutes later Patty returned from a successful looting expedition,
and deposited her spoils on the bedroom table. Olivia sat on the edge of
the bed and watched her apathetically, a picture of shivering
despondency.

"Drink this," commanded Patty, as she extended a steaming glass.

Olivia obediently raised it to her lips, and drew back. "What's in it?"
she asked faintly.

"Everything I could find that's hot--quinine and whisky and Jamaica
ginger and cough syrup and a dash of red pepper, and--one or two other
things. It's my own idea. You can't take cold after _that_."

"I--I don't believe I want any."

"Drink it--every drop," said Patty, grimly; and Olivia shut her eyes and
gulped it down.

"Now," said Patty, cheerfully bustling about, "I'll get dinner. Have you
a can-opener? And any alcohol, by chance? That's nice. We'll have three
courses,--canned soup, canned baked beans, and preserved ginger,--all of
them hot. It's mighty lucky Georgie Merriles was in New York or she'd
never have lent them to me."

Olivia, to her ow