"You'll be late, Patricia," Nell warned, coming up.
"Danny won't let me leave him; and I don't know where his mother is," Patricia almost wailed.
"Mercy, put him down and come on!" Nell advised. "He's a little nuisance."
"You don't know Danny's powers for hanging on," Patricia said; "besides, he did hurt himself."
Five minutes after school had opened Patricia made her appearance.
"Patricia," Miss Carrol said, "I had begun to hope that you were not going to end the week as you began it."
Patricia took her place without answering.
Miss Kirby and Mrs. Cory had gone in town that afternoon, not to return until the late train, and it so happened that the doctor did not come home to supper; so there was no one but Sarah to notice the depths into which Patricia was plunged. For Patricia never did anything by halves.
"Is yo' sick, honey?" Sarah asked anxiously, when Patricia refused a second piece of chocolate cake.
Patricia shook her head. "I'm just disgusted with life."