Just Patty | Page 5

generosity and openness of spirit. They carried on--well,
really, one might almost call it a praying match."
"Shocking!" cried Miss Lord.
"And little Aurelie Deraismes--they have been drilling the child
in--er--idiomatic English. The phrase that I overheard her repeating,
seemed scarcely the expression that a lady would use."
"What was it?" inquired the Dowager, with a slightly expectant note.
"I'll be gum-swizzled!"
Miss Wadsworth colored a deep pink. It was foreign to her nature even

to repeat so doubtful an expression.
The Dowager's lips twitched. It was a fact, deplored by her assistants,
that her sense of humor frequently ran away with her sense of justice. A
very naughty little girl, if she managed to be funny, might hope to
escape; whereas an equally naughty little girl, who was not funny, paid
the full penalty of her crime. Fortunately, however, the school at large
had not discovered this vulnerable spot in the Dowager's armor.
"Their influence," it was Miss Lord who spoke, "is demoralizing the
school. Mae Van Arsdale says that she will go home if she has to room
any longer with Patty Wyatt. I do not know what the trouble is, but--"
"I know it!" said Mademoiselle. "The whole school laughs. It is
touching the question of a sweetch."
"Of what?" The Dowager cocked her head. Mademoiselle's English
was at times difficult. She mixed her languages impartially.
"A sweetch--some hair--to make pompadour. Last week when they
have tableaux, Patty has borrowed it and has dyed it with blueing to
make a beard for Bluebeard. But being yellow to start, it has become
green, and the color will not wash out. The sweetch is ruin--entirely
ruin--and Patty is desolate. She has apologize. She thought it would
wash, but since it will not wash, she has suggest to Mae that she color
her own hair to match the sweetch, and Mae lose her temper and call
names. Then Patty has pretend to cry, and she put the green hair on
Mae's bed with a wreath of flowers around, and she hang a stocking on
the door for crape, and invite the girls to come to the funeral, and
everybody laugh at Mae."
"It's just as well," said the Dowager, unmoved. "I do not wish to favor
the wearing of false hair."
"It's the principle of the thing," said Miss Lord.
"And that poor Irene McCullough," Mademoiselle continued the tale,
"she dissolves herself in tears. Those three insist that she make herself

thin, and she has no wish to become thin."
"They take away her butter-ball," corroborated Miss Wadsworth,
"before she comes to the table; they make her go without dessert, and
they do not allow her to eat sugar on her oatmeal. They keep her
exercising every moment, and when she complains to me, they punish
her."
"I should think," the Dowager spoke with a touch of sarcasm, "that
Irene were big enough to take care of herself."
"She has three against her," reminded Miss Lord.
"I called Patty to my room," said Miss Wadsworth, "and demanded an
explanation. She told me that Mrs. Trent thought that Irene was too fat,
and wished them to reduce her twenty pounds! Patty said that it was
hard work, they were getting thin themselves, but they realized that
they were seniors and must exert an influence over the school. I really
think she was sincere. She talked very sweetly about moral
responsibility, and the necessity of the older girls setting an example."
"It is her impudence," said Miss Lord, "that is so exasperating."
"That's--just Patty!" the Dowager laughed. "I must confess that I find
all three of them amusing. It's good, healthy mischief and I wish there
were more of it. They don't bribe the maids to mail letters, or smuggle
in candy, or flirt with the soda-water clerk. They at least can be
trusted."
"Trusted!" gasped Miss Lord.
"To break every minor rule with cheerful unconcern," nodded the
Dowager, "but never to do the slightest thing dishonorable. They have
kind hearts and the girls all love them--"
A knock sounded on the door with startling suddenness, and before
anyone could reply, the door burst open and Keren-happuch appeared
on the threshold. She was clutching with one hand the folds of a

brilliant Japanese kimono, the other she reserved for gestures. The
kimono was sprinkled with fire-eating dragons as large as cats; and to
the astonished spectators, Keren's flushed face and disheveled hair
seemed to carry out the decorative scheme. The Dowager's private
study was a sacred spot, reserved for interviews of formality; never had
a pupil presented herself in such unceremonious garb.
"Keren!" cried Miss Wadsworth. "What has happened?"
"I want a new room-mate! I can't stand Priscilla any longer. She's been
having a birthday party in my room--"
"A birthday party?" Mrs. Trent turned