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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Prudence Says So, by Ethel Hueston,
+Illustrated by Arthur William Brown
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Prudence Says So
+
+
+Author: Ethel Hueston
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 28, 2007  [eBook #21635]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRUDENCE SAYS SO***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
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+
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+
+
+
+
+
+PRUDENCE SAYS SO
+
+by
+
+ETHEL HUESTON
+
+
+Author of
+Prudence of the Parsonage
+
+With Illustrations by Arthur William Brown
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Come on. Let's beat it]
+
+
+
+New York
+Grosset & Dunlap
+Publishers
+
+Copyright 1916
+The Bobbs-Merrill Company
+
+
+
+
+                 _To_
+          MY LITTLE DAUGHTER
+              ELIZABETH
+           MY COMRADE AND MY
+             INSPIRATION
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       CHAPTER                                    PAGE
+
+          I THE CHAPERON                             1
+
+         II SCIENCE AND HEALTH                      19
+
+        III A GIFT FROM HEAVEN                      39
+
+         IV HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING           58
+
+          V THE SERENADE                            80
+
+         VI SUBSTITUTION                            95
+
+        VII MAKING MATCHES                         114
+
+       VIII LARK'S LITERARY VENTURE                130
+
+         IX A CLEAR CALL                           154
+
+          X JERRY JUNIOR                           179
+
+         XI THE END OF FAIRY                       193
+
+        XII SOWING SEEDS                           209
+
+       XIII THE CONNIE PROBLEM                     222
+
+        XIV BOOSTING CONNIE                        238
+
+         XV A MILLIONAIRE'S SON                    252
+
+        XVI THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL              277
+
+       XVII THE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T PROPOSE          297
+
+
+
+
+PRUDENCE SAYS SO
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE CHAPERON
+
+
+"Girls,--come down! Quick!--I want to see how you look!"
+
+Prudence stood at the foot of the stairs, deftly drawing on her black
+silk gloves,--gloves still good in Prudence's eyes, though Fairy had
+long since discarded them as unfit for service. There was open anxiety
+in Prudence's expression, and puckers of worry perpendicularly creased
+her white forehead.
+
+"Girls!" she called again. "Come down! Father, you'd better hurry,--it's
+nearly train time. Girls, are you deaf!"
+
+Her insistence finally brought response. A door opened in the hallway
+above, and Connie started down the stairs, fully dressed, except that
+she limped along in one stocking-foot, her shoe in her hand.
+
+"It's so silly of you to get all dressed before you put on your shoes,
+Connie," Prudence reproved her as she came down. "It wrinkles you up so.
+But you do look nice. Wasn't it dear of the Ladies' Aid to give you that
+dress for your birthday? It's so dainty and sweet,--and goodness knows
+you needed one. They probably noticed that. Let me fix your bow a
+little. Do be careful, dear, and don't get mussed before we come back.
+Aunt Grace will be so much gladder to live with us if we all look sweet
+and clean. And you'll be good, won't you, Connie, and--Twins, will you
+come!"
+
+"They are sewing up the holes in each other's stockings," Connie
+vouchsafed. "They're all dressed."
+
+The twins, evidently realizing that Prudence's patience was near the
+breaking point, started down-stairs for approval, a curious procession.
+All dressed as Connie had said, and most charming, but they walked close
+together, Carol stepping gingerly on one foot and Lark stooping low,
+carrying a needle with great solicitude,--the thread reaching from the
+needle to a small hole on Carol's instep.
+
+"What on earth are you doing?"
+
+"I'm sewing up the holes in Carol's stocking," Lark explained. "If you
+had waited a minute I would have finished--Hold still, Carol,--don't
+walk so jerky or you'll break the thread. There were five holes in her
+left stocking, Prudence, and I'm--"
+
+Prudence frowned disapprovingly. "It's a very bad habit to sew up holes
+in your stockings when you are wearing them. If you had darned them all
+yesterday as I told you, you'd have had plenty of--Mercy, Lark, you
+have too much powder on!"
+
+"I know it,--Carol did it. She said she wanted me to be of an
+intellectual pallor." Lark mopped her face with one hand.
+
+"You'd better not mention to papa that we powdered to-day," Carol
+suggested. "He's upset. It's very hard for a man to be reasonable when
+he's upset, you know."
+
+"You look nice, twins." Prudence advanced a step, her eyes on Carol's
+hair, sniffing suspiciously. "Carol, did you curl your hair?"
+
+Carol blushed. "Well, just a little," she confessed. "I thought Aunt
+Grace would appreciate me more with a crown of frizzy ringlets."
+
+"You'll spoil your hair if you don't leave it alone, and it will serve
+you right, too. It's very pretty as it is naturally,--plenty curly
+enough and--Oh, Fairy, I know Aunt Grace will love you," she cried
+ecstatically. "You look like a dream, you--"
+
+"Yes,--a nightmare," said Carol snippily. "If I saw Fairy coming at me
+on a dark night I'd--"
+
+"Papa, we'll miss the train!" Then as he came slowly down the stairs,
+she said to her sisters again, anxiously: "Oh, girls, do keep nice and
+clean, won't you? And be very sweet to Aunt Grace! It's so--awfully good
+of her--to come--and take care of us,--" Prudence's voice broke a
+little. The admission of another to the parsonage mothering hurt her.
+
+Mr. Starr stopped on the bottom step, and with one foot as a pivot,
+slowly revolved for his daughters' inspection.
+
+"How do I look?" he demanded. "Do you think this suit will convince
+Grace that I am worth taking care of? Do I look twenty-five dollars
+better than I did yesterday?"
+
+The girls gazed at him with most adoring and exclamatory approval.
+
+"Father! You look perfectly grand!--Isn't it beautiful?--Of course, you
+looked nicer than anybody else even in the old suit, but--it--well, it
+was--"
+
+"Perfectly disgracefully shabby," put in Fairy quickly. "Entirely
+unworthy a minister of your--er--lovely family!"
+
+"I hope none of you have let it out among the members how long I wore
+that old suit. I don't believe I could face my congregation on Sundays
+if I thought they were mentally calculating the wearing value of my
+various garments.--We'll have to go, Prudence.--You all look very
+fine--a credit to the parsonage--and I am sure Aunt Grace will think us
+well worth living with."
+
+"And don't muss the house up," begged Prudence, as her father opened the
+door and pushed her gently out on the step.
+
+The four sisters left behind looked at one another solemnly. It was a
+serious business,--most serious. Connie gravely put on her shoe, and
+buttoned it. Lark sewed up the last hole in Carol's stocking,--Carol
+balancing herself on one foot with nice precision for the purpose. Then,
+all ready, they looked at one another again,--even more solemnly.
+
+"Well," said Fairy, "let's go in--and wait."
+
+Silently the others followed her in, and they all sat about,
+irreproachably, on the well-dusted chairs, their hands folded
+Methodistically in their smooth and spotless laps.
+
+The silence, and the solemnity, were very oppressive.
+
+"We look all right," said Carol belligerently.
+
+No one answered.
+
+"I'm sure Aunt Grace is as sweet as anybody could be," she added
+presently.
+
+Dreary silence!
+
+"Don't we love her better than anybody on earth,--except ourselves?"
+
+Then, when the silence continued, her courage waned. "Oh, girls," she
+whimpered, "isn't it awful? It's the beginning of the end of everything.
+Outsiders have to come in now to take care of us, and Prudence'll get
+married, and then Fairy will, and maybe us twins,--I mean, we twins. And
+then there'll only be father and Connie left, and Miss Greet, or some
+one, will get ahead of father after all,--and Connie'll have to live
+with a step-mother, and--it'll never seem like home any more, and--"
+
+Connie burst into loud and mournful wails.
+
+"You're very silly, Carol," Fairy said sternly. "Very silly, indeed. I
+don't see much chance of any of us getting married very soon. And
+Prudence will be here nearly a year yet. And--Aunt Grace is as sweet and
+dear a woman as ever lived--mother's own sister--and she loves us dearly
+and--"
+
+"Yes," agreed Lark, "but it's not like having Prudence at the head of
+things."
+
+"Prudence will be at the head of things for nearly a year, and--I think
+we're mighty lucky to get Aunt Grace. It's not many women would be
+willing to leave a fine stylish home, with a hundred dollars to spend on
+just herself, and with a maid to wait on her, and come to an ugly old
+house like this to take care of a preacher and a riotous family like
+ours. It's very generous of Aunt Grace--very."
+
+"Yes, it is," admitted Lark. "And as long as she was our aunt with her
+fine home, and her hundred dollars a month, and her maid, I loved her
+dearly. But--I don't want anybody coming in to manage us. We can manage
+ourselves. We--"
+
+"We need a chaperon," put in Fairy deftly. "She isn't going to do the
+housework, or the managing, or anything. She's just our chaperon. It
+isn't proper for us to live without one, you know. We're too young. It
+isn't--conventional."
+
+"And for goodness' sake, Connie," said Carol, "remember and call her our
+chaperon, and don't talk about a housekeeper. There's some style to a
+chaperon."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Fairy cheerfully. "And she wears such pretty
+clothes, and has such pretty manners that she will be a distinct
+acquisition to the parsonage. We can put on lots more style, of course.
+And then it was awfully nice of her to send so much of her good
+furniture,--the piano, for instance, to take the place of that old tin
+pan of ours."
+
+Carol smiled a little. "If she had written, 'Dear John: I can't by any
+means live in a house with furniture like that of yours, so you'll have
+to let me bring some of my own,'--wouldn't we have been furious? That
+was what she meant all right, but she put it very neatly."
+
+"Yes. 'I love some of my things so dearly,'" Lark quoted promptly, "'and
+have lived with them so long that I am too selfish to part with them.
+May I bring a few pieces along?' Yes, it was pretty cute of her."
+
+"And do remember, girls, that you mustn't ask her to darn your
+stockings, and wash your handkerchiefs, and do your tasks about the
+house. It would be disgraceful. And be careful not to hint for things
+you want, for, of course, Aunt Grace will trot off and buy them for you
+and papa will not like it. You twins'll have to be very careful to quit
+dreaming about silk stockings, for instance." There was a tinge of
+sarcasm in Fairy's voice as she said this.
+
+"Fairy, we did dream about silk stockings--you don't need to believe it
+if you don't want to. But we did dream about them just the same!" Carol
+sighed. "I think I could be more reconciled to Aunt Grace if I thought
+she'd give me a pair of silk stockings. You know, Fairy, sometimes
+lately I almost--don't like Aunt Grace--any more."
+
+"That's very foolish and very wicked," declared Fairy. "I love her
+dearly. I'm so glad she's come to live with us."
+
+"Are you?" asked Connie innocently. "Then why did you go up in the attic
+and cry all morning when Prudence was fixing the room for her?"
+
+Fairy blushed, and caught her under lip between her teeth for a minute.
+And then, in a changed voice she said, "I--I do love her, and--I am
+glad--but I keep thinking ahead to when Prudence gets married,
+and--and--oh, girls, Prudence was all settled in the parsonage when I
+was born, and she's been here ever since, and--when she is gone it--it
+won't be any home to me at all!"
+
+Her voice rose on the last words in a way most pitifully suggestive of
+tears.
+
+For a moment there was a stricken silence.
+
+"Oh, pooh!" Carol said at last, bravely. "You wouldn't want Prue to
+stick around and be an old maid, would you? I think she's mighty lucky
+to get a fellow as nice as Jerry Harmer myself. I'll bet you don't make
+out half as well, Fairy. I think she'd be awfully silly not to gobble
+him right up while she has a chance. For my own part, I don't believe
+in old maids. I think it is a religious duty for folks to get married,
+and--and--you know what I mean,--race suicide, you know." She nodded her
+head sagely, winking one eye in a most intelligent fashion.
+
+"And Aunt Grace is so quiet she'll not be any bother at all," added
+Lark. "Don't you remember how she always sits around and smiles at us,
+and never says anything. She won't scold a bit.--Maybe Carol and I will
+get a chance to spend some of our spending money when she takes charge.
+Prudence confiscates it all for punishment. I think it's going to be
+lots of fun having Aunt Grace with us."
+
+"I'm going to take my dime and buy her something," Connie announced
+suddenly.
+
+The twins whirled on her sharply. "Your dime!" echoed Carol.
+
+"I didn't know you had a dime," said Lark.
+
+Connie flushed a little. "Yes,--Oh, yes,--" she said, "I've got a dime.
+I--I hid it. I've got a dime all right."
+
+"It's nearly time," said Fairy restlessly. "Number Nine has been on
+time for two mornings now,--so she'll probably be here in time for
+dinner. It's only ten o'clock now."
+
+"You mean luncheon," suggested Carol.
+
+"Yes, luncheon, to be sure, fair sister."
+
+"Where'd you get that dime, Connie?"
+
+"Oh, I've had it some time," Connie admitted reluctantly.
+
+"When I asked you to lend me a dime you said--"
+
+"You asked me if I had a dime I could lend you and I said, No, and I
+didn't, for I didn't have this dime to lend."
+
+"But where have you had it?" inquired Lark. "I thought you acted
+suspicious some way, so I went around and looked for myself."
+
+"Where did you look?"
+
+The twins laughed gleefully. "Oh, on top of the windows and doors," said
+Carol.
+
+"How did you know--" began Connie.
+
+"You aren't slick enough for us, Connie. We knew you had some funny
+place to hide your money, so I gave you that penny and then I went
+up-stairs very noisily so you could hear me, and Lark sneaked around
+and watched, and saw where you put it. We've been able to keep pretty
+good track of your finances lately."
+
+The twins laughed again.
+
+"But I looked on the top ledge of all the windows and doors just
+yesterday," admitted Lark, "and there was nothing there. Did you put
+that dime in the bank?"
+
+"Oh, never mind," said Connie. "I don't need to tell you. You twins are
+too slick for me, you know."
+
+The twins looked slightly fussed, especially when Fairy laughed with a
+merry, "Good for you, Connie."
+
+Carol rose and looked at herself in the glass. "I'm going up-stairs,"
+she said.
+
+"What for?" inquired Lark, rising also.
+
+"I need a little more powder. My nose is shiny."
+
+So the twins went up-stairs, and Fairy, after calling out to them to be
+very careful and not get disheveled, went out into the yard and wandered
+dolefully about by herself.
+
+Connie meantime decided to get her well-hidden dime and figure out what
+ten cents could buy for her fastidious and wealthy aunt. Connie was in
+many ways unique. Her system of money-hiding was born of nothing less
+than genius, prompted by necessity, for the twins were clever as well as
+grasping. She did not know they had discovered her plan of banking on
+the top ledge of the windows and doors, but having dealt with them long
+and bitterly, she knew that in money matters she must give them the
+benefit of all her ingenuity. For the last and precious dime, she had
+discovered a brand-new hiding-place.
