<h2>II</h2>
<h3>An Early Fright</h3>
<div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/iquot.png" width-obs="173" height-obs="150" alt="I" title="I" /></div>
<div class='unindent'><br/><br/>'LL make the tea to-day," said Patty, graciously.</div>
<p>"As you please," said Priscilla, with a skeptical shrug.</p>
<p>Patty bustled about amid a rattle of china. "The cups are rather dusty,"
she observed dubiously.</p>
<p>"You'd better wash them," Priscilla returned.</p>
<p>"No," said Patty; "it's too much trouble. Just close the blinds, please,
and we'll light the candles, and that will do as well. Come in," she
called in answer to a knock.</p>
<p>Georgie Merriles, Lucille Carter, and the Bartlet Twin appeared in the
doorway.</p>
<p>"Did I hear the two P's were going to serve tea this afternoon?"
inquired the Twin.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Yes; come in. I'm going to make it myself," answered Patty, "and you'll
see how much more attentive a hostess I am than Priscilla. Here, Twin,"
she added, "you take the kettle out and fill it with water; and,
Lucille, please go and borrow some alcohol from the freshmen at the end
of the corridor; our bottle's empty. I'd do it myself, only I've
borrowed such a lot lately, and they don't know you, you see. And—oh,
Georgie, you're an obliging dear; just run down-stairs to the store and
get some sugar. I think I saw some money in that silver inkstand on
Priscilla's desk."</p>
<p>"We've got some sugar," objected Priscilla. "I bought a whole pound
yesterday."</p>
<p>"No, my lamb; we haven't got it any more. I lent it to Bonnie Connaught
last night. Just hunt around for the spoons," she added. "I think I saw
them on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, behind Kipling."</p>
<p>"And what, may I ask, are <i>you</i> going to do?" inquired Priscilla.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"I?" said Patty. "Oh, I am going to sit in the arm-chair and preside."</p>
<p>Ten minutes later, the company being disposed about the room on
cushions, and the party well under way, it was discovered that there
were no lemons.</p>
<p>"Are you sure?" asked Patty, anxiously.</p>
<p>"Not one," said Priscilla, peering into the stein where the lemons were
kept.</p>
<p>"I," said Georgie, "refuse to go to the store again."</p>
<p>"No matter," said Patty, graciously; "we can do very well without them."
(She did not take lemon herself.) "The object of tea is not for the sake
of the tea, but for the conversation which accompanies it, and one must
not let accidents annoy him. You see, young ladies," she went on, in the
tone of an instructor giving a lecture, "though I have just spilled the
alcohol over the sugar, I appear not to notice it, but keep up an easy
flow of conversation to divert my guests. A repose of manner is above
all things to be cultivated." Patty leaned languidly back in her chair.
"To-morrow<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></SPAN></span> is Founder's Day," she resumed in a conversational tone. "I
wonder if many—"</p>
<p>"That reminds me," interrupted the Twin. "You girls needn't save any
dances for my brother. I got a letter from him this morning saying he
couldn't come."</p>
<p>"He hasn't broken anything, has he?" Patty asked sympathetically.</p>
<p>"Broken anything?"</p>
<p>"Ah—an arm, or a leg, or a neck. Accidents are so prevalent about
Founder's time."</p>
<p>"No; he was called out of town on important business."</p>
<p>"Important business!" Patty laughed. "Dear man! why couldn't he have
thought of something new?"</p>
<p>"I think myself it was just an excuse," the Twin acknowledged. "He
seemed to have an idea that he would be the only man here, and that,
alone and unaided, he would have to dance with all six hundred girls."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Patty shook her head sadly. "They're all alike. Founder's wouldn't be
Founder's if half the guests didn't develop serious illness or important
business or dead relations the last minute. The only safe way is to
invite three men and make out one program."</p>
<p>"I simply can't realize that to-morrow is Founder's," said Priscilla.
