matters worse; so the girls consoled Patty as
best they could, but it was a long time before she could get over it.
Perhaps on the whole the occurrence made Vera a little less nasty to
Patty. She was a proud, but not altogether an ungenerous girl, and she
was genuinely sorry to have thus thrown blame on undeserving shoulders.
But for Muriel's influence she would have been almost ready to follow
the example of Kitty and Maud, and if not to make friends, at least to
treat with tolerance a companion who was so particularly inoffensive,
and so willing to meet an apology halfway.

The war which Patty waged in her bedroom still went on as before. Every
night one of her companions would relight the gas, in spite of all
entreaties. Sometimes Patty would get up and turn it out, greatly to the
wrath of the others, who would retaliate next day by hiding her brush
and comb, or dropping her cake of soap into her water jug. It was a most
unpleasant state of affairs, and seemed likely to continue indefinitely,
when an incident fortunately happened which led to a truce.

One November afternoon, when the girls were returning from hockey,
Patty, in strolling through the shrubbery, noticed that the gardener,
who had probably been unstopping one of the gutters, had left his ladder
leaning against a wall, thus giving access to the flat roof of the
lecture hall. Patty at home had sometimes been called a tomboy, and she
could not resist climbing up to see what the world looked like from the
top. She had reached the leads, and was on the point of stepping over a
large spout, when she heard the sound of laughter on the roof, and
stopped to listen. Someone was evidently already there, and, recognizing
the voices of Doris, May, and Ella, she decided not to follow them. An
idea had suddenly occurred to her, and acting upon it at once she
descended to the ground, then, very gently removing the ladder, she laid
it at the foot of the wall. The gardener's wheelbarrow, full of dead
leaves, stood conveniently near, under the shelter of a large
rhododendron, so she sat down on it, and waited for what she knew was
bound to happen. I believe there was a little mischief in her eyes, for
Patty liked a joke as well as anybody, and she thought the occasion
offered considerable opportunities for fun. She had not to wait long. In
a few minutes her three room mates, who had explored the roof as far as
they dared to venture, returned to the spot where they had lef