+
+The cook stove sat in the darkest and most remote corner of the kitchen,
+and where the chimney fitted into the wall, it was protected by a small
+zinc plate. This zinc plate protruded barely an inch, but that inch was
+quite sufficient for coins the size of Connie's, and there, high and
+secure in the shadowy corner, lay Connie's dime. Now that she had
+decided to spend it, she wanted it before her eyes,--for ten cents in
+sight buys much more than ten cents in memory. She went into the kitchen
+cautiously, careful of her white canvas shoes, and put a chair beside
+the stove. She had discovered that the dishpan turned upside down on the
+chair, gave her sufficient height to reach her novel banking place.
+The preparation was soon accomplished, and neatly, for Connie was an
+orderly child, and loved cleanliness even on occasions less demanding
+than this.
+
+But alas for Connie's calculations!--Carol was born for higher things
+than dish washing, and she had splashed soap-suds on the table. The pan
+had been set among them--and then, neatly wiped on the inside, it had
+been hung up behind the table,--with the suds on the bottom. And it was
+upon this same dishpan that Connie climbed so carefully in search of her
+darling dime.
+
+The result was certain. As she slowly and breathlessly raised herself on
+tiptoe, steadying herself with the tips of her fingers lightly touching
+the stove-pipe, her foot moved treacherously into the soapy area, and
+slipped. Connie screamed, caught desperately at the pipe, and fell to
+the floor in a sickening jumble of stove-pipe, dishpan and soot beyond
+her wildest fancies! Her cries brought her sisters flying, and the sight
+of the blackened kitchen, and the unfortunate child in the midst of
+disaster, banished from their minds all memory of the coming chaperon,
+of Prudence's warning words:--Connie was in trouble. With sisterly
+affection they rescued her, and did not hear the ringing of the bell.
+They brushed her, they shook her, they kissed her, they all but wept
+over her. And when Prudence and her father, with Aunt Grace in tow,
+despaired of gaining entrance at the hands of the girls, came in
+unannounced, it was a sorry scene that greeted them. Fairy and the twins
+were only less sooty than Connie and the kitchen. The stove-pipe lay
+about them with that insufferable insolence known only to fallen
+stove-pipe. And Connie wept loudly, her tears making hideous trails upon
+her blackened face.
+
+"I might have known it," Prudence thought, with sorrow. But her motherly
+pride vanished before her motherly solicitude, and Connie was soon
+quieted by her tender ministrations.
+
+[Illustration: We love you, but we can't kiss you]
+
+"We love you, Aunt Grace," cried Carol earnestly, "but we can't kiss
+you."
+
+Mr. Starr anxiously scanned the surface of the kitchen table with an eye
+to future spots on the new suit, and then sat down on the edge of it
+and laughed as only a man of young heart and old experience can laugh!
+
+"Disgraced again," he said. "Prudence said we made a mistake in not
+taking you all to the station where we could watch you every minute.
+Grace, think well before you take the plunge. Do you dare cast in your
+fortunes with a parsonage bunch that revels in misfortune? Can you take
+the responsibility of rearing a family that knows trouble only? This is
+your last chance. Weigh well your words."
+
+The twins squirmed uncomfortably. True, she was their aunt, and knew
+many things about them. But they did think it was almost bad form for
+their father to emphasize their failings in the presence of any one
+outside the family.
+
+Fairy pursed up her lips, puffing vainly at the soot that had settled
+upon her face. Then she laughed. "Very true, Aunt Grace," she said. "We
+admit that we're a luckless family. But we're expecting, with you to
+help us, to do much better. You see, we've never had half a chance so
+far, with only father behind us."
+
+The twins revived at this, and joined in the laughter their father led
+against himself.
+
+Later in the day Prudence drew her aunt to one side and asked softly,
+"Was it much of a shock to you, Aunt Grace? The family drowned in soot
+to welcome you? I'm sure you expected to find everything trim and fresh
+and orderly. Was it a bitter disappointment?"
+
+Aunt Grace smiled brightly. "Why, no, Prudence," she said in her slow
+even voice. "I really expected something to be wrong! I'd have been
+disappointed if everything had gone just right!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SCIENCE AND HEALTH
+
+
+After all, the advent of a chaperon made surprisingly little difference
+in the life of the parsonage family, but what change there was, was all
+to the good. Their aunt assumed no active directorate over household
+matters. She just slipped in, happily, unobtrusively, helpfully. She was
+a gentle woman, smiling much, saying little. Indeed, her untalkativeness
+soon became a matter of great merriment among the lively girls.
+
+"A splendid deaf and dumb person was lost to the world in you, Aunt
+Grace," Carol assured her warmly. "I never saw a woman who could say so
+much in smiles, and be so expressive without words."
+
+Fairy said, "She carries on a prolonged discussion, and argues and
+orates, without saying a word."
+
+The members of the Ladies' Aid, who hastened to call, said, "She is
+perfectly charming--such a fine conversationalist!"
+
+She was always attractively dressed, always self-possessed, always
+friendly, always good-natured, and the girls found her presence only
+pleasing. She relieved Prudence, admired Fairy, laughed at the twins,
+adored Connie. Between her and Mr. Starr there was a frank camaraderie,
+charming, but seldom found between brothers- and sisters-in-law.
+
+"Of course, Aunt Grace," Prudence told her sweetly, "we aren't going to
+be selfish with you. We don't expect you to bury yourself in the
+parsonage. Whenever you want to trip away for a while, you must feel
+free to go. We don't intend to monopolize you, however much we want to
+do so. Whenever you want to go, you must go."
+
+"I shan't want to go," said Aunt Grace quickly.
+
+"Not right away, of course," Prudence agreed. "But you'll find our
+liveliness tiring. Whenever you do want to go--"
+
+"I don't think I shall want to go at all," she answered. "I like it
+here. I--I like liveliness."
+
+Then Prudence kissed her gratefully.
+
+For several weeks after her initiation in the parsonage, life rolled
+along sweetly and serenely. There were only the minor, unavoidable
+mishaps and disciplinary measures common to the life of any family. Of
+course, there were frequent, stirring verbal skirmishes between Fairy
+and the twins, and between the twins and Connie. But these did not
+disturb their aunt. She leaned back in her chair, or among the cushions,
+listening gravely, but with eyes that always smiled.
+
+Then came a curious lull.
+
+For ten entire and successive days the twins had lived blameless lives.
+Their voices rang out gladly and sweetly. They treated Connie with a
+sisterly tenderness and gentleness quite out of accord with their usual
+drastic discipline. They obeyed the word of Prudence with a cheerful
+readiness that was startlingly cherubimic. The most distasteful of
+orders called forth nothing stronger than a bright, "Yes, Prudence."
+They no longer developed dangerous symptoms of physical disablement at
+times of unpleasant duties. Their devotion to the cause of health was
+beautiful. Not an ache disturbed them. Not a pain suggested a
+substitute.
+
+Prudence watched them with painful solicitude. Her years of mothering
+had given her an almost supernatural intuition as to causes, and
+effects.
+
+On Wednesday morning, Mr. Starr bade his family good-by and set out on a
+tour of Epworth League conventions. He was to be away from home until
+the end of the following week. A prospective Presbyterian theologian had
+been selected from the college to fill his pulpit on the Sabbath, and
+the girls, with their aunt, faced an unusually long period of running
+the parsonage to suit themselves.
+
+At ten o'clock the train carried their father off in the direction of
+Burlington, and at eleven o'clock the twins returned to the parsonage.
+They had given him a daughterly send-off at the station, and then gone
+to the library for books. Prudence, Fairy and Aunt Grace sat sewing on
+the side porch as they cut across the parsonage lawn, their feet
+crinkling pleasantly through the drift of autumn leaves the wind had
+piled beneath the trees.
+
+"We're out of potatoes, twins," said Prudence, as they drew near.
+"You'll have to dig some before dinner."
+
+For one instant their complacent features clouded. Prudence looked up
+expectantly, sure of a break in their serene placidity.
+
+One doubtful second, then--
+
+"Certainly, Prudence," said Carol brightly.
+
+And Lark added genially, "We'd better fill the box, I guess--so we'll
+have enough for the rest of the week."
+
+And singing a light but unharmonic snatch of song, the twins went in
+search of basket and hoe.
+
+The twins were not musical. They only sang from principle, to emphasize
+their light-heartedness when it needed special impressing.
+
+Prudence's brows knitted in anxious frowns, and she sighed a few times.
+
+"What is the matter, Prue? You look like a rainy Christmas," said Fairy.
+
+"It's the twins," was the mournful answer.
+
+"The twins!" ejaculated Fairy. "Why, they've acted like angels lately."
+
+Even Aunt Grace lifted mildly inquiring eyebrows.
+
+"That's it!--That's just it. When the twins act like angels I get
+uneasy right away. The better they act, the more suspicious I feel."
+
+"What have they been doing?"
+
+"Nothing! Not a thing! That's why I'm worried. It must be something
+terrible!"
+
+Fairy laughed and returned to her embroidery. Aunt Grace smiled and
+began plying her needles once more. But Prudence still looked troubled,
+and sighed often.
+
+There was no apparent ground for her alarm. The twins came back with the
+potatoes, peeled some for luncheon, and set the table, their faces still
+bright and smiling. Prudence's eyes, often fastened upon their angelic
+countenances, grew more and more troubled.
+
+In the afternoon, they joined the little circle on the porch, but not to
+sew. They took a book, and lay down on a rug with the book before them,
+reading together. Evidently they were all absorbed. An hour passed, two
+hours, three. At times Carol pointed to a line, and said in a low voice,
+"That's good, isn't it?" And Lark would answer, "Dandy!--Have you read
+this?"
+
+Prudence, in spite of her devotion to the embroidering of large S's on
+assorted pieces of linen, never forgot the twins for a moment.
+
+"What are you reading?" she asked at last aimlessly, her only desire to
+be reassured by the sound of their voices.
+
+There was an almost imperceptible pause. Then Carol answered,--her chin
+was in her palms which may have accounted for the mumbling of the words.
+
+"_Scianceanelth._"
+
+"What?"
+
+Another pause, a little more perceptible this time. "_Science and
+Health_," Carol said at last, quite distinctly.
+
+"_Science and Health_," Prudence repeated, in a puzzled tone. "Is it a
+doctor book?"
+
+"Why--something of the sort,--yes," said Carol dubiously.
+
+"_Science and Health_? _Science and Health_," mused Fairy. "You don't
+mean that Christian Science book, do you? You know what I mean,
+Prudence--Mary Baker Eddy's book--_Science and Health_,--that's the name
+of it. That's not what you twins are devouring so ravenously, is it?"
+
+Carol answered with manifest reluctance, glancing nervously at
+Prudence, "Y-yes,--that's what it is."
+
+Ominous silence greeted this admission. A slow red flush mantled the
+twins' cheeks. Aunt Grace's eyes twinkled a little, although her face
+was grave. Fairy looked surprised. Prudence looked dumfounded. When she
+spoke, her words gave no sign of the cataclysmic struggle through which
+she had passed.
+
+"What are you reading that for?"
+
+"Why--it's very interesting," explained Lark, coming to Carol's rescue.
+Carol was very good at meeting investigation, but when it came to
+prolonged explanation, Lark stood preeminent. "Of course, we don't
+believe it--yet. But there are some good things in it. Part of it is
+very beautiful. We don't just understand it,--it's very deep. But some
+of the ideas are very fine, and--er--uplifting, you know."
+
+Prudence looked most miserable. "But--twins, do you think--minister's
+daughters ought to read--things like that?"
+
+"Why, Prudence, I think minister's daughters ought to be well-informed
+on every subject," declared Lark conscientiously. "How can we be an
+influence if we don't know anything about things?--And I tell you what
+it is, Prue, I don't think it's right for all of us church people to
+stand back and knock Christian Science when we don't know anything about
+it. It's narrow-minded, that's what it is. It's downright un-Christian.
+When you get into the book you will find it just full of fine inspiring
+thoughts--something like the Bible,--only--er--and very good, you know."
+
+Prudence looked at Fairy and her aunt in helpless dismay. This was
+something entirely new in her experience of rearing a family.
+
+"I--I don't think you ought to read it," she said slowly. "But at the
+same time--"
+
+"Of course, if you command us not to read it, we won't," said Carol
+generously.
+
+"Yes. We've already learned quite a lot about it," amended Lark, with
+something of warning in her tone.
+
+"What do you think about it, Aunt Grace?"
+
+"Why,--I don't know, Prudence. You know more about rearing twins than I
+do."
+
+Prudence at that moment felt that she knew very little about it,
+indeed. She turned to Fairy. There was a strange intentness in Fairy's
+fine eyes as she studied the twins on the floor at her feet.
+
+"You aren't thinking of turning Christian Scientists, yourselves, are
+you?" asked Prudence rather humbly.
+
+"Oh, of course, we aren't Scientists, Prudence," was the quick denial.
+"We don't know anything about it yet, really. But there are lots of very
+helpful things in it, and--people talk about it so much, and--they have
+made such wonderful cures, you know, and--we'd thought we'd just study
+up a little."
+
+"You take the book and read it yourself, Prue," urged Carol hospitably.
+"You'll see what we mean."
+
+Prudence drew back quickly as though the book would sear her fingers.
+She looked very forlorn. She realized that it would be bad policy to
+forbid the twins to read it. On the other hand, she realized equally
+strongly that it was certainly unwise to allow its doctrines to take
+root in the minds of parsonage daughters. If only her father were at
+home,--ten days between herself and the lifting of responsibility!
+
+"When father comes home--" she began. And then suddenly Fairy spoke.
+
+"I think the twins are right," she said emphatically, and the twins
+looked at her with a surprised anxiety that mated Prudence's own. "It
+would be very narrow-minded of us to refuse to look into a subject as
+important as this. Let them go on and study it; we can decide things
+later."
+
+Prudence looked very doubtful, but a warning movement of Fairy's left
+eyelash--the side removed from the twins--comforted her.
+
+"Well--" she said.
+
+"Of course, Prudence, we know it would nearly break father's heart for
+us to go back on our own church,--but don't you think if folks become
+truly convinced that Christian Science is the true and good religion,
+they ought to stand by it and suffer,--just like the martyrs of old?"
+suggested Lark,--and the suggestion brought the doubt-clouds thick about
+Prudence's head once more.
+
+"We may not be convinced, of course," added Carol, "but there is
+something rather--assuring--about it."
+
+"Oh, twins," Prudence cried earnestly, but stopped as she caught again
+the slight suggestive movement of Fairy's left eyelash.
+
+"Well, let it go for this afternoon," she said, her eyes intent on
+Fairy's face. "I must think it over."
+
+The twins, with apparent relish, returned to their perusal of the book.
+
+Fairy rose almost immediately and went into the house, coming back a
+moment later with her hat and gloves.
