It was ten o'clock, and Patty, having just read her ethics over for the
third time without comprehending it, had announced sleepily, "I shall
have to be good by inspiration; I can't seem to grasp the rule," when a
knock sounded on the door and a maid appeared with the announcement,
"Mrs. Richards wishes to see Miss Wyatt."
"At this hour!" Patty cried in dismay. "It must be something serious.
Think, Priscilla. What have I been doing lately that would outrage the
warden sufficiently to call me up at ten o'clock? You don't suppose I'm
going to be suspended or rusticated or expelled or anything like that,
do you? I _honestly_ can't think of a thing I've done."
"It's a telegram," the maid said sympathetically.
"A telegram?" Patty's face turned pale, and she left the room without a
word.
Priscilla and Georgie sat on the couch and looked at each other with
troubled faces. All ordinary telegrams came directly to the students.
They knew that something serious must have happened to have it sent to
the warden. Georgie got up and walked around the room uncertainly.
"Shall I go away, Pris?" she asked. "I suppose Patty would rather be
alone if anything has happened. But if she's going home and has to pack
her trunk to-night, come and tell me and I will come down and help."
They stood at the door a few moments talking in low tones, and as
Georgie started to turn away, Patty's step suddenly sounded in the
corridor. She came in with a queer smile on her lips, and sat down on
the couch.
"The warden has certainly reduced the matter of scaring people to a
fine art," she said. "I was never more frightened in my life. I thought
that the least that had happened was an earthquake which had engulfed
the entire family."
"What was the matter?" Georgie and Priscilla asked in a breath.
Patty spread out a crumpled telegram on her knee, and the girls read it
over her shoulder:
Robert died of an overdose of chloroform at ten
this morning. Funeral to-morrow.