race to blush slightly. "I was a trifle embarrassed," she
admitted; "but when I reflected upon how sorry she would have been to
find out how little I knew, and how glad she will be to find out how
much I know, my conscience was appeased."

"Have you been studying?" asked Georgie.

"Studying!" Patty lifted up the corner of her pillow and exhibited a
blue book. "Two days more of this, and I shall be the chief authority in
America on Anglo-Saxon roots."

"How do you manage it?"

"Oh," said Patty, "when the rest-hour begins I lie down and shut my
eyes, and they tiptoe over and look at me, and whisper, 'She's asleep,'
and softly draw the curtains around the bed; and I get out the book and
put in two solid hours of irregular verbs, and am still sleeping when
they come to look at me. They're perfectly astonished at the amount I
sleep. I heard the nurse telling the doctor that she didn't believe I'd
had any sleep for a month. And the worst of it is," she added, "that I
_am_ tired, whether you believe it or not, and I should just love to
stay over here and sleep all day if I weren't so beastly conscientious
about that old grammar."

"Poor Patty!" laughed Georgie. "She will be imposing on herself next, as
well as on the whole college."

Friday morning Patty returned to the world.

"How's Old English?" inquired Priscilla.

"Very well, thank you. It was something of a cram, but I think I know
that grammar by heart, from the preface to the index."

"You're back in all your other work. Do you think it paid?"

"That remains to be seen," laughed Patty.

She knocked on Miss Skelling's door, and, after the first polite
greetings, stated her errand: "I should like, if it is convenient for
you, to take the examination I missed."

"Do you feel able to take it to-day?"

"I feel much better able to take it to-day than I did on Tuesday."

Miss Skelling smiled kindly. "You have done very good work in Old
English this semester, Miss Wyatt, and I should not ask you to take the
examination at all if I thought it would be fair to the rest of the
class."

"Fair to the rest of the class?" Patty looked a trifle blank; she had
not considered this aspect of the question, and a slow red flush crept
over her face. She hesitated a moment, and rose uncertainly. "When it
comes to that, Miss Skelling," she confessed, "I'm afraid it wouldn't be
quite fair to the rest of the class for me to take it."

Miss Skelling did not understand. "But,