+
+"I'm going for a stroll, Prue," she said. "I'll be back in time for
+supper."
+
+Prudence gazed yearningly after her departing back. She felt a great
+need of help in this crisis, and Fairy's nonchalance was sometimes very
+soothing. Aunt Grace was a darling, of course, but she had long ago
+disclaimed all responsibility for the rearing of the twins.
+
+It was two hours later when Fairy came back. Prudence was alone on the
+porch.
+
+"Where are the twins?" asked Fairy softly.
+
+"Up-stairs," was the whispered reply. "Well?"
+
+Then Fairy spoke more loudly, confident that the twins, in their
+up-stairs room, could hear every word she said. "Come up-stairs, Prue. I
+want to talk this over with you alone." And then she whispered, "Now,
+you just take your cue from me, and do as I say. The little sinners!
+We'll teach them to be so funny!"
+
+In their own room she carefully closed the door and smiled, as she noted
+a creaking of the closet door on the twins' side of the wall.
+Eavesdropping was not included among the cardinal sins in the twins'
+private decalogue, when the conversation concerned themselves.
+
+"Now, Prudence," Fairy began, speaking with an appearance of softness,
+though she took great pains to turn her face toward the twins' room, and
+enunciated very clearly indeed. "I know this will hurt you, as it does
+me, but we've got to face it fairly. If the twins are convinced that
+Christian Science is the right kind of religion, we can't stand in their
+way. It might turn them from all religion and make them infidels or
+atheists, or something worse. Any religion is better than none. I've
+been reading up a little myself this afternoon, and there are some good
+points in Christian Science. Of course, for our sakes and father's, the
+twins will be generous and deny that they are Scientists. But at heart,
+they are. I saw it this afternoon. And you and I, Prudence, must stand
+together and back them up. They'll have to leave the Methodist church.
+It may break our hearts, and father's, too, but we can't wrong our
+little sisters just for our personal pride and pleasure in them. I think
+we'll have them go before the official board next Sunday while father is
+gone--then he will be spared the pain of it. I'll speak to Mr. Lauren
+about it to-morrow. We must make it as easy for them as we can. They'll
+probably dismiss them--I don't suppose they'll give them letters. But it
+must be all over before papa comes back."
+
+Then she hissed in Prudence's ear, "Now cry."
+
+Prudence obediently began sniffing and gulping, and Fairy rushed to her
+and threw her arms about her, sobbing in heart-broken accents, "There,
+there, Prue, I know--I felt just the same about it. But we can't stand
+between the twins and what they think is right. We daren't have that on
+our consciences."
+
+The two wept together, encouraged by the death-like stillness in the
+closet on the other side of the wall.
+
+Then Fairy said, more calmly, though still sobbing occasionally, "For
+our sakes, they'll try to deny it. But we can't let the little darlings
+sacrifice themselves. They've got to have a chance to try their new
+belief. We'll just be firm and insist that they stand on their rights.
+We won't mention it to them for a day or two--we'll fix it up with the
+official board first. And we must surely get it over by Sunday. Poor old
+father--and how he loves--" Fairy indulged in a clever and especially
+artistic bit of weeping. Then she regained control of her feelings by an
+audible effort. "But it has its good points, Prue. Haven't you noticed
+how sweet and sunny and dear the twins have been lately? It was Science
+and Health working in them. Oh, Prudence dear, don't cry so."
+
+Prudence caught her cue again and began weeping afresh. They soothed and
+caressed and comforted each other for a while, and then went down-stairs
+to finish getting supper.
+
+In the meantime, the shocked and horrified twins in the closet of their
+own room, were clutching each other with passionate intensity. Little
+nervous chills set them aquiver, their hands were cold, their faces
+throbbing hot. When their sisters had gone down-stairs, they stared at
+each other in agony.
+
+"They--they wo-won't p-p-put us out of the ch-ch-church," gasped Carol.
+
+"They will," stammered Lark. "You know what Prudence is! She'd put the
+whole church out if she thought it would do us any good."
+
+"Pa-p-pa'll--papa'll--" began Carol, her teeth chattering.
+
+"They'll do it before he gets back." Then with sudden reproach she
+cried, "Oh, Carol, I told you it was wicked to joke about religion."
+
+This unexpected reproach on the part of her twin brought Carol back to
+earth. "Christian Science isn't religion," she declared. "It's not even
+good sense, as far's I can make out. I didn't read a word of it, did
+you?--I--I just thought it would be such a good joke on Prudence--with
+father out of town."
+
+The good joke was anything but funny now.
+
+"They can't make us be Scientists if we don't want to," protested Lark.
+"They can't. Why, I wouldn't be anything but a Methodist for anything
+on earth. I'd die first."
+
+"You can't die if you're a Scientist--anyhow, you oughtn't to. Millie
+Mains told me--"
+
+"It's a punishment on us for even looking at the book--good Methodists
+like we are. I'll burn it. That's what I'll do."
+
+"You'll have to pay for it at the library if you do," cautioned frugal
+Carol.
+
+"Well, we'll just go and tell Prudence it was a joke,--Prudence is
+always reasonable. She won't--"
+
+"She'll punish us, and--it'll be such a joke on us, Larkie. Even
+Connie'll laugh."
+
+They squirmed together, wretchedly, at that.
+
+"We'll tell them we have decided it is false."
+
+"They said we'd probably do that for their sakes."
+
+"It--it was a good joke while it lasted," said Carol, with a very faint
+shadow of a smile. "Don't you remember how Prudence gasped? She kept her
+mouth open for five minutes!"
+
+"It's still a joke," added Lark gloomily, "but it's on us."
+
+"They can't put us out of the church!"
+
+"I don't know. You know we Methodists are pretty set! Like as not
+they'll say we'd be a bad influence among the members."
+
+"Twins!"
+
+The call outside their door sounded like the trump of doom to the
+conscience-smitten twins, and they clutched each other, startled, crying
+out. Then, sheepishly, they stepped out of the closet to find Fairy
+regarding them quizzically from the doorway. She repressed a smile with
+difficulty, as she said quietly:
+
+"I was just talking to Mrs. Mains over the phone. She's going to a
+Christian Science lecture to-night, and she said she wished I wasn't a
+minister's daughter and she'd ask me to go along. I told her I didn't
+care to, but said you twins would enjoy it. She'll be here in the car
+for you at seven forty-five."
+
+"I won't go," cried Carol. "I won't go near their old church."
+
+"You won't go." Fairy was astonished. "Why--I told her you would be glad
+to go."
+
+"I won't," repeated Carol, with nervous passion. "I will not. You can't
+make me."
+
+Lark shook her head in corroborative denial.
+
+"Well, that's queer." Fairy frowned, then she smiled.
+
+Suddenly, to the tempest-tossed and troubled twins, the tall splendid
+Fairy seemed a haven of refuge. Her eyes were very kind. Her smile was
+sweet. And with a cry of relief, and shame, and fear, the twins plunged
+upon her and told their little tale.
+
+"You punish us this time, Fairy," begged Carol. "We--we don't want the
+rest of the family to know. We'll take any kind of punishment, but keep
+it dark, won't you? Prudence will soon forget, she's so awfully full of
+Jerry these days."
+
+"I'll talk it over with Prudence," said Fairy. "But--I think we'll have
+to tell the family."
+
+Lark moved her feet restlessly. "Well, you needn't tell Connie," she
+said. "Having the laugh come back on us is the very meanest kind of a
+punishment."
+
+Fairy looked at them a moment, wondering if, indeed, their punishment
+had been sufficient.
+
+"Well, little twins," she said, "I guess I will take charge of this
+myself. Here is your punishment." She stood up again, and looked down
+at them with sparkling eyes as they gazed at her expectantly.
+
+"We caught on that it was a joke. We knew you were listening in the
+closet. And Prudence and I acted our little parts to give you one good
+scare. Who's the laugh on now? Are we square? Supper's ready." And Fairy
+ran down-stairs, laughing, followed by two entirely abashed and humbled
+twins.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A GIFT FROM HEAVEN
+
+
+The first of April in the Mount Mark parsonage was a time of trial and
+tribulation, frequently to the extent of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
+The twins were no respecters of persons, and feeling that the first of
+April rendered all things justifiable to all men, they made life as
+burdensome to their father as to Connie, and Fairy and Prudence lived in
+a state of perpetual anguish until the twins fell asleep at night well
+satisfied but worn out with the day's activities. The twins were
+bordering closely to the first stage of grown-up womanhood, but on the
+first of April they swore they would always be young! The tricks were
+more dignified, more carefully planned and scientifically executed than
+in the days of their rollicking girlhood,--but they were all the more
+heart-breaking on that account.
+
+The week before the first was spent by Connie in a vain effort to ferret
+out their plans in order that fore-knowledge might suggest a sufficient
+safe-guard. The twins, however, were too clever to permit this, and
+their bloody schemes were wrapped in mystery and buried in secrecy. On
+the thirty-first of March, Connie labored like a plumber would if
+working by the job. She painstakingly hid from sight all her cherished
+possessions. The twins were in the barn, presumably deep in plots. Aunt
+Grace was at the Ladies' Aid. So when Fairy came in, about four in the
+afternoon, there was only Prudence to note the vengeful glitter in her
+fine clear eyes. And Prudence was so intent upon feather-stitching the
+hems of pink-checked dish towels, that she did not observe it.
+
+"Where's papa?" Fairy asked.
+
+"Up-stairs."
+
+"Where are the twins?"
+
+"In the barn, getting ready for THE DAY."
+
+Fairy smiled delightfully and skipped eagerly up the stairs. She was
+closeted with her father for some time, and came out of his room at last
+with a small coin carefully concealed in the corner of her
+handkerchief. She did not remove her hat, but set briskly out toward
+town again.
+
+Prudence, startled out of her feather-stitching, followed her to the
+door. "Why, Fairy," she called. "Are you going out again?"
+
+Fairy threw out her hands. "So it seems. An errand for papa." She lifted
+her brows and pursed up her lips, and the wicked joy in her face pierced
+the mantle of Prudence's absorption again.
+
+"What's up?" she questioned curiously, following her sister down the
+steps.
+
+Fairy looked about hurriedly, and then whispered a few words of
+explanation. Prudence's look changed to one of unnaturally spiteful
+glee.
+
+"Good! Fine! Serves 'em right! You'd better hurry."
+
+"Tell Aunt Grace, will you? But don't let Connie in until morning. She'd
+give it away."
+
+At supper-time Fairy returned, and the twins, their eyes bright with the
+unholy light of mischief, never looked at her. They sometimes looked
+heavenward with a sublime contentment that drove Connie nearly frantic.
+Occasionally they uttered cryptic words about the morrow,--and the
+older members of the family smiled pleasantly, but Connie shuddered.
+She remembered so many April Fool's Days.
+
+The family usually clung together on occasions of this kind, feeling
+there was safety and sympathy in numbers--as so many cowards have felt
+for lo, these many years. And thus it happened that they were all in the
+dining-room when their father appeared at the door. He had his hands
+behind him suggestively.
+
+"Twins," he said, without preamble, "what do you want more than anything
+else?"
+
+"Silk stockings," was the prompt and unanimous answer.
+
+He laughed. "Good guess, wasn't it?" And tossed into their eager hands
+two slender boxes, nicely wrapped. The others gathered about them with
+smiling eyes as the twins tremulously tore off the wrappings.
+
+"A. Phoole's Pure Silk Thread Hose,--Guaranteed!" This they read from
+the box--neat golden lettering. It was enough for the twins. With cries
+of perfect bliss they flung themselves upon their father, kissing him
+rapturously wherever their lips might touch.
+
+"Oh, papa!" "Oh, you darling!" And then, when they had some sort of
+control of their joy, Lark said solemnly, "Papa, it is a gift from
+Heaven!"
+
+"Of course, we give you the credit, papa," Carol amended quickly, "but
+the thought was Heaven-prompted."
+
+Fairy choked suddenly, and her fit of coughing interfered with the
+twins' gratitude to an all-suggesting Providence!
+
+Carol twisted her box nervously. "You know, papa, it may seem very
+childish, and--silly to you, but--actually--we have--well, prayed for
+silk stockings. We didn't honestly expect to get them, though--not until
+we saved up money enough to get them ourselves. Heaven is kinder to us
+than we--"
+
+"You can't understand such things, papa," said Lark. "Maybe you don't
+know exactly how--how they feel. When we go to Betty Hill's we wear her
+silk stockings and lie on the bed--and--she won't let us walk in them,
+for fear we may wear holes. Every girl in our class has at least one
+pair,--Betty has three, but one pair's holey, and--we felt so awfully
+poor!"
+
+The smiles on the family faces were rather stereotyped by this
+time, but the exulting twins did not notice. Lark looked at Carol
+fondly. Carol sighed at Lark blissfully. Then, with one accord,
+they lifted the covers from the boxes and drew out the shimmering
+hose. Yes,--shimmering--but--they shook them out for inspection!
+Their faces paled a little.
+
+"They--they are very--" began Carol courageously. Then she stopped.
+
+The hose were a fine tissue-paper imitation of silk stockings! The
+"April Fool, little twins," on the toes was not necessary for their
+enlightenment. They looked at their father with sad but unresentful
+reproach in their swiftly shadowed eyes.
+
+"It--it's a good joke," stammered Carol, moistening her dry lips with
+her tongue.
+
+"It's--one on us," blurted Lark promptly.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Carol, slowly, dryly, very dully.
+
+"Yes--ha, ha, ha," echoed Lark, placing the bitter fruit carefully back
+in its box. Her fingers actually trembled.
+
+"It's a--swell joke, all right," Carol said, "we see that well
+enough,--we're not stupid, you know. But we did want some silk stockings
+so--awfully bad. But it's funny, ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"A gift from Heaven!" muttered Lark, with clenched teeth. "Well, you got
+us that time."
+
+"Come on, Lark, we must put them sacredly away--Silk stockings, you
+know, are mighty scarce in a parsonage,--"
+
+"Yes, ha, ha, ha," and the crushed and broken twins left the room, with
+dignity in spite of the blow.
+
+The family did not enjoy the joke on the twins.
+
+Mr. Starr looked at the others with all a man's confused incomprehension
+of a woman's notions! He spread out his hands--an orthodox, ministerial
+gesture!
+
+"Now, will some one kindly tell me what there is in silk stockings,
+to--" He shook his head helplessly. "Silk stockings! A gift from
+Heaven!" He smiled, unmerrily. "The poor little kids!" Then he left the
+room.
+
+Aunt Grace openly wiped her eyes, smiling at herself as she did so.
+
+Fairy opened and closed her lips several times. Then she spoke. "Say,
+Prue, knock me down and sit on me, will you? Whatever made me think of
+such a stupid trick as that?"
+
+"Why, bless their little hearts," whispered Prudence, sniffing. "Didn't
+they look sorry? But they were so determined to be game."
