"I'm sorry to have taken so much of your time, Miss Prescott. I hope I haven't bored you. Good night."
Miss Prescott rose and took Patty's hand. "Good night, my dear, and thank you for coming to me. I am glad to know of Olivia Copeland. I will see what can be done about her geometry, and I shall be glad, besides, to know her as—as a friend; for I, too, once cared for Italy."
Patty closed the door softly and tiptoed home through the dim corridors.
"Did you bring the matches?" called a sleepy voice from Priscilla's bedroom.
Patty started. "Oh, the matches!" she laughed. "No; I forgot them."
"I never knew you to accomplish anything yet that you started out to do, Patty Wyatt."
"I've accomplished something to-night, just the same," Patty retorted, with a little note of triumph in her voice; "but I haven't an idea how I happened to do it," she added frankly to herself.
And she went to bed and fell asleep, quite unaware of how much she had accomplished; for unconsciously she had laid the foundation of a friendship which was to make happy the future of a lonely freshman and an equally lonely instructor.