Chapter XXVII
Mutual Confidences
March came in that winter like the meekest and mildest of lambs, bringing
days that were crisp and golden and tingling, each followed by a frosty pink
twilight which gradually lost itself in an elfland of moonshine.
Over the girls at Patty’s Place was falling the shadow of April examinations.
They were studying hard; even Phil had settled down to text and notebooks with
a doggedness not to be expected of her.
“I’m going to take the Johnson Scholarship in Mathematics,” she announced
calmly. “I could take the one in Greek easily, but I’d rather take the
mathematical one because I want to prove to Jonas that I’m really enormously
clever.”
“Jonas likes you better for your big brown eyes and your crooked smile than
for all the brains you carry under your curls,” said Anne.
“When I was a girl it wasn’t considered lady-like to know anything about
Mathematics,” said Aunt Jamesina. “But times have changed. I don’t know that
it’s all for the better. Can you cook, Phil?”
“No, I never cooked anything in my life except a gingerbread and it was a
failure—flat in the middle and hilly round the edges. You know the kind. But,
Aunty, when I begin in good earnest to learn to cook don’t you think the brains
that enable me to win a mathematical scholarship will also enable me to learn
cooking just as well?”
“Maybe,” said Aunt Jamesina cautiously. “I am not decrying the higher
education of women. My daughter is an M.A. She can cook, too. But I taught her
to cook BEFORE I let a college professor teach her Mathematics.”
In mid-March came a letter from Miss Patty Spofford, saying that she and
Miss Maria had decided to remain abroad for another year.
“So you may have Patty’s Place next winter, too,” she wrote. “Maria and I are
going to run over Egypt. I want to see the Sphinx once before I die.”
“Fancy those two dames ‘running over Egypt’! I wonder if they’ll look up at
the Sphinx and knit,” laughed Priscilla.