+
+"Prudence, give me my eight cents," demanded Connie. "I want it right
+away."
+
+"What do you want it for?"
+
+"I'm going down to Morrow's and get some candy. I never saw a meaner
+trick in my life! I'm surprised at papa. The twins only play jokes for
+fun." And Connie stalked grimly out of the parsonage and off toward
+town.
+
+A more abashed and downcast pair of twins probably never lived. They sat
+thoughtfully in their room, "A. Phoole's Silk Thread Hose" carefully
+hidden from their hurt eyes.
+
+"It was a good joke," Lark said, now and then.
+
+"Yes, very," assented Carol. "But silk stockings, Larkie!"
+
+And Lark squirmed wretchedly. "A gift from Heaven," she mourned. "How
+they must be laughing!"
+
+But they did not laugh.
+
+Connie came back and shared her candy. They thanked her courteously and
+invited her to sit down. Then they all ate candy and grieved together
+silently. They did not speak of the morning's disaster, but the twins
+understood and appreciated the tender sympathy of her attitude, and
+although they said nothing, they looked at her very kindly and Connie
+was well content.
+
+The morning passed drearily. The twins had lost all relish for their
+well-planned tricks, and the others, down-stairs, found the usually wild
+and hilarious day almost unbearably poky. Prudence's voice was gentle as
+she called them down to dinner, and the twins, determined not to show
+the white feather, went down at once and took their places. They bore
+their trouble bravely, but their eyes had the surprised and stricken
+look, and their faces were nearly old. Mr. Starr cut the blessing short,
+and the dinner was eaten in silence. The twins tried to start the
+conversation. They talked of the weather with passionate devotion. They
+discussed their studies with an almost unbelievable enthusiasm. They
+even referred, with stiff smiles, to "papa's good joke," and then
+laughed their dreary "ha, ha, ha," until their father wanted to fall
+upon his knees and beg forgiveness.
+
+Connie, still solicitous, helped them wash the dishes. The others
+disappeared. Fairy got her hat and went out without a word. Their father
+followed scarcely a block behind her. Aunt Grace sought all over the
+house for Prudence, and finally found her in the attic, comforting
+herself with a view of the lovely linens which filled her Hope Box.
+
+"I'm going for a walk," announced Aunt Grace briefly.
+
+"All right," assented Prudence. "If I'm not here when you get back,
+don't worry. I'm going for a walk myself."
+
+Their work done irreproachably, the twins and Connie went to the haymow
+and lay on the hay, still silent. The twins, buoyant though they were,
+could not so quickly recover from a shock like this. So intent were they
+upon the shadows among the cobwebs that they heard no sound from below
+until their father's head appeared at the top of the ladder.
+
+"Come up," they invited hospitably but seriously.
+
+He did so at once, and stood before them, his face rather flushed, his
+manner a little constrained, but looking rather satisfied with himself
+on the whole.
+
+"Twins," he said, "I didn't know you were so crazy about silk stockings.
+We just thought it would be a good joke--but it was a little too good.
+It was a boomerang. I don't know when I've felt so contemptible. So I
+went down and got you some real silk stockings--a dollar and a half a
+pair,--and I'm glad to clear my conscience so easily."
+
+The twins blushed. "It--it was a good joke, papa," Carol assured him
+shyly. "It was a dandy. But--all the girls at school have silk stockings
+for best, and--we've been wanting them--forever. And--honestly, father,
+I don't know when I've had such a--such a spell of indigestion as when I
+saw those stockings were April Fool."
+
+"Indigestion," scoffed Connie, restored to normal by her father's
+handsome amends.
+
+"Yes, indigestion," declared Lark. "You know, papa, that funny, hollow,
+hungry feeling--when you get a shock. That's nervous indigestion,--we
+read it in a medicine ad. They've got pills for it. But it was a good
+joke. We saw that right at the start."
+
+"And we didn't expect anything like this. It--is very generous of you,
+papa. Very!"
+
+But he noticed that they made no move to unwrap the box. It still lay
+between them on the hay, where he had tossed it. Evidently their
+confidence in him had been severely shattered.
+
+He sat down and unwrapped it himself. "They are guaranteed," he
+explained, passing out the little pink slips gravely, "so when they wear
+holes you get another pair for nothing." The twins' faces had brightened
+wonderfully. "I will never play that kind of a trick again, twins, so
+you needn't be suspicious of me. And say! Whenever you want anything so
+badly it makes you feel like that, come and talk it over. We'll manage
+some way. Of course, we're always a little hard up, but we can generally
+scrape up something extra from somewhere. And we will. You mustn't--feel
+like that--about things. Just tell me about it. Girls are so--kind of
+funny, you know."
+
+The twins and Connie rushed to the house to try the "feel" of the first,
+adored silk stockings. They donned them, admired them, petted Connie,
+idolized their father, and then removing them, tied them carefully in
+clean white tissue-paper and deposited them in the safest corner of the
+bottom drawer of their dresser. Then they lay back on the bed, thinking
+happily of the next class party! Silk stockings! Ah!
+
+"Can't you just imagine how we'll look in our new white dresses, Lark,
+and our patent leather pumps,--with silk stockings! I really feel there
+is nothing sets off a good complexion as well as real silk stockings!"
+
+They were interrupted in this delightful occupation by the entrance of
+Fairy. The twins had quickly realized that the suggestion for their
+humiliating had come from her, and their hearts were sore, but being
+good losers--at least, as good losers as real live folks can be--they
+wouldn't have admitted it for the world.
+
+"Come on in, Fairy," said Lark cordially. "Aren't we lazy to-day?"
+
+"Twins," said Fairy, self-conscious for the first time in the twins'
+knowledge of her, "I suppose you know it was I who suggested that
+idiotic little stocking stunt. It was awfully hateful of me, and so I
+bought you some real silk stockings with my own spending money, and here
+they are, and you needn't thank me for I never could be fond of myself
+again until I squared things with you."
+
+The twins had to admit that it was really splendid of Fairy, and they
+thanked her with unfeigned zeal.
+
+"But papa already got us a pair, and so you can take these back and get
+your money again. It was just as sweet of you, Fairy, and we thank you,
+and it was perfectly dear and darling, but we have papa's now, and--"
+
+"Good for papa!" Fairy cried, and burst out laughing at the joke that
+proved so expensive for the perpetrators. "But you shall have my burnt
+offering, too. It serves us both right, but especially me, for it was my
+idea."
+
+And Fairy walked away feeling very gratified and generous.
+
+Only girls who have wanted silk stockings for a "whole lifetime" can
+realize the blissful state of the parsonage twins. They lay on the bed
+planning the most impossible but magnificent things they would do to
+show their gratitude, and when Aunt Grace stopped at their door they
+leaped up to overwhelm her with caresses just because of their gladness.
+
+She waved them away with a laugh. "April Fool, twins," she said, with a
+voice so soft that it took all the sting from the words. "I brought you
+some real silk stockings for a change." And she tossed them a package
+and started out of the room to escape their thanks. But she stopped in
+surprise when the girls burst into merry laughter.
+
+"Oh, you silk stockings!" Carol cried. "Three pairs! You darling sweet
+old auntie! You would come up here to tease us, would you? But papa gave
+us a pair, and Fairy gave us a pair, and--"
+
+"They did! Why, the silly things!" And the gentle woman looked as
+seriously vexed as she ever did look--she had so wanted to give them
+the first silk-stocking experience herself.
+
+"Oh, here you are," cried Prudence, stepping quickly in, and speaking
+very brightly to counterbalance the gloom she had expected to encounter.
+She started back in some dismay when she saw the twins rolling and
+rocking with laughter, and Aunt Grace leaning against the dresser for
+support, with Connie on the floor, quite speechless.
+
+"Good for you, twins,--that's the way to take hard knocks," she said.
+"It wasn't a very nice trick, though of course papa didn't understand
+how you felt about silk stockings. It wasn't his fault. But Fairy and I
+ought to be ashamed, and we are. I went out and got you some real
+genuine silk ones myself, so you needn't pray for them any more."
+
+Prudence was shocked, a little hurt, at the outburst that followed her
+words.
+
+"Well, such a family!" Aunt Grace exclaimed. And then Carol pulled her
+bodily down beside her on the bed and for a time they were all incapable
+of explanations.
+
+"What is the joke?" Prudence asked, again and again, smiling,--but
+still feeling a little pique. She had counted on gladdening their sorry
+little hearts!
+
+"Stockings, stockings--Oh, such a family!" shrieked Carol.
+
+"There's no playing jokes on the twins," said Aunt Grace weakly. "It
+takes the whole family to square up. It's too expensive."
+
+Then Lark explained, and Prudence sat down and joined the merriment,
+which waxed so noisy that Mr. Starr from the library and Fairy from the
+kitchen, ran in to investigate.
+
+"April Fool, April Fool," cried Carol, "We never played a trick like
+this, Larkie--this is our masterpiece."
+
+"You're the nicest old things that ever lived," said Lark, still
+laughing, but with great warmth and tenderness in her eyes and her
+voice. "But you can take the stockings back and save your money if you
+like--we love you just as much."
+
+But this the happy donors stoutly refused to do. The twins had earned
+this wealth of hose, and finally, wiping their eyes, the twins began to
+smooth their hair and adjust their ribbons and belts.
+
+"What's the matter?" "Where are you going?" "Will you buy the rest of us
+some silk stockings?" queried the family, comic-opera effect.
+
+"Where are we going?" Carol repeated, surprised, seeming to feel that
+any one should know where they were going, though they had not spoken.
+
+"We're going to call on our friends, of course," explained Lark.
+
+"Of course," said Carol, jabbing her hair pins in with startling energy.
+"And we've got to hurry. We must go to Mattie's, and Jean's, and
+Betty's, and Fan's, and Birdie's, and Alice's, and--say, Lark, maybe
+we'd better divide up and each take half. It's kind of late,--and we
+mustn't miss any."
+
+"Well, what on earth!" gasped Prudence, while the others stared in
+speechless amazement.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Carol, hurry. We have to get clear out to Minnie's
+to-night, if we miss our supper."
+
+"But what's the idea? What for? What are you talking about?"
+
+"Why, you silly thing," said Carol patiently, "we have to go and tell
+our friends that we've got four pairs of silk stockings, of course. I
+wouldn't miss this afternoon for the world. And we'll go the rounds
+together, Lark. I want to see how they take it," she smiled at them
+benignly. "I can imagine their excitement. And we owe it to the world to
+give it all the excitement we can. Prudence says so."
+
+Prudence looked startled. "Did I say that?"
+
+"Certainly. You said pleasure--but excitement's very pleasing, most of
+the time. Come on, Larkie, we'll have to walk fast."
+
+And with a fond good-by to the generous family, the twins set out to
+spread the joyful tidings, Lark pausing at the door just long enough to
+explain gravely, "Of course, we won't tell them--er--just how it
+happened, you know. Lots of things in a parsonage need to be kept dark.
+Prudence says so herself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HOW CAROL SPOILED THE WEDDING
+
+
+A day in June,--the kind of day that poets have rhymed and lovers have
+craved since time began. On the side porch of the parsonage, in a wide
+hammock, lay Aunt Grace, looking languidly through half-closed lids at
+the girls beneath her on the step. Prudence, although her face was all
+a-dream, bent conscientiously over the bit of linen in her hands. And
+Fairy, her piquantly bright features clouded with an unwonted frown,
+crumpled a letter in her hand.
+
+"I do think men are the most aggravating things that ever lived," she
+declared, with annoyance in her voice.
+
+The woman in the hammock smiled slightly, and did not speak. Prudence
+carefully counted ten threads, and solemnly drew one before she voiced
+her question.
+
+"What is he saying now?"
+
+"Why, he's still objecting to my having dates with the other boys."
+Fairy's voice was vibrant with grief. "He does make me wild! Aunt Grace,
+you can't imagine. Last fall I mentioned casually that I was sure he
+wouldn't object to my having lecture course dates--I was too hard up to
+buy a ticket for myself; they cost four dollars, and aren't worth it,
+either. And what did he do but send me eight dollars to buy two sets of
+tickets! Then this spring, when the baseball season opened, he sent me
+season tickets to all the games suggesting that my financial stringency
+could not be pleaded as an excuse. Ever since he went to Chicago last
+fall we've been fighting because the boys bring me home from parties. I
+suppose he had to go and learn to be a pharmacist, but--it's hard on me.
+He wants me to patter along by myself like a--like--like a hen!" Fairy
+said "hen" very crossly!
+
+"It's a shame," said Prudence sympathetically. "That's just what it is.
+You wouldn't say a word to his taking girls home from things, would
+you?"
+
+"Hum,--that's a different matter," said Fairy more thoughtfully. "He
+hasn't wanted to yet. You see, he's a man and can go by himself without
+having it look as though nobody wanted to be seen with him. And he's a
+stranger over there, and doesn't need to get chummy with the girls. The
+boys here all know me, and ask me to go, and--a man, you see, can just
+be passive and nothing happens. But a girl's got to be downright
+negative, and it's no joke. One misses so many good times. You see the
+cases are different, Prue."
+
+"Yes, that's so," Prudence assented absent-mindedly, counting off ten
+more threads.
+
+"Then you would object if he had dates?" queried Aunt Grace smilingly.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all,--if there was any occasion for it--but there isn't.
+And I think I would be justified in objecting if he deliberately made
+occasions for himself, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, that would be different," Prudence chimed in, such "miles away" in
+her voice, that Fairy turned on her indignantly.
+
+"Prudence Starr, you make me wild," she said. "Can't you drop that
+everlasting hemstitching, embroidering, tatting, crocheting, for ten
+minutes to talk to me? What in the world are you going to do with it
+all, anyhow? Are you intending to carpet your floors with it?"
+
+"This is a napkin," Prudence explained good-naturedly. "The set cost me
+fifteen dollars." She sighed.
+
+"Did the veil come?" The clouds vanished magically from Fairy's face,
+and she leaned forward with that joy of wedding anticipation that rules
+in woman-world.
+
+"Yes, it's beautiful. Come and see it. Wait until I pull four more
+threads. It's gorgeous."
+
+"I still think you're making a great mistake," declared Fairy earnestly.
+"I don't believe in big showy church weddings. You'd better change it
+yet. A little home affair with just the family,--that's the way to do
+it. All this satin-gown, orange-blossom elaboration with curious eyes
+staring up and down--ugh! It's all wrong."
+
+Prudence dropped the precious fifteen-dollar-a-set napkin in her lap and
+gazed at Fairy anxiously. "I know you think so, Fairy," she said.
+"You've told me so several times." Fairy's eyes twinkled, but Prudence
+had no intention of sarcasm. "But I can't help it, can I? We had quite
+settled on the home wedding, but when the twins discovered that the
+members felt hurt at being left out, father thought we'd better change
+over."
