“Patience, I don’t know what to make of you. I am in despair. You’re not a bad girl. You give me little trouble, and I’ve always said that you had finer impulses than any girl I’ve ever known, and the best brain. You ought to realise better than any girl of your age the difference between right and wrong. And yet you have done what not another girl in the school would do, inferior as they are—” “How do you know, ma’am? I never thought I would. Neither did you think I would. You can’t tell what you’ll do till you do it.” Miss Galpin was distracted. She resumed hurriedly: “I want you to be a good woman, Patience,—a good as well as a clever woman. And how can you be good if you don’t love God?” “Are all people good the same way?” “Well, it all comes to the same thing in the end.” Miss Galpin blessed the evolution of verbiage. “Are all religious people good?” “Certainly.” “These girls are religious, especially the Spanish ones, and they’ve behaved to me like devils. So have their mothers, and some of them go to five o’clock mass.” “Girls are undisciplined, and mothers often have a mistaken sense of duty.” “You are good, and Mr. Foord is good,” pursued the terrible child. “But you’d be just as good if you weren’t religious. It’s born in you, and you’re refined and kind-hearted. Those people are just naturally vulgar, and religion won’t make them any better.” Miss Galpin drew the girl suddenly to her lap and kissed her. “I’m terribly sorry for you, dear,” she said. “I wish I understood you better, and could help you, but I don’t. I never knew any one in the least like you. I worry so about your future. People that are not like other people don’t get along nicely in this world. And you have such impulses! But I love you, Patience, and I’ll always be your friend. Will you remember this?” Patience was undemonstrative, but she kissed Miss Galpin warmly and arranged her bang. “Now, let’s talk about something else,” she said. “Are you going to get up those private theatricals for the night that school closes?” Miss Galpin sighed and gave up the engagement. “Yes,” she said. Then, hesitatingly: “Do you wish to take part?” “No, of course I don’t. I’ll have nothing more to do with those girls than I can help. You can bet your life on that. But I can help drill Rosita. What’s the play?” “I’ll read it to you.” Miss Galpin took a pamphlet from a drawer and read aloud the average amateur concoction. Rosita was to take the part of an indolent girl with the habit of arousing herself unexpectedly. In one act she would have to dash to the front of the stage and dance a parlour breakdown. “I am afraid Rosita cannot act,” said Miss Galpin, in conclusion, “but she is so pretty I couldn’t leave her out.”