For an instant the bishop's face relaxed, and then he grew grave again. "By a subterfuge?" he asked.
"Y-yes," acknowledged Patty; "I suppose you might call it a subterfuge. I dare say I am pretty bad," she added, "but you have to have a reputation for something in a place like this or you get overlooked. I can't compete in goodness or in athletics or in anything like that, so there's nothing left for me but to surpass in badness—I have quite a gift for it."
The corners of the bishop's mouth twitched. "You don't look like one with a criminal record."
"I'm young yet," said Patty. "It hasn't commenced to show."
"My dear little girl," said the bishop, "I have already preached one sermon to-day, which you didn't come to hear, and I can't undertake to preach another for your benefit,"—Patty looked relieved,—"but there is one question I should like to ask you. In after years, when you are through college and the question is asked of some of your class-mates, 'Did you know—' You have not told me your name."
"Patty Wyatt."
"'Did you know Patty Wyatt, and what sort of a girl was she?' will the answer be what you would wish?"
Patty considered. "Ye-yes; I think, on the whole, they'd stand by me."
"This morning," the bishop continued placidly, "I asked a professor in an entirely casual way about a young woman—a class-mate of your own—who is the daughter of an old friend of mine. The answer was immediate and unhesitating, and you can imagine how much it gratified me. 'There is not a finer girl in college,' he replied. 'She is honest in work and honest in play, and thoroughly conscientious in everything she does.'"
"Um-m," said Patty; "that must have been Priscilla."