+
+"Well, I can't see that the members have any right to run our wedding.
+Besides, it wouldn't surprise me if the twins made it up because they
+wanted a big fuss."
+
+"But some of the members spoke to father."
+
+"Oh, just common members that don't count for much--and it was mighty
+poor manners of 'em, too, if you'll excuse me for saying so."
+
+"And you must admit, Fairy, that it is lovely of the Ladies' Aid to give
+that dinner at the hotel for us."
+
+"Well, they'll get their money's worth of talk out of it afterward. It's
+a big mistake.--What on earth are the twins doing out there? Is that Jim
+Forrest with them? Listen how they are screaming with laughter! Would
+you ever believe those twins are past fifteen, and nearly through their
+junior year? They haven't as much sense put together as Connie has all
+alone."
+
+"Come and see the veil," said Prudence, rising. But she dropped back on
+the step again as Carol came rushing toward them at full speed, with
+Lark and a tall young fellow trailing slowly, laughing, behind her.
+
+"The mean things!" she gasped. "They cheated!" She dropped a handful of
+pennies in her aunt's lap as she lay in the hammock. "We'll take 'em to
+Sunday-school and give 'em to the heathen, that's what we'll do. They
+cheated!"
+
+"Yes, infant, who cheated, and how, and why? And whence the startling
+array of pennies? And why this unwonted affection for the heathen?"
+mocked Fairy.
+
+"Trying to be a blank verse, Fairy? Keep it up, you haven't far to
+go!--There they are! Look at them, Aunt Grace. They cheated. They tried
+to get all my hard-earned pennies by nefarious methods, and--"
+
+"And so Carol stole them all, and ran! Sit down, Jim. My, it's hot. Give
+me back my pennies, Carol."
+
+"The heathen! The heathen!" insisted Carol. "Not a penny do you get. You
+see, Aunt Grace, we were matching pennies,--you'd better not mention it
+to father. We've turned over a new leaf now, and quit for good. But we
+were matching--and they made a bargain that whenever it was my turn, one
+of them would throw heads and one tails, and that way I never could win
+anything. And I didn't catch on until I saw Jim wink, and so of course I
+thought it was only right to give the pennies to the heathen."
+
+"Mercy, Prudence," interrupted Lark. "Are you doing another napkin? This
+is the sixteenth dozen, isn't it? You'd better donate some of them to
+the parsonage, I think. I was so ashamed when Miss Marsden came to
+dinner. She opened her napkin out wide, and her finger went right
+through a hole. I was mortified to death--and Carol laughed. It seems to
+me with three grown women in the house we could have holeless napkins,
+one for company, anyhow."
+
+"How is your mother, Jim?"
+
+"Just fine, Miss Prudence, thank you. She said to tell you she would
+send a basket of red Junes to-morrow, if you want them. The twins can
+eat them, I know. Carol ate twenty-two when they were out Saturday."
+
+"Yes, I did, and I'm glad of it," said Carol stoutly. "Such apples you
+never saw, Prudence. They're about as big as a thimble, and two-thirds
+core. They're good, they're fine, I'll say that,--but there's nothing to
+them. I could have eaten as many again if Jim hadn't been counting out
+loud, and I got kind of ashamed because every one was laughing. If I had
+a ranch as big as yours, Jim, I'll bet you a dollar I'd have apples
+bigger than a dime!"
+
+"'Bet you a dollar,'" quoted Fairy.
+
+"Well, I'll wager my soul, if that sounds more like Shakespeare. Don't
+go, Jim, we're not fighting. This is just the way Fairy and I make love
+to each other. You're perfectly welcome to stay, but be careful of your
+grammar, for now that Fairy's a senior--will be next year, if she
+lives--she even tries to teach father the approved method of doing a
+ministerial sneeze in the pulpit."
+
+"Think I'd better go," decided the tall good-looking youth, laughing as
+he looked with frank boyish admiration into Carol's sparkling face.
+"With Fairy after my grammar, and you to criticize my manner and my
+morals, I see right now that a parsonage is no safe place for a
+farmer's son." And laughing again, he thrust his cap into his pocket,
+and walked quickly out the new cement parsonage walk. But at the gate he
+paused to call back, "Don't make a mistake, Carol, and use the heathen's
+pennies for candy."
+
+The girls on the porch laughed, and five pairs of eyes gazed after the
+tall figure rapidly disappearing.
+
+"He's nice," said Prudence.
+
+"Yes," assented Carol. "I've got a notion to marry him after a little.
+That farm of his is worth about ten thousand."
+
+"Are you going to wait until he asks you?"
+
+"Certainly not! Anybody can marry a man after he asks her. The thing to
+do, if you want to be really original and interesting, is to marry him
+before he asks you and surprise him."
+
+"Yes," agreed Lark, "if you wait until he asks you he's likely to think
+it over once too often and not ask you at all."
+
+"Doesn't that sound exactly like a book, now?" demanded Carol proudly.
+"Fairy couldn't have said that!"
+
+"No," said Fairy, "I couldn't. Thank goodness!--I have what is commonly
+known as brains. Look it up in the dictionary, twins. It's something you
+ought to know about."
+
+"Oh, Prudence," cried Lark dramatically, "I forgot to tell you. You
+can't get married after all."
+
+For ten seconds Prudence, as well as Fairy and their aunt, stared in
+speechless amazement. Then Prudence smiled.
+
+"Oh, can't I? What's the joke now?"
+
+"Joke! It's no joke. Carol's sick, that's what's the joke. You can't be
+married without Carol, can you?"
+
+A burst of gay laughter greeted this announcement.
+
+"Carol sick! She acts sick!"
+
+"She looks sick!"
+
+"Where is she sick?"
+
+Carol leaned limply back against the pillar, trying to compose her
+bright face into a semblance of illness. "In my tummy," she announced
+weakly.
+
+This called forth more laughter. "It's her conscience," said Fairy.
+
+"It's matching pennies. Maybe she swallowed one."
+
+"It's probably those two pieces of pie she ate for dinner, and the one
+that vanished from the pantry shortly after," suggested Aunt Grace.
+
+Carol sat up quickly. "Welcome home, Aunt Grace!" she cried. "Did you
+have a pleasant visit?"
+
+"Carol," reproved Prudence.
+
+"I didn't mean it for impudence, auntie," said Carol, getting up and
+bending affectionately over the hammock, gently caressing the brown hair
+just beginning to silver about her forehead. "But it does amuse me so to
+hear a lady of your age and dignity indulge in such lavish
+conversational exercises."
+
+Lark swallowed with a forced effort. "Did it hurt, Carol? How did you
+get it all out in one breath?"
+
+"Lark, I do wish you wouldn't gulp that way when folks use big words,"
+said Fairy. "It looks--awful."
+
+"Well, I won't when I get to be as old and crabbed as--father," said
+Lark. "Sit down, Carol, and remember you're sick."
+
+Carol obediently sat down, and looked sicker than ever.
+
+"You can laugh if you like," she said, "I am sick, at least, I was this
+afternoon. I've been feeling very queer for three or four days. I don't
+think I'm quite over it yet."
+
+"Pie! You were right, Aunt Grace! That's the way pie works."
+
+"It's not pie at all," declared Carol heatedly. "And I didn't take that
+piece out of the pantry, at least, not exactly. I caught Connie sneaking
+it, and I gave her a good calling down, and she hung her head and slunk
+away in disgrace. But she had taken such big bites that it looked sort
+of unsanitary, so I thought I'd better finish it before it gathered any
+germs. But it's not pie. Now that I think of it, it was my head where I
+was sick. Don't you remember, Lark, I said my head ached?"
+
+"Yes, and her eyes got red and bleary when she was reading. And--and
+there was something else, too, Carol, what--"
+
+"Your eyes are bloodshot, Carol. They do look bad." Prudence examined
+them closely. "Now, Carol Starr, don't you touch another book or
+magazine until after the wedding. If you think I want a bloodshot
+bridesmaid, you're mistaken."
+
+They all turned to look across the yard at Connie, just turning in.
+Connie always walked, as Carol said, "as if she mostly wasn't there."
+But she usually "arrived" by the time she got within speaking distance
+of her sister.
+
+"Goodness, Prue, aren't you going to do anything but eat after you move
+to Des Moines? Carol and I were counting the napkins last night,--was it
+a hundred and seventy-six, Carol, or--some awful number I know. Carol
+piled them up in two piles and we kneeled on them to say our prayers,
+and--I can't say for sure, but I think Carol pushed me. Anyhow, I lost
+my balance, and usually I'm pretty well balanced. I toppled over right
+after 'God save,' and Carol screamed 'the napkins'--Prue's wedding
+napkins! It was an awful funny effect; I couldn't finish my prayers."
+
+"Carol Starr! Fifteen years old and--"
+
+"That's a very much exaggerated story, Prue. Connie blamed it on me as
+usual. She piled them up herself to see if there were two feet of
+them,--she put her stockings on the floor first so the dust wouldn't
+rub off. It was Lark's turn to sweep and you know how Lark sweeps, and
+Connie was very careful, indeed, and--"
+
+"Come on, Fairy, and see the veil!"
+
+"The veil! Did it come?"
+
+With a joyous undignified whoop the parsonage girls scrambled to their
+feet and rushed indoors in a fine Kilkenny jumble. Aunt Grace looked
+after them, thoughtfully, smiling for a second, and then with a girlish
+shrug of her slender shoulders she slipped out and followed them inside.
+
+The last thing that night, before she said her prayers, Prudence carried
+a big bottle of witch hazel into the twins' room. Both were sleeping,
+but she roused Carol, and Lark turned over to listen.
+
+"You must bathe your eyes with this, Carol. I forgot to tell you. What
+would Jerry say if he had a bleary-eyed bridesmaid!"
+
+And although the twins grumbled and mumbled about the idiotic nonsense
+of getting-married folks, Carol obediently bathed the bloodshot eyes.
+For in their heart of hearts, every one of the parsonage girls held
+this wedding to be the affair of prime importance, national and
+international, as well as just plain Methodist.
+
+The twins were undeniably lazy, and slept as late of mornings as the
+parsonage law allowed. So it was that when Lark skipped into the
+dining-room, three minutes late for breakfast, she found the whole
+family, with the exception of Carol, well in the midst of their meal.
+
+"She was sick," she began quickly, then interrupting herself,--"Oh, good
+morning! Beg pardon for forgetting my manners. But Carol was sick,
+Prudence, and I hope you and Fairy are ashamed of yourselves--and
+auntie, too--for making fun of her. She couldn't sleep all night, and
+rolled and tossed, and her head hurt and she talked in her sleep, and--"
+
+"I thought she didn't sleep."
+
+"Well, she didn't sleep much, but when she did she mumbled and said
+things and--"
+
+Then the dining-room door opened again, and Carol--her hair about her
+shoulders, her feet bare, enveloped in a soft and clinging kimono of
+faded blue--stalked majestically into the room. There was woe in her
+eyes, and her voice was tragic.
+
+"It is gone," she said. "It is gone!"
+
+Her appearance was uncanny to say the least, and the family gazed at her
+with some concern, despite the fact that Carol's vagaries were so common
+as usually to elicit small respect.
+
+"Gone!" she cried, striking her palms together. "Gone!"
+
+"If you do anything to spoil that wedding, papa'll whip you, if you are
+fifteen years old," said Fairy.
+
+Lark sprang to her sister's side. "What's gone, Carrie?" she pleaded
+with sympathy, almost with tears. "What's gone? Are you out of your
+head?"
+
+"No! Out of my complexion," was the dramatic answer.
+
+Even Lark fell back, for the moment, stunned. "Y-your complexion," she
+faltered.
+
+"Look! Look at me, Lark. Don't you see? My complexion is gone--my
+beautiful complexion that I loved. Look at me! Oh, I would gladly have
+sacrificed a leg, or an arm, a--rib or an eye, but not my dear
+complexion!"
+
+Sure enough, now that they looked carefully, they could indeed perceive
+that the usual soft creaminess of Carol's skin was prickled and sparred
+with ugly red splotches. Her eyes were watery, shot with blood. For a
+time they gazed in silence, then they burst into laughter.
+
+"Pie!" cried Fairy. "It's raspberry pie, coming out, Carol!"
+
+The corners of Carol's lips twitched slightly, and it was with
+difficulty that she maintained her wounded regal bearing. But Lark,
+always quick to resent an indignity to this twin of her heart, turned
+upon them angrily.
+
+"Fairy Starr! You are a wicked unfeeling thing! You sit there and laugh
+and talk about pie when Carol is sick and suffering--her lovely
+complexion all ruined, and it was the joy of my life, that complexion
+was. Papa,--why don't you do something?"
+
+But he only laughed harder than ever. "If there's anything more
+preposterous than Carol's vanity because of her beauty, it's Lark's
+vanity for her," he said.
+
+Aunt Grace drew Carol to her side, and examined the ruined complexion
+closely. Then she smiled, but there was regret in her eyes.
+
+"Well, Carol, you've spoiled your part of the wedding sure enough.
+You've got the measles."
+
+Then came the silence of utter horror.
+
+"Not the measles," begged Carol, wounded afresh. "Give me diphtheria, or
+smallpox, or--or even leprosy, and I'll bear it bravely and with a
+smile, but it shall not be said that Carol's measles spoiled the
+wedding."
+
+"Oh, Carol," wailed Prudence, "don't have the measles,--please don't.
+I've waited all my life for this wedding,--don't spoil it."
+
+"Well, it's your own fault, Prue," interrupted Lark. "If you hadn't kept
+us all cooped up when we were little we'd have had measles long ago.
+Now, like as not the whole family'll have 'em, and serve you right. No
+self-respecting family has any business to grow up without having the
+measles."
+
+"What shall we do now?" queried Constance practically.
+
+"Well, I always said it was a mistake," said Fairy. "A big wedding--"
+
+"Oh, Fairy, please don't tell me that again. I know it so well. Papa,
+whatever shall we do? Maybe Jerry hasn't had them either."
+
+"Why, it's easily arranged," said Lark. "We'll just postpone the wedding
+until Carol's quite well again."
+
+"Bad luck," said Connie.
+
+"Too much work," said Fairy.
+
+"Well, she can't get married without Carol, can she?" ejaculated Lark.
+
+"Are you sure it's measles, Aunt Grace?"
+
+"Yes, it's measles."
+
+"Then," said Fairy, "we'll get Alice Bird or Katie Free to bridesmaid
+with Lark. They are the same size and either will do all right. She can
+wear Carol's dress. You won't mind that, will you, Carol?"
+
+"No," said Carol moodily, "of course I won't. The only real embroidery
+dress I ever had in my life--and haven't got that yet! But go ahead and
+get anybody you like. I'm hoodooed, that's what it is. It's a punishment
+because you and Jim cheated yesterday, Lark."
