s like. It's a sort of disease. If you
once get fond of it you'll never forget it, and you just can't be happy
till you get back. And with Olivia it's her home, besides. She's never
known anything else. And it's hard at first to keep your mind on
mathematics when you're dreaming all the time of ilex groves and
fountains and nightingales and--and things like that."

She finished lamely, for Miss Prescott suddenly leaned back in the
shadow, and it seemed to Patty that her face had grown pale and the hand
that held the magazine trembled.

Patty flushed uncomfortably and tried to think what she had said. She
was always saying things that hurt people's feelings without meaning to.
Suddenly that old story from her freshman year flashed into her mind. He
had been an artist and had lived in Italy and had died of Roman fever;
and Miss Prescott had gone to Germany to study mathematics, and had
never cared for anything else since. It sounded rather made up, but it
might be true. Had she stumbled on a forbidden subject? she wondered
miserably. She had, of course; it was just her way.

The silence was becoming unbearable; she struggled to think of something
to say, but nothing came, and she rose abruptly.

"I'm sorry to have taken so much of your time, Miss Prescott. I hope I
haven't bored you. Good night."

Miss Prescott rose and took Patty's hand. "Good night, my dear, and
thank you for coming to me. I am glad to know of Olivia Copeland. I will
see what can be done about her geometry, and I shall be glad, besides,
to know her as--as a friend; for I, too, once cared for Italy."

Patty closed the door softly and tiptoed home through the dim corridors.

"Did you bring the matches?" called a sleepy voice from Priscilla's
bedroom.

Patty started. "Oh, the matches!" she laughed. "No; I forgot them."

"I never knew you to accomplish anything yet that you started out to do,
Patty Wyatt."

"I've accomplished something to-night, just the same," Patty retorted,
with a little note of triumph in her voice; "but I haven't an idea how
I happened to do it," she added frankly to herself.

And she went to bed and fell asleep, quite unaware of how much she _had_
accomplished; for unconsciously she had laid the foundation of a
friendship which was to make happy the future of a lonely freshman and
an equally lonely instructor.

XI

"Local Color"

The third senior table had discovered a new amusement with which to
enlighten th