"It doesn't seem a week since we unpacked our trunks after vacation, and
before we know it we shall be packing them again for Christmas."</p>
<p>"Yes; and before we know it we'll be unpacking them again, with
examinations three weeks ahead," said Georgie the pessimist.</p>
<p>"Oh, for the matter of that," returned Patty the optimist, "before we
know it we'll be walking up one side of the platform for our diplomas
and coming down the other side blooming alumnæ."</p>
<p>"And then," sighed Georgie, "before we even have time to decide on a
career, we'll be old ladies, telling our grandchildren<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></SPAN></span> to stand up
straight and remember their rubbers."</p>
<p>"And," said Priscilla, "before any of us get any tea we'll be in our
graves, if you don't stop talking and watch that kettle."</p>
<p>"It's boiling," said Patty.</p>
<p>"Yes," said Priscilla; "it's been boiling for ten minutes."</p>
<p>"It's hot," said Patty.</p>
<p>"I should think it might be," said Priscilla.</p>
<p>"And now the problem is, how to get it off without burning one's self."</p>
<p>"You're presiding to-day; you must solve your own problems."</p>
<p>"'Tis an easy matter," and Patty hooked it off on the end of a
golf-club. "Young ladies," she said, with a wave of the kettle, "there
is nothing like a college education to teach you a way out of every
difficulty. If, when you are out in the wide, wide world—"</p>
<div class='center'>
"Where, oh, where are the grave old seniors?"<br/></div>
<div class='unindent'>chanted the Twin.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></SPAN></span></div>
<div class='center'>"Where, oh, where are they?"<br/></div>
<div class='unindent'>The rest took it up, and Patty waited patiently.</div>
<div class='center'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics">
<tr><td align='left'>"They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics,</td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics,</span></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">They've gone out of Cairnsley's ethics,</span></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Into the wide, wide w-o-r-l-d."</span></td></tr>
</table></div>
<p>"If you have finished your ovation, young ladies, I will proceed with my
lecture. When, as I say, you are out in the wide, wide world, making
five-o'clock tea some afternoon for one of the young men popularly
supposed to be there, who have dropped in to make an afternoon call—Do
you follow me, young ladies, or do I speak too fast? If, while you are
engaged in conversation, the kettle should become too hot, do not put
your finger in your mouth and shriek 'Ouch!' and coquettishly say to the
young man, '<i>You</i> take it off,' as might a young woman who has not
enjoyed your advantages; but, rather, rise to the emergency; say to him
calmly, 'This kettle has become over-heated;<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></SPAN></span> may I trouble you to go
into the hall and bring an umbrella?' and when he returns you can hook
it off gracefully and expeditiously as you have seen me do, young
ladies, and the young—"</p>
<p>"Patty, take care!" This from Priscilla.</p>
<p>"O-u-c-h!" in a long-drawn wail. This from Georgie.</p>
<p>Patty hastily set the kettle down on the floor. "I'm awfully sorry,
Georgie. Does it hurt?"</p>
<p>"Not in the least. It's really a pleasant sensation to have boiling
water poured over you."</p>
<p>The Bartlet Twin sniffed. "I smell burning rug."</p>
<p>Patty groaned. "I resign, Pris; I resign. Here, you preside. I'll never
ask to make it again."</p>
<p>"I should like," observed the Twin, "to see Patty entertaining a young
man."</p>
<p>"It's not such an unprecedented event," said Patty, with some warmth.
"You can watch me to-morrow night if it will give you so much
pleasure."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"To-morrow night? Are you going to have a man for the Prom?"</p>
<p>"That," said Patty, "is my intention."</p>
<p>"And you haven't asked me for a dance!" This in an aggrieved chorus from
the entire room.</p>
<p>"I haven't asked any one," said Patty, with dignity.</p>
<p>"Do you mean you're going to have all of the twenty dances with him
yourself?"</p>
<p>"Oh, no; I don't expect to dance more than ten with him myself—I
haven't made out his card yet," she added.</p>
<p>"Why not?"</p>
<p>"I never do."</p>
<p>"Has he been here before, then?"</p>
<p>"No; that's the reason."</p>
<p>"The reason for what?"</p>
<p>"Well," Patty deigned to explain, "I've invited him for every party
since freshman year."</p>
<p>"And did he decline?"</p>
<p>"No; he accepted, but he never came."</p>
<p>"Why not?"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"He was scared."</p>
<p>"Scared? Of the girls?"</p>
<p>"Yes," said Patty, "partly—but mostly of the faculty."</p>
<p>"The <i>faculty</i> wouldn't hurt him."</p>
<p>"Of course not; but he couldn't understand that. You see, he had a
fright when he was young."</p>
<p>"A fright? What was it?"</p>
<p>"Well," said Patty, "it happened this way: It was while I was at
boarding-school. He was at Andover then, and his home was in the South;
and one time when he went through Washington he stopped off to call on
me. As it happened, the butler had left two days before, and had taken
with him all the knives and forks, and all the money he could find, and
Nancy Lee's gold watch and two hat-pins, and my silver hair-brush, and a