+
+"What did you do?" asked Connie. "You seem to be getting the
+punishment!"
+
+"Shall we have Alice or Katie? Which do you prefer, Lark?"
+
+"You'll have to get them both," was the stoic answer. "I won't
+bridesmaid without Carol."
+
+"Don't be silly, Lark. You'll have to."
+
+"Then wait for Carol."
+
+"Papa, you must make her."
+
+"No," said Prudence slowly, with a white face. "We'll postpone it. I
+won't get married without the whole family."
+
+"I said right from the start--"
+
+"Oh, yes, Fairy, we know what you said," interjected Carol. "We know how
+you'll get married. First man that gets moonshine enough into his head
+to propose to you, you'll trot him post haste to the justice before he
+thinks twice."
+
+In the end, the wedding was postponed a couple of months,--for both
+Connie and Fairy took the measles. But when at last, the wedding party,
+marshalled by Connie with a huge white basket of flowers, trailed down
+the time-honored aisle of the Methodist church, it was without one
+dissenting voice pronounced the crowning achievement of Mr. Starr's
+whole pastorate.
+
+"I was proud of us, Lark," Carol told her twin, after it was over, and
+Prudence had gone, and the girls had wept themselves weak on each
+other's shoulders. "We get so in the habit of doing things wrong that I
+half expected myself to pipe up ahead of father with the ceremony. It
+seems--awful--without Prudence,--but it's a satisfaction to know that
+she was the best married bride Mount Mark has ever seen."
+
+"Jerry looked awfully handsome, didn't he? Did you notice how he glowed
+at Prudence? I wish you were artistic, Carol, so you could illustrate my
+books. Jerry'd make a fine illustration."
+
+"We looked nice, too. We're not a bad-looking bunch when you come right
+down to facts. Of course, it is fine to be as smart as you are, Larkie,
+but I'm not jealous. We're mighty lucky to have both beauty and brains
+in our twin-ship,--and since one can't have both, I may say I'd just as
+lief be pretty. It's so much easier."
+
+"Carol!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"We're nearly grown up now. We'll have to begin to settle down. Prudence
+says so."
+
+For a few seconds Carol wavered, tremulous. Then she said pluckily, "All
+right. Just wait till I powder my nose, will you? It gets so shiny when
+I cry."
+
+"Carol!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Isn't the house still?"
+
+"Yes--ghastly."
+
+"I never thought Prudence was much of a chatter-box, but--listen! There
+isn't a sound."
+
+Carol held out a hand, and Lark clutched it desperately.
+
+"Let's--let's go find the folks. This is--awful! Little old Prudence is
+gone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE SERENADE
+
+
+A subject that never failed to arouse the sarcasm and the ire of Fairy
+was that of the Slaughter-house Quartette. This was composed of four
+young men--men quite outside the pale as far as the parsonage was
+concerned--the disreputable characters of the community, familiar in the
+local jail for frequent bursts of intoxication. They slouched, they
+smoked, they lounged, they leered. The churches knew them not. They were
+the slum element, the Bowery of Mount Mark, Iowa.
+
+Prudence, in her day, had passed them by with a shy slight nod and a
+glance of tender pity. Fairy and Lark, and even Connie, sailed by with
+high heads and scornful eyes,--haughty, proud, icily removed. But Carol,
+by some weird and inexplicable fancy, treated them with sweet and
+gracious solicitude, quite friendly. Her smile as she passed was as
+sweet as for her dearest friend. Her "Good morning,--isn't this glorious
+weather?" was as affably cordial as her, "Breakfast is ready, papa!"
+
+This was the one subject of dispute between the twins.
+
+"Oh, please don't, Carol, it does make me so ashamed," Lark entreated.
+
+"You mustn't be narrow-minded, Larkie," Carol argued. "We're minister's
+girls, and we've got to be a good influence,--an encouragement to
+the--er, weak and erring, you know. Maybe my smiles will be an
+inspiration to them."
+
+And on this point Carol stood firm even against the tears of her
+precious twin.
+
+One evening at the dinner table Fairy said, with a mocking smile, "How
+are your Slaughter-house friends to-day, Carol? When I was at the
+dentist's I saw you coming along, beaming at them in your own inimitable
+way."
+
+"Oh, they seemed all right," Carol answered, with a deprecating glance
+toward her father and her aunt.
+
+"I see by last night's paper that Guy Fleisher is just out after his
+last thirty days up," Fairy continued solicitously. "Did he find his
+incarceration trying?"
+
+"I didn't discuss it with him," Carol said indignantly. "I never talk to
+them. I just say 'Good morning' in Christian charity."
+
+Aunt Grace's eyes were smiling as always, but for the first time Carol
+felt that the smiles were at, instead of with, her.
+
+"You would laugh to see her, Aunt Grace," Fairy explained. "They are
+generally half intoxicated, sometimes wholly. And Carol trips by, clean,
+white and shining. They are always lounging against the store windows or
+posts for support, bleary-eyed, dissipated, swaggery, staggery. Carol
+nods and smiles as only Carol can, 'Good morning, boys! Isn't it a
+lovely day? Are you feeling well?' And they grin at her and sway
+ingratiatingly against one another, and say, 'Mornin', Carol.' Carol is
+the only really decent person in town that has anything to do with
+them."
+
+"Carol means all right," declared Lark angrily.
+
+"Yes, indeed," assented Fairy, "They call them the Slaughter-house
+Quartette, auntie, because whenever they are sober enough to walk
+without police assistance, they wander through the streets slaughtering
+the peace and serenity of the quiet town with their rendition of all the
+late, disgraceful sentimental ditties. They are in many ways striking
+characters. I do not wholly misunderstand their attraction for romantic
+Carol. They are something like the troubadours of old--only more so."
+
+Carol's face was crimson. "I don't like them," she cried, "but I'm sorry
+for them. I think maybe I can make them see the difference between us,
+me so nice and respectable you know, and them so--animalish! It may
+arouse their better natures--I suppose they have better natures. I want
+to show them that the decent element, we Christians, are sorry for them
+and want to make them better."
+
+"Carol wants to be an influence," Fairy continued. "Of course, it is a
+little embarrassing for the rest of us to have her on such friendly
+terms with the most unmentionable characters in all Mount Mark. But
+Carol is like so many reformers,--in the presence of one great truth she
+has eyes for it only, ignoring a thousand other, greater truths."
+
+"I am sorry for them," Carol repeated, more weakly, abashed by the
+presence of the united family. Fairy's dissertations on this subject had
+usually occurred in private.
+
+Mr. Starr mentally resolved that he would talk this over with Carol when
+the others were not present, for he knew from her face and her voice
+that she was really sensitive on the subject. And he knew, too, that it
+is difficult to explain to the very young that the finest of ideas are
+not applicable to all cases by all people. But it happened that he was
+spared the necessity of dealing with Carol privately, for matters
+adjusted themselves without his assistance.
+
+The second night following was an eventful one in the parsonage. One of
+the bishops of the church was in Mount Mark for a business conference
+with the religious leaders, and was to spend the night at the parsonage.
+The meeting was called for eight-thirty for the convenience of the
+business men concerned, and was to be held in the church offices. The
+men left early, followed shortly by Fairy who designed to spend the
+evening at the Averys' home, testing their supply of winter apples. The
+twins and Connie, with the newest and most thrilling book Mr. Carnegie
+afforded the town, went up-stairs to lie on the bed and take turns
+reading aloud. And for a few hours the parsonage was as calm and
+peaceful as though it were not designed for the housing of merry
+minister's daughters.
+
+Aunt Grace sat down-stairs darning stockings. The girls' intentions had
+been the best in the world, but in less than a year the family darning
+had fallen entirely into the capable and willing hands of the gentle
+chaperon.
+
+It was half past ten. The girls had just seen their heroine rescued from
+a watery grave and married to her bold preserver by a minister who
+happened to be writing a sermon on the beach--no mention of how the
+license was secured extemporaneously--and with sighs of gratified
+sentiment they lay happily on the bed thinking it all over. And then,
+from beneath the peach trees clustered on the south side of the
+parsonage, a burst of melody arose.
+
+"Good morning, Carrie, how are you this morning?"
+
+The girls sat up abruptly, staring at one another, as the curious ugly
+song wafted in upon them. Conviction dawned slowly, sadly, but
+unquestionably.
+
+The Slaughter-house Quartette was serenading Carol in return for her
+winsome smiles!
+
+Carol herself was literally struck dumb. Her face grew crimson, then
+white. In her heart, she repeated psalms of thanksgiving that Fairy was
+away, and that her father and the bishop would not be in until this
+colossal disaster was over.
+
+Connie was mortified. It seemed like a wholesale parsonage insult. Lark,
+after the first awful realization, lay back on the bed and rolled
+convulsively.
+
+"You're an influence all right, Carol," she gurgled. "Will you listen to
+that?"
+
+For _Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown_ was the second choice of her cavaliers
+below in the darkness.
+
+"Rufus Rastus," Lark cried, and then was choked with laughter. "Of
+course, it would be--proper if they sang hymns but--oh, listen!"
+
+The rollicking strains of _Budweiser_ were swung gaily out upon the
+night.
+
+Carol writhed in anguish. The serenade was bad enough, but this
+unmerciful mocking derision of her adored twin was unendurable.
+
+Then the quartette waxed sentimental. They sang, and not badly, a few
+old southern melodies, and started slowly around the corner of the
+house, still singing.
+
+It has been said that Aunt Grace was always kind, always gentle,
+unsuspicious and without guile. She had heard the serenade, and promptly
+concluded that it was the work of some of the high-school boys who were
+unanimously devoted to Carol. She had a big box of chocolates up-stairs,
+for Connie's birthday celebration. She could get them, and make
+lemonade, and--
+
+She opened the door softly and stepped out, directly in the path of the
+startled youths. Full of her hospitable intent, she was not discerning
+as parsonage people need to be.
+
+"Come in, boys," she said cordially, "the girls will be down in a
+minute."
+
+The appearance of a guardian angel summoning them to Paradise could not
+have confounded them more utterly. They stumbled all over one another
+in trying to back away from her. She laughed softly.
+
+"Don't be bashful. We enjoyed it very much. Yes, come right in."
+
+Undoubtedly they would have declined if only they could have thought of
+the proper method of doing so. As it was, they only succeeded in
+shambling through the parsonage door, instinctively concealing their
+half-smoked cigarettes beneath their fingers.
+
+Aunt Grace ushered them into the pleasant living-room, and ran up to
+summon her nieces.
+
+Left alone, the boys looked at one another with amazement and with
+grief, and the leader, the touching tenor, said with true musical
+fervor, "Well, this is a go!"
+
+In the meantime, the girls, with horror, had heard their aunt's
+invitation. What in the world did she mean? Was it a trick between her
+and Fairy? Had they hired the awful Slaughterers to bring this disgrace
+upon the parsonage? Sternly they faced her when she opened their door.
+
+"Come down, girls--I invited them in. I'm going to make lemonade and
+serve my nice chocolates. Hurry down."
+
+"You invited them in!" echoed Connie.
+
+"The Slaughter-house Quartette," hissed Lark.
+
+Then Aunt Grace whirled about and stared at them. "Mercy!" she
+whispered, remembering for the first time Fairy's words. "Mercy! Is
+it--that? I thought it was high-school boys and--mercy!"
+
+"Mercy is good," said Carol grimly.
+
+"You'll have to put them out," suggested Connie.
+
+"I can't! How can I?--How did I know?--What on earth,--Oh, Carol
+whatever made you smile at them?" she wailed helplessly. "You know how
+men are when they are smiled at! The bishop--"
+
+"You'll have to get them out before the bishop comes back," said Carol.
+"You must. And if any of you ever give this away to father or Fairy
+I'll--"
+
+"You'd better go down a minute, girls," urged their aunt. "That will be
+the easiest way. I'll just pass the candy and invite them to come again
+and then they'll go. Hurry now, and we'll get rid of them before the
+others come. Be as decent as you can, and it'll soon be over."
+
+Thus adjured, with the dignity of the bishop and the laughter of Fairy
+ever in their thoughts, the girls arose and went down, proudly, calmly,
+loftily. Their inborn senses of humor came to their assistance when they
+entered the living-room. The Slaughter boys looked far more slaughtered
+than slaughtering. They sat limply in their chairs, nervously twitching
+their yellowed slimy fingers, their dull eyes intent upon the worn spots
+in the carpet. It was funny! Even Carol smiled, not the serene sweet
+smile that melted hearts, but the grim hard smile of the joker when the
+tables are turned! She flattered herself that this wretched travesty on
+parsonage courtesy would be ended before there were any further
+witnesses to her downfall from her proud fine heights, but she was
+doomed to disappointment. Fairy, on the Averys' porch, had heard the
+serenade. After the first shock, and after the helpless laughter that
+followed, she bade her friends good night.
+
+"Oh, I've just got to go," she said. "It's a joke on Carol. I wouldn't
+miss it for twenty-five bushels of apples,--even as good as these are."
+
+Her eyes twinkling with delight, she ran home and waited behind the
+rose bushes until the moment for her appearance seemed at hand. Then she
+stepped into the room where her outraged sisters were stoically passing
+precious and luscious chocolates to tobacco-saturated youths.
+
+"Good evening," she said. "The Averys and I enjoyed the concert, too. I
+do love to hear music outdoors on still nights like these. Carol, maybe
+your friends would like a drink. Are there any lemons, auntie? We might
+have a little lemonade."
+
+Carol writhed helplessly. "I'll make it," she said, and rushed to the
+kitchen to vent her fury by shaking the very life out of the lemons. But
+she did not waste time. Her father's twinkles were nearly as bad as
+Fairy's own--and the bishop!
+
+"I'd wish it would choke 'em if it wouldn't take so long," she muttered
+passionately, as she hurried in with the pitcher and glasses, ready to
+serve the "slums" with her own chaste hands.
+
+She was just serving the melting tenor when she heard her father's voice
+in the hall.
+
+"Too late," she said aloud, and with such despair in her voice that
+Fairy relented and mentally promised to "see her through."
+
+Mr. Starr's eyes twinkled freely when he saw the guests in his home, and
+the gentle bishop's puzzled interest nearly sent them all off into
+laughter. Fairy had no idea of the young men's names, but she said,
+quickly, to spare Carol:
+
+"We have been serenaded to-night, Doctor--you just missed it. These are
+the Mount Mark troubadours. You are lucky to get here in time for the
+lemonade."
+
+But when she saw the bishop glance concernedly from the yellow fingers
+to the dull eyes and the brown-streaked mouth, her gravity nearly
+forsook her. The Slaughterers, already dashed to the ground by
+embarrassment, were entirely routed by the presence of the bishop. With
+incoherent apologies, they rose to their unsteady feet and in a cloud of
+breezy odors, made their escape.
