They chatted along in a friendly manner on various subjects, and exchanged lay opinions on the college and the clergy.
"It's a funny thing about this place," said Patty, ruminatingly, "that, though we have a different preacher every Sunday, we always have the same sermon."
"The same sermon?" inquired the bishop, somewhat aghast.
"Practically the same," said Patty. "I've heard it for four years, and I think I could almost preach it myself. They all seem to think, you know, that because we come to college we must be monsters of reason, and they urge us to remember that reason and science are not the only things that count in the world—that feeling is, after all, the main factor; and they quote a little poem about the flower being beautiful, I know not why. That wasn't what yours was about?" she asked anxiously.
"Not this time," said the bishop; "I preached an old one."
"It's the best way," said Patty. "We're human beings, if we do come to college. I remember once we had a man from Yale or Harvard or some such place, and he preached an old sermon: he urged us to become more manly. It was very refreshing."
The bishop smiled. "Do you run away from church very often?" he inquired mildly.
"No; I don't have a chance when I room with Priscilla. But obligatory chapel makes you want to run away," she added. "It's not the chapel I object to; it's the obligatoriness."
"But you have a system of—er—cuts," he suggested.
"Three a month," said Patty, sadly. "Evening chapel counts as one, but Sunday morning church as two."