"Because she feels bad, I suppose. She'd been out walking, and got caught in the rain, and she didn't get back in time for dinner, and then found those notes waiting for her. She's up there lying on the bed, and she's got hysterics or Roman fever or something like that. She told us to go away and let her alone. She's awfully cross all of a sudden." Patty rose. "I think I'll go and cheer her up." "Let her alone, Patty," said Emily. "I know the way you cheer people up. If you hadn't cheered her up before examinations she wouldn't have flunked." "I didn't know anything about her then," said Patty, a trifle sulkily; "and, anyway," she added as she opened the door, "I didn't say anything that affected her passing, one way or the other." She turned toward Olivia's room, however, with a conscience that was not quite comfortable. She could not remember just what she _had_ told those freshmen about examinations, but she had an uneasy feeling that it might not have been of a reassuring nature. "I wish I could ever learn when it is time for joking and when it is not," she said to herself as she knocked on the study door. No one answered, and she turned the knob and entered. A stifled sob came from one of the bedrooms, and Patty hesitated. She was not in the habit of crying herself, and she always felt uncomfortable when other people did it. Something must be done, however, and she advanced to the threshold and silently regarded Olivia, who was stretched face downward on the bed. At the sound of Patty's step she raised her head and cast a startled glance at the intruder, and then buried her face in the pillows again. Patty scribbled an "engaged" sign and pinned it on the study door, and drawing up a chair beside the bed, she sat down with the air of a physician about to make a diagnosis. "Well, Olivia," she began in a business-like tone, "what is the trouble?" Olivia opened her hands and disclosed some crumpled papers. Patty spread them out and hastily ran her eyes over the official printed slips: Miss _Copeland_ is hereby informed that she has been found deficient in _German_ (_three_ hours). Miss _Copeland_ is hereby informed that she has been found deficient in _Latin prose_ (_one_ hour). Miss _Copeland_ is hereby informed that she has been found deficient in _geometry_ (_four_ hours). Patty performed a rapid calculation,--"three and one are four and four are eight,"--and knit her brows. "Will they send me home, Patty?" "Mercy, no, child; I hope not. A person who's done as good work as you in English ought to have the right to flunk every other blessed thing, if she wants to." "But you're dropped if you flunk eight hours; you told me so yourself." "Don't believe anything I told you," said Patty, reassuringly. "I don't know what I'm talking about more than half the time."