im," replied Patience with
grim satisfaction.

"You don't mean it! I never dreamed you could be his daughter," gasped
Kathleen, regarding her tall roommate with positive awe. Then she said,
almost humbly: "Say what you like to me. I'll listen to it, no matter
how much it hurts."

"But I don't wish to hurt you," remonstrated Patience, "nor to preach. I
do wish you to know, however, that I am quite familiar with the inside
workings of a newspaper. I have haunted Father's office since I was a
little girl. I was bitterly resentful of being packed off to a
preparatory school when I yearned to be a reporter. Father didn't resign
his editorship of a Boston paper until last year. He overworked and has
been very ill since then. That is the reason I was not here when college
opened. I waited until I was sure he was really convalescent. Had my
affairs shaped themselves differently, you would not now be obliged to
endure me as a roommate."

Kathleen continued to survey Patience with wondering eyes. It was simply
incredible that this brusque, matter-of-fact young woman whom she had
held in secret contempt should be the daughter of a man whose name was
known and honored throughout the newspaper world. Sheer astonishment
tied her tongue.

"I would have told you in the beginning," continued Patience, "but I did
not wish to travel on my father's passport. When I saw what an
unfavorable impression I had made on you I was tempted to tell you. It
would at least have given me a certain prestige in your eyes. Then I
decided never to tell you. But to-day it seemed the only way. None of
the girls know it. Miss Sheldon and Miss Wilder know. They are personal
friends of Father's."

"If I had only known when first you came to Wayne Hall," was Kathleen's
regretful cry.

"But I didn't wish you to know," returned Patience. "I wished you to
like me for myself, and you wouldn't. You thought me pedantic and
narrow-minded, and set me down as a typical New England woman of the
grim, uncompromising type, who boasts of her Puritan ancestry, and goes
through life ungracious and forbidding. I don't believe I am pedantic or
narrow-minded or small-souled, but I have plenty of other faults, as
you'll learn before the year is over. I meant what I said about your
standing in your own light. You'll have to learn the difference between
college and newspaper standards, too."

Kathleen's face reddened. She understood all that the sharp criticism
implied. "I