bottle of brandy, and a pie," she enumerated with a conscientious regard
for details; "and Mrs. Trent—that's the principal—had advertised for a
new butler."</p>
<p>"I should have thought the old one<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></SPAN></span> would have discouraged her from
keeping butlers," said Georgie.</p>
<p>"You <i>would</i> think so," said Patty; "but she was a very persevering
woman. On the day that Raoul—that's his name—came to call, nineteen
people had applied for the place, and Mrs. Trent was worn out from
interviewing them. So she told Miss Sarah—that's her daughter—to
attend to those who came in the evening. Miss Sarah was tall and wore
spectacles, and was—was—"</p>
<p>"A good disciplinarian," suggested the Twin.</p>
<p>"Yes," said Patty, feelingly, "an <i>awfully</i> good disciplinarian. Well,
when Raoul got there he gave his card to Ellen and asked for me; but
Ellen didn't understand, and she called Miss Sarah, and when Miss Sarah
saw him in his evening clothes she—"</p>
<p>"Took him for a butler," put in Georgie.</p>
<p>"Yes, she took him for a butler; and she looked at the card he'd given
Ellen, and said icily, 'What does this mean?'<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"'It's—it's my name,' he stammered.</p>
<p>"'I see,' said Miss Sarah; 'but where is your recommendation?'</p>
<p>"'I didn't know it was necessary,' he said, terribly scared.</p>
<p>"'Of course it's necessary,' Miss Sarah returned. 'I can't allow you to
come into the house unless I have letters from the places where you've
been before.'</p>
<p>"'I didn't suppose you were so strict,' he said.</p>
<p>"'We have to be strict,' Miss Sarah answered firmly. 'Have you had much
experience?'</p>
<p>"He didn't know what she meant, but he thought it would be safest to say
he hadn't.</p>
<p>"'Then of course you won't do,' she replied. 'How old are you?'</p>
<p>"He was so frightened by this time that he couldn't remember.
'Nineteen,' he gasped—'I mean twenty.'</p>
<p>"Miss Sarah saw his confusion, and thought he had designs on some of
the<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></SPAN></span> heiresses intrusted to her care. 'I don't see how you <i>dared</i> to
come here,' she said severely. 'I should not think of having you in the
house for a moment. You're altogether too young and too good-looking.'
And with that Raoul got up and bolted.</p>
<p>"When Ellen told Miss Sarah the next day that he'd asked for me, she was
terribly mortified, and she made me write and explain, and invite him to
dinner; but wild horses couldn't have dragged him into the house again.
He's been afraid to stop off in Washington ever since. He always goes
straight through on a sleeper, and says he has nightmares even then."</p>
<p>"And is that why he won't come to the college?"</p>
<p>"Yes," said Patty; "that's the reason. I told him we didn't have any
butlers here; but he said we had lady faculty, and that's as bad."</p>
<p>"But I thought you said he <i>was</i> coming to the Prom."</p>
<p>"He is this time."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Are you sure?"</p>
<p>"Yes," said Patty, with ominous emphasis, "I'm sure. He knows," she
added, "what will happen if he doesn't."</p>
<p>"What will happen?" asked the Twin.</p>
<p>"Nothing."</p>
<p>The Twin shook her head, and Georgie inquired, "Then why don't you make
out his program?"</p>
<p>"I suppose I might as well. I didn't do it before because it sort of
seemed like tempting Providence. I didn't want to be the cause of any
really <i>serious</i> accident happening to him," she explained a trifle
ambiguously as she got out pencil and paper. "What dances can you give
me, Lucille? And you, Georgie, have you got the third taken?"</p>
<p>While this business was being settled, a knock unheeded had sounded on
the door. It came again.</p>
<p>"What's that?" asked Priscilla. "Did some one knock? Come in."</p>
<p>The door opened, and a maid stood upon the threshold with a yellow
envelope in her hand. She peered uncertainly<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></SPAN></span> around the darkened room
from one face to another. "Miss Patty Wyatt?" she asked.</p>
<p>Patty stretched out her hand in silence for the envelop, and, propping
it up on her desk, looked at it with a grim smile.</p>
<p>"What is it, Patty? Aren't you going to read it?"</p>
<p>"There's no need. I know what it says."</p>
<p>"Then I'll read it," said Priscilla, ripping it open.</p>
<p>"Is it a leg or an arm?" Patty inquired with mild curiosity.</p>
<p>"Neither," said Priscilla; "it's a collar-bone."</p>
<p>"Oh," murmured Patty.</p>
<p>"What is it?" demanded Georgie the curious. "Read it out loud."</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<div class='right'>
"<span class="smcap">New Haven</span>, November 29.<br/></div>
<p>"Broke collar-bone playing foot-ball. Honest
Injun. Terribly sorry. Better luck next time."</p>
<div class='right'>
"<span class="smcap">Raoul.</span>"<br/></div>
</div>
<p>"There will not," observed Patty, "<i>be</i> a next time."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></SPAN></span><br/><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</SPAN></span><br/><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</SPAN></span><br/><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</SPAN></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
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