+
+Mr. Starr laughed a little, Aunt Grace put her arm protectingly about
+Carol's rigid shoulders, and the bishop said, "Well, well, well," with
+gentle inquiry.
+
+"We call them the Slaughter-house Quartette," Fairy began cheerfully.
+"They are the lower strata of Mount Mark, and they make the nights
+hideous with their choice selection of popular airs. The parsonage is
+divided about them. Some of us think we should treat them with proud and
+cold disdain. Some think we should regard them with a tender, gentle,
+er--smiling pity. And evidently they appreciated the smiles for they
+gave us a serenade in return for them. Aunt Grace did not know their
+history, so she invited them in, thinking they were just ordinary
+schoolboys. It is home mission work run aground."
+
+The bishop nodded sympathetically. "One has to be so careful," he said.
+"So extremely careful with characters like those. No doubt they meant
+well by their serenade, but--girls especially have to be very careful. I
+think as a rule it is safer to let men show the tender pity and women
+the fine disdain. I don't imagine they would come serenading your father
+and me! You carried it off beautifully, girls. I am sure your father was
+proud of you. I was myself. I'm glad you are Methodists. Not many girls
+so young could handle a difficult matter as neatly as you did."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Starr, but his eyes twinkled toward Carol once more;
+"yes, indeed, I think we are well cleared of a disagreeable business."
+
+But Carol looked at Fairy with such humble, passionate gratitude that
+tears came to Fairy's eyes and she turned quickly away.
+
+"Carol is a sweet girl," she thought. "I wonder if things will work out
+for her just right--to make her as happy as she ought to be. She's
+so--lovely."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SUBSTITUTION
+
+
+The twins came in at dinner-time wrapped in unwonted silence. Lark's
+face was darkened by an anxious shadow, while Carol wore an expression
+of heroic determination. They sat down to the table without a word, and
+helped themselves to fish balls with a surprising lack of interest.
+
+"What's up?" Connie asked, when the rest of the family dismissed the
+matter with amused glances.
+
+Lark sighed and looked at Carol, seeming to seek courage from that
+Spartan countenance.
+
+Carol squared her shoulders.
+
+"Well, go on," Connie urged. "Don't be silly. You know you're crazy to
+tell us about it, you only want to be coaxed."
+
+Lark sighed again, and gazed appealingly at her stout-hearted twin.
+Carol never could resist the appeal of those pleading eyes.
+
+"Larkie promised to speak a piece at the Sunday-school concert two weeks
+from to-morrow," she vouchsafed, as unconcernedly as possible.
+
+"Mercy!" ejaculated Connie, with an astonishment that was not altogether
+complimentary.
+
+"Careful, Larkie," cautioned Fairy. "You'll disgrace the parsonage if
+you don't watch out."
+
+"Nonsense," declared their father, "Lark can speak as well as anybody if
+she just keeps a good grip on herself and doesn't get stage fright."
+
+Aunt Grace smiled gently.
+
+Connie frowned. "It's a risky business," she said. "Lark can't speak any
+more than a rabbit, and--"
+
+"I know it," was the humble admission.
+
+"Don't be a goose, Con," interrupted Carol. "Of course Lark can speak a
+piece. She must learn it, learn it, learn it, so she can rattle it off
+backwards with her eyes shut. Then even if she gets scared, she can go
+right on and folks won't know the difference. It gets to be a habit if
+you know it well enough. That's the whole secret. Of course she can
+speak."
+
+"How did it happen?" inquired Fairy.
+
+"I don't know," Lark said sorrowfully. "Nothing was ever farther from my
+thoughts, I assure you. The first thing I knew, Mrs. Curtiss was
+thanking me for my promise, and Carol was marching me off like grim
+death."
+
+Carol smiled, relieved now that the family commentary was over. "It was
+very natural. Mrs. Curtiss begged her to do it, and Lark refused. That
+always happens, every time the Sunday-school gives an entertainment. But
+Mrs. Curtiss went on to say how badly the Sunday-school needs the money,
+and how big a drawing card it would be for both of us twins to be on the
+program, one right after the other, and how well it would look for the
+parsonage, and it never occurred to me to warn Lark, for I never dreamed
+of her doing it. And all of a sudden she said, 'All right, then, I'll do
+it,' and Mrs. Curtiss gave her a piece and we came home. But I'm not
+worried about it. Lark can do anything if she only tries."
+
+"I thought it wouldn't hurt me to try it once," Lark volunteered in her
+own defense.
+
+Aunt Grace nodded, with a smile of interested approval.
+
+"I'm proud of you, Lark, quite proud of you," her father said warmly.
+"It's a big thing for you to make such a plunge,--just fine."
+
+"I'm proud of you now, too," Connie said darkly. "The question is, will
+we be proud of you after the concert?"
+
+Lark sighed dolorously.
+
+"Oh, pooh!" encouraged Carol. "Anybody can speak a silly little old
+piece like that. And it will look so nice to have our names right
+together on the program. It'll bring out all the high-school folks,
+sure."
+
+"Yes, they'll come to hear Lark all right," Fairy smiled. "But she'll
+make it go, of course. And it will give Carol a chance to show her
+cleverness by telling her how to do it."
+
+So as soon as supper was over, Carol said decidedly, "Now, Connie,
+you'll have to help me with the dishes the next two weeks, for Lark's
+got to practise on that piece. Lark, you must read it over, very
+thoughtfully first to get the meaning. Then just read it and read it and
+read it, a dozen times, a hundred times, over and over and over. And
+pretty soon you'll know it."
+
+"I'll bet I don't," was the discouraging retort, as Lark, with
+pronounced distaste, took the slip of paper and sat down in the corner
+to read the "blooming thing," as she muttered crossly to herself.
+
+Connie and Carol did up the dishes in dreadful silence, and then Carol
+returned to the charge. "How many times did you read it?"
+
+"Fourteen and a half," was the patient answer. "It's a silly thing,
+Carol. There's no sense to it. 'The wind went drifting o'er the lea.'"
+
+"Oh, that's not so bad," Carol said helpfully. "I've had pieces with
+worse lines than that. 'The imprint of a dainty foot,' for instance.
+When you say, 'The wind went drifting o'er the lea,' you must kind of
+let your voice glide along, very rhythmically, very--"
+
+"Windily," suggested Connie, who remained to witness the exhibition.
+
+"You keep still, Constance Starr, or you can get out of here! It's no
+laughing matter I can tell you, and you have to keep out or I won't help
+and then--"
+
+"I'll keep still. But it ought to be windily you know, since it's the
+wind. I meant it for a joke," she informed them. The twins had a very
+disheartening way of failing to recognize Connie's jokes--it took the
+life out of them.
+
+"Now read it aloud, Lark, so I can see if you get the proper
+expression," Carol continued, when Connie was utterly subdued.
+
+Lark obediently but unhappily read the quaint poem aloud and Carol said
+it was very good. "You must read it aloud often, very often. That'll
+give you a better idea of the accent. Now put it away, and don't look at
+it again to-night. If you keep it up too long you'll get so dead sick of
+it you can't speak it at all."
+
+For two entire weeks, the twins were changed creatures. Lark read the
+"blooming piece" avidly, repeatedly and with bitter hate. Carol stood
+grimly by, listening intently, offering curt apt criticisms. Finally,
+Lark "knew it," and the rest of the time was spent in practising before
+the mirror,--to see if she kept her face pleasant.
+
+"For the face has a whole lot to do with it, my dear," said Carol
+sagely, "though the critics would never admit it."
+
+By the evening of the Sunday-school concert--they were concerting for
+the sake of a hundred-dollar subscription to church repairs--Lark had
+mastered her recitation so perfectly that the minds of the parsonage
+were nearly at peace. She still felt a deep resentment toward the
+situation, but this was partially counterbalanced by the satisfaction of
+seeing her name in print, directly beneath Carol's on the program.
+
+          "Recitation_______________Miss Carol Starr.
+           Recitation_______________Miss Lark Starr."
+
+It looked very well indeed, and the whole family took a proper interest
+in it. No one gave Carol's recitation a second thought. She always
+recited, and did it easily and well. It was quite a commonplace
+occurrence for her.
+
+On the night of the concert she superintended Lark's dressing with
+maternal care. "You look all right," she said, "just fine. Now don't get
+scared, Lark. It's so silly. Remember that you know all those people by
+heart, you can talk a blue streak to any of them. There's no use--"
+
+"But I can't talk a blue streak to the whole houseful at once," Lark
+protested. "It makes me have such a--hollow feeling--to see so many
+white faces gazing up, and it's hot, and--"
+
+"Stop that," came the stern command. "You don't want to get cold feet
+before you start. If you do accidentally forget once or twice, don't
+worry. I know the piece as well as you do, and I can prompt you from
+behind without any one noticing it. At first it made me awfully cross
+when they wanted us reciters to sit on the platform for every one to
+stare at. But now I'm glad of it. I'll be right beside you, and can
+prompt you without any trouble at all. But you won't forget." She kissed
+her. "You'll do fine, Larkie, just as fine as you look, and it couldn't
+be better than that."
+
+Just then Connie ran in. "Fairy wants to know if you are getting stage
+fright, Lark? My, you do look nice! Now, for goodness' sake, Lark,
+remember the parsonage, and don't make a fizzle of it."
+
+"Who says fizzle?" demanded their father from the doorway. "Never say
+die, my girl. Why, Lark, I never saw you look so sweet. You have your
+hair fixed a new way, haven't you?"
+
+"Carol did it," was the shy reply. "It does look nice, doesn't it? I'm
+not scared, father, not a bit--yet! But there's a hollow feeling--"
+
+"Get her an apple, Connie," said Carol. "It's because she didn't eat any
+supper. She's not scared."
+
+"I don't want an apple. Come on, let's go down. Have the boys come?"
+
+"No, but they'll be here in a minute. Jim's never late. I do get sore at
+Jim--I'd forty times rather go with him than Hartley--but he always puts
+off asking us until the last minute and then I have a date and you get
+him. I believe he does it on purpose. Come on down."
+
+Aunt Grace looked at the pale sweet face with gratified delight, and
+kissed her warmly. Her father walked around her, nodding approval.
+
+"You look like a dream," he said. "The wind a-drifting o'er the lea
+ne'er blew upon a fairer sight! You shall walk with me."
+
+"Oh, father, you can't remember that you're obsolete," laughed Fairy.
+"The twins have attained to the dignity of boys, and aren't satisfied
+with the fond but sober arm of father any more. Our little twins have
+dates to-night, as usual nowadays."
+
+"Aunt Grace," he said solemnly, "it's a wretched business, having a
+parsonage full of daughters. Just as soon as they reach the age of
+beauty, grace and charm, they turn their backs on their fathers and
+smile on fairer lads."
+
+"You've got me, father," said Connie consolingly.
+
+"And me,--when Babbie's in Chicago," added Fairy.
+
+"Yes, that's some help. Connie, be an old maid. Do! I implore you."
+
+"Oh, Connie's got a beau already," said Carol. "It's the fat Allen boy.
+They don't have dates yet, but they've got an awful case on. He's going
+to make their living by traveling with a show. You'll have to put up
+with auntie--she's beyond the beauing stage!"
+
+"Suits me," he said contentedly, "I am getting more than my deserts.
+Come on, Grace, we'll start."
+
+"So will we, Connie," said Fairy.
+
+But the boys came, both together, and the family group set out together.
+Carol and Hartley--one of her high-school admirers--led off by running a
+race down the parsonage walk. And Lark, old, worn and grave, brought up
+the rear with Jim Forrest. Jim was a favorite attendant of the twins. He
+had been graduated from high school the year previous, and was finishing
+off at the agricultural college in Ames. But Ames was not far from home,
+and he was still frequently on hand to squire the twins when squires
+were in demand. He was curiously generous and impartial in his
+attentions,--it was this which so endeared him to the twins. He made his
+dates by telephone, invariably. And the conversations might almost have
+been decreed by law.
+
+"May I speak to one of the twins?"
+
+The nearest twin was summoned, and then he asked:
+
+"Have you twins got dates for the ball game?"--or the party, or the
+concert.
+
+And the twin at the telephone would say, "Yes, we both have--hard luck,
+Jim." Or, "I have, but Carol hasn't." Sometimes it was, "No, we haven't,
+but we're just crazy to go." And in reply to the first Jim always
+answered, "That's a shame,--why didn't you remember me and hold off?"
+And to the second, "Well, ask her if I can come around for her." And to
+the third, "Good, let's all go together and have a celebration."
+
+For this broad-minded devotion the twins gave him a deep-seated
+gratitude and affection and he always stood high in their favor.
+
+On this occasion Carol had answered the telephone, and in reply to his
+query she answered crossly, "Oh, Jim, you stupid thing, why didn't you
+phone yesterday? I would so much rather go with you than--But never
+mind. I have a date, but Lark hasn't. And you just called in time, too,
+for Harvey Lane told Hartley he was going to ask for a date."
+
+And Jim had called back excitedly, "Bring her to the phone, quick; don't
+waste a minute." And Lark was called, and the date was duly scheduled.
+
+"Are you scared, Lark?" he asked her as they walked slowly down the
+street toward the church.
+
+"I'm not scared, Jim," she answered solemnly, "but I'm perfectly
+cavernous, if you know what that means."
+
+"I sure do know," he said fervently, "didn't I have to do a speech at
+the commencement exercises? There never was a completer cavern than I
+was that night. But I can't figure out why folks agree to do such things
+when they don't have to. I had to. It was compulsory."
+
+Lark gazed at him with limpid troubled eyes. "I can't figure out,
+either. I don't know why I did. It was a mistake, some way."
+
+At the church, which was gratifyingly crowded with Sunday-school
+enthusiasts, the twins forsook their friends and slipped along the side
+aisle to the "dressing-room,"--commonly utilized as the store room for
+worn-out song books, Bibles and lesson sheets. There they sat in
+throbbing, quivering silence with the rest of the "entertainers," until
+the first strains of the piano solo broke forth, when they walked
+sedately out and took their seats along the side of the platform--an
+antediluvian custom which has long been discarded by everything but
+Sunday-schools and graduating classes.
+
+Printed programs had been distributed, but the superintendent called off
+the numbers also. Not because it was necessary, but because
+superintendents have to do something on such occasions and that is the
+only way to prevent superfluous speech-making.
+
+The program went along smoothly, with no more stumbles than is customary
+at such affairs, and nicely punctuated with hand clappings. When the
+superintendent read, "Recitation--Miss Carol Starr," the applause was
+enthusiastic, for Carol was a prime favorite in church and school and
+town. With sweet and charming nonchalance she tripped to the front of
+the platform and gave a graceful inclination of her proud young head in
+response to the applause. Then her voice rang out, and the room was
+hushed. Nobody ever worried when Carol spoke a piece. Things always went
+all right. And back to her place she walked, her face flushed, her heart
+swelling high with the gratification of a good deed well done.
