"Olivia knew five times as much geometry as I did, and I got through and she didn't."
Patty examined the carpet in silence.
"She thinks she's going to be dropped, and she's just crying terribly," pursued Emily, with a certain relish in the details.
"Crying!" said Patty, sharply. "What's she crying for?"
"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.