“You’re talking nonsense, Patty, and you know it.  The straight truth is, that you don’t like school life and school restraint.  Now some girls enjoy the fun and pleasures of college life, and think that they more than compensate for the drudgery of actual study.”

“‘An exile from home, pleasure dazzles in vain,’” sang Patty, whose spirits had risen, for she felt intuitively that her father was about to give up his cherished plans.

“I think,” went on Nan, “after you have asked for my valuable advice, you might let me give it without so many interruptions.  I will proceed to remark that I am still of the opinion that there are only two reasons why a girl should go to college:  Because she wants to, or because she needs the diploma in her future career.”

“Since you put it so convincingly, I have no choice but to agree with you,” said her husband, smiling.  “However, if I eliminate the college suggestion, there still remains the boarding-school.  I think that a superior young ladies’ finishing school would add greatly to the advantages of our Patty.”

“It would finish me entirely, papa; your college scheme is bad enough, but a ‘finishing school,’ as you call it, presents to my fancy all sorts of unknown horrors.”

“Of course it does,” cried Nan.  “I will now give you some more of my wise advice.  A finishing school would be of no advantage at all to our Patty.  I believe their principal end and aim is to teach young ladies how to enter a room properly.  Now I have never seen Patty enter a room except in the most correct, decorous, and highly approved fashion.  It does seem foolish then to send the poor child away for a year to practise an art in which she is already proficient.”

“You two are one too many for me,” said Mr. Fairfield, laughing.  “If I had either of you alone, I could soon reduce you to a state of meek obedience; but your combined forces are too much for me, and I may as well surrender at once and completely.”

“No; but seriously, Fred, you must see that it is really so.  Now what Patty needs in the way of education, is the best possible instruction in music, which she can have better here in New York than in any college; then she ought to go on with her French, in which she is already remarkably proficient.  Then perhaps an hour a day of reading well-selected literature with a competent teacher, and I’ll guarantee that a year at home will do more for Patty than any school full of masters.”

Mr. Fairfield looked at his young wife in admiration.  “Why, Nan, I believe you’re right,” he said, “though I don’t believe it because of any change in my own opinions, but because you put it so convincingly that I haven’t an argument left.”

Nan only smiled, and went on.

“You said yourself, Fred, that Patty disliked the routine and restraint of school life, and so I think it would be cruel to force her into it when she can be so much happier at home.  Here she will have ample time for all the study I have mentioned, and still have leisure for the pleasures that she needs and deserves.  I shall look after her singing lessons myself, and make sure that she practises properly.  Then I shall take her to the opera and to concerts, which, though really a part of her musical education, may also afford her some slight pleasure.”