+
+She sat down by Lark, glad she had done it, glad it was over, and
+praying that Lark would come off as well.
+
+Lark was trembling.
+
+"Carol," she whispered, "I--I'm scared."
+
+Instantly the triumph left Carol's heart. "You're not," she whispered
+passionately, gripping her twin's hand closely, "you are not, you're all
+right."
+
+Lark trembled more violently. Her head swayed a little. Bright flashes
+of light were blinding her eyes, and her ears were ringing. "I--can't,"
+she muttered thickly. "I'm sick."
+
+Carol leaned close to her and began a violent train of conversation, for
+the purpose of distracting her attention. Lark grew more pale.
+
+"Recitation--Miss Lark Starr."
+
+Again the applause rang out.
+
+Lark did not move. "I can't," she whispered again. "I can't."
+
+"Lark, Lark," begged Carol desperately. "You must go, you must. 'The
+wind went drifting o'er the lea,'--it's easy enough. Go on, Lark. You
+must."
+
+Lark shook her head. "Mmmmm," she murmured indistinctly.
+
+"Remember the parsonage," begged Carol. "Think of Prudence. Think of
+papa. Look, there he is, right down there. He's expecting you, Lark. You
+must!"
+
+Lark tried to rise. She could not. She could not see her father's clear
+encouraging face for those queer flashes of light.
+
+"You can," whispered Carol. "You can do anything if you try. Prudence
+says so."
+
+People were craning their necks, and peering curiously up to the second
+row where the twins sat side by side. The other performers nudged one
+another, smiling significantly. The superintendent creaked heavily
+across the platform and beckoned with one plump finger.
+
+"I can't," Lark whispered, "I'm sick."
+
+"Lark,--Lark," called the superintendent.
+
+Carol sighed bitterly. Evidently it was up to her. With a grim face, she
+rose from her chair and started out on the platform. The superintendent
+stared at her, his lips parting. The people stared at her too, and
+smiled, and then laughed. Panic-stricken, her eyes sought her father's
+face. He nodded quickly, and his eyes approved.
+
+"Good!" His lips formed the word, and Carol did not falter again. The
+applause was nearly drowned with laughter as Carol advanced for her
+second recitation.
+
+"The wind went drifting o'er the lea," she began,--her voice drifting
+properly on the words,--and so on to the end of the piece.
+
+Most of the audience, knowing Lark's temperament, had concluded that
+fear prevented her appearance, and understood that Carol had come to her
+twin's rescue for the reputation of the parsonage. The applause was
+deafening as she went back. It grew louder as she sat down with a
+comforting little grin at Lark. Then as the clapping continued,
+something of her natural impishness entered her heart.
+
+"Lark," she whispered, "go out and make a bow."
+
+"Mercy!" gasped Lark. "I didn't do anything."
+
+"It was supposed to be you--go on, Lark! Hurry! You've got to! Think
+what a joke it will be."
+
+Lark hesitated, but Carol's dominance was compelling.
+
+"Do as I tell you," came the peremptory order, and Lark arose from her
+chair, stepped out before the astonished audience and made a slow and
+graceful bow.
+
+This time the applause ran riot, for people of less experience than
+those of Mount Mark could tell that the twins were playing a game. As it
+continued, Carol caught Larkin's hand in hers, and together they stepped
+out once more, laughing and bowing right and left.
+
+Lark was the last one in that night, for she and Jim celebrated her
+defeat with two ice-cream sodas a piece at the corner drug store.
+
+"I disgraced the parsonage," she said meekly, as she stepped into the
+family circle, waiting to receive her.
+
+"Indeed you didn't," said Fairy. "It was too bad, but Carol passed it
+off nicely, and then, turning it into a joke that way took all the
+embarrassment out of it. It was perfectly all right, and we weren't a
+bit ashamed."
+
+"And you did look awfully sweet when you made your bow," Connie said
+warmly,--for when a member of the family was down, no one ventured a
+laugh, laugh-loving though they were.
+
+Curious to say, the odd little freak of substitution only endeared the
+twins to the people of Mount Mark the more.
+
+"By ginger, you can't beat them bloomin' twins," said Harvey Reel,
+chuckling admiringly. And no one disagreed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+MAKING MATCHES
+
+
+Aunt Grace sat in a low rocker with a bit of embroidery in her hands.
+And Fairy sat at the table, a formidable array of books before her. Aunt
+Grace was gazing idly at her sewing basket, a soft smile on her lips.
+And Fairy was staring thoughtfully into the twilight, a soft glow in her
+eyes. Aunt Grace was thinking of the jolly parsonage family, and how
+pleasant it was to live with them. And Fairy was thinking--ah, Fairy was
+twenty, and twenty-year-olds always stare into the twilight, with dreamy
+far-seeing eyes.
+
+In upon this peaceful scene burst the twins, flushed, tempestuous, in
+spite of their seventeen years. Their hurry to speak had rendered them
+incapable of speech, so they stood in the doorway panting breathlessly
+for a moment, while Fairy and her aunt, withdrawn thus rudely from
+dreamland, looked at them interrogatively.
+
+"Yes, I think so, too," began Fairy, and the twins endeavored to crush
+her with their lofty scorn. But it is not easy to express lofty scorn
+when one is red in the face, perspirey and short of breath. So the twins
+decided of necessity to overlook the offense just this once.
+
+Finally, recovering their vocal powers simultaneously, they cried in
+unison:
+
+"Duckie!"
+
+"Duck! In the yard! Do you mean a live one? Where did it come from?"
+ejaculated their aunt.
+
+"They mean Professor Duck of their freshman year," explained Fairy
+complacently. "It's nothing. The twins always make a fuss over him. They
+feel grateful to him for showing them through freshman science--that's
+all."
+
+"That's all," gasped Carol. "Why, Fairy Starr, do you know he's employed
+by the--Society of--a--a Scientific Research Organization--or
+something--in New York City, and gets four thousand dollars a year and
+has prospects--all kinds of prospects!"
+
+"Yes, I know it. You haven't seen him, auntie. He's tall, and has
+wrinkles around his eyes, and a dictatorial nose, and steel gray eyes.
+He calls the twins song-birds, and they're so flattered they adore him.
+He sends them candy for Christmas. You know that Duckie they rave so
+much about. It's the very man. Is he here?"
+
+The twins stared at each other in blank exasperation for a full minute.
+They knew that Fairy didn't deserve to hear their news, but at the same
+time they did not deserve such bitter punishment as having to refrain
+from talking about it,--so they swallowed again, sadly, and ignored her.
+
+"He's in town," said Lark.
+
+"Going to stay a week," added Carol.
+
+"And he said he wanted to have lots of good times with us, and
+so--we--why, of course it was very sudden, and we didn't have time to
+ask--"
+
+"But parsonage doors are always open--"
+
+"And I don't know how he ever wormed it out of us, but--one of us--"
+
+"I can't remember which one!"
+
+"Invited him to come for dinner to-night, and he's coming."
+
+"Goodness," said Aunt Grace. "We were going to have potato soup and
+toast."
+
+"It'll keep," said Carol. "Of course we're sorry to inconvenience you at
+this late hour, but Larkie and I will tell Connie what to do, so you
+won't have much bother. Let's see, now, we must think up a pretty fair
+meal. Four thousand a year--and prospects!"
+
+Aunt Grace turned questioning eyes toward the older sister.
+
+"All right," said Fairy, smiling. "It's evidently settled. Think up your
+menu, twins, and put Connie to work."
+
+"Is he nice?" Aunt Grace queried.
+
+"Yes, I think he is. He used to go with our college bunch some. I know
+him pretty well. He brought me home from things a time or two."
+
+Carol leaned forward and looked at her handsome sister with sudden
+intentness. "He asked about you," she said, keen eyes on Fairy's. "He
+asked particularly about you."
+
+"Did he? Thanks. Yes, he's not bad. He's pretty good in a crowd."
+
+By the force of her magnetic gaze, Carol drew Lark out of the room, and
+the door closed behind them. A few minutes later they returned. There
+was about them an air of subdued excitement, suggestive of intrigue,
+that Fairy found disturbing.
+
+"You needn't plan any nonsense, twins," she cautioned. "He's no beau of
+mine."
+
+"Of course not," they assured her pleasantly. "We're too old for
+mischief. Seventeen, and sensible for our years! Say, Fairy, you'll be
+nice to Duckie, won't you? We're too young really to entertain him, and
+he's so nice we want him to have a good time. Can't you try to make it
+pleasant for him this week? He'll only be here a few days. Will you do
+that much for us?"
+
+"Why, I would, twins, of course, to oblige you, but you know Gene's in
+town this week, and I've got to--"
+
+"Oh, you leave Babbie--Gene, I mean--to us," said Carol airily. Fairy
+being a junior in college, and Eugene Babler a student of pharmacy in
+Chicago, she felt obliged to restore him to his Christian name,
+shortened to Gene. But the twins refused to accede to this propriety,
+except when they particularly wished to placate Fairy.
+
+"You leave Gene to us," repeated Carol. "We'll amuse him. Is he coming
+to-night?"
+
+"Yes, at seven-thirty."
+
+"Let's call him up and invite him for dinner, too," suggested Lark. "And
+you'll do us a favor and be nice to Duckie, won't you? We'll keep
+Babb--er, Gene--out of the road. You phone to Gene, Carol, and--"
+
+"I'll do my own phoning, thanks," said Fairy, rising quickly. "Yes,
+we'll have them both. And just as a favor to you, twins, I will help
+amuse your professor. You'll be good, and help, won't you?"
+
+The twins glowed at Fairy with a warmth that seemed almost triumphant.
+She stopped and looked at them doubtfully. When she returned after
+telephoning, they were gone, and she said to her aunt:
+
+"I'm not superstitious, but when the twins act like that, there's
+usually a cloud in the parsonage sky-light. Prudence says so."
+
+But the twins comported themselves most decorously. All during the week
+they worked like kitchen slaveys, doing chores, running errands. And
+they treated Fairy with a gentle consideration which almost drew tears
+to her eyes, though she still remembered Prudence's cloud in the
+parsonage sky-light!
+
+They certainly interfered with her own plans. They engineered her off on
+to their beloved professor at every conceivable turn. And Gene, who
+nearly haunted the house, had a savage gleam in his eyes quite out of
+accord with his usual chatty good humor. Fairy knew she was being
+adroitly managed, but she had promised to help the twins with "Duckie."
+At first she tried artistically and unobtrusively to free herself from
+the complication in which her sisters had involved her. But the twins
+were both persistent and clever, and Fairy found herself no match for
+them when it came right down to business. She had no idea of their
+purpose,--she only knew that she and Gene were always on opposite sides
+of the room, the young man grinning savagely at the twins' merry
+prattle, and she and the professor trying to keep quiet enough to hear
+every word from the other corner. And if they walked, Gene was dragged
+off by the firm slender fingers of the friendly twins, and Fairy and the
+professor walked drearily along in the rear, talking inanely about the
+weather,--and wondering what the twins were talking about.
+
+And the week passed. Gene finally fell off in his attendance, and the
+twins took a much needed rest. On Friday afternoon they flattered
+themselves that all was well. Gene was not coming, Fairy was in the
+hammock waiting for the professor. So the twins hugged each other
+gleefully and went to the haymow to discuss the strain and struggle of
+the week. And then--
+
+"Why, the big mutt!" cried Carol, in her annoyance ignoring the
+Methodist grammatical boundaries, "here comes that bubbling Babler this
+minute. And he said he was going to New London for the day. Now we'll
+have to chase down there and shoo him off before Duckie comes." The
+twins, growling and grumbling, gathered themselves up and started. But
+they started too reluctantly, too leisurely. They were not in time.
+
+Fairy sat up in the hammock with a cry of surprise, but not vexation,
+when Gene's angry countenance appeared before her.
+
+"Look here, Fairy," he began, "what's the joke? Are your fingers itching
+to get hold of that four thousand a year the twins are eternally
+bragging about? Are you trying to throw yourself into the old
+school-teacher's pocketbook, or what?"
+
+"Don't be silly, Gene," she said, "come and sit down and--"
+
+"Sit down, your grandmother!" he snapped still angrily. "Old Double D.
+D. will be bobbing up in a minute, and the twins'll drag me off to hear
+about a sick rooster, or something. He is coming, isn't he?"
+
+"I--guess he is," she said confusedly.
+
+"Let's cut and run, will you?" he suggested hopefully. "We can be out of
+sight before--Come on, Fairy, be good to me. I haven't had a glimpse or
+a touch of you the whole week. What do you reckon I came down here for?
+Come on. Let's beat it." He looked around with a worried air. "Hurry, or
+the twins'll get us."
+
+Fairy hesitated, and was lost. Gene grabbed her hand, and the next
+instant, laughing, they were crawling under the fence at the south
+corner of the parsonage lawn just as the twins appeared at the barn
+door. They stopped. They gasped. They stared at each other in dismay.
+
+"It was a put-up job," declared Carol.
+
+"Now what'll we do? But Babbie's got more sense than I thought he had,
+I must confess. Do you suppose he was kidnaping her?"
+
+Carol snorted derisively. "Kidnaping nothing! She was ahead when I saw
+'em. What'll we tell the professor?"
+
+Two humbled gentle twins greeted the professor some fifteen minutes
+later.
+
+"We're so sorry," Carol explained faintly. "Babbie came and he and
+Fairy--I guess they had an errand somewhere. We think they'll be back
+very soon. Fairy will be so sorry."
+
+The professor smiled and looked quite bright.
+
+"Are they gone?"
+
+"Yes, but we're sure they'll be back,--that is, we're almost sure."
+Carol, remembering the mode of their departure, felt far less assurance
+on that point than she could have wished.
+
+"Well, that's too bad," he said cheerfully. "But my loss is Babler's
+gain. I suppose we ought in Christian decency to give him the afternoon.
+Let's go out to the creek for a stroll ourselves, shall we? That'll
+leave him a clear field when they return. You think they'll be back
+soon, do you?"
+
+He looked down the road hopefully, but whether hopeful they would
+return, or wouldn't, the twins could not have told. At any rate, he
+seemed quite impatient until they were ready to start, and then, very
+gaily, the three wended their way out the pretty country road toward the
+creek and Blackbird Lane. They had a good time, the twins always did
+insist that no one on earth was quite so entertaining as dear old
+Duckie, but in her heart Carol registered a solemn vow to have it out
+with Fairy when she got back. She had no opportunity that night. Fairy
+and Gene telephoned that they would not be home for dinner, and the
+professor had gone, and the twins were sleeping soundly, when Fairy
+crept softly up the stairs.
+
+But Carol did not forget her vow. Early the next morning she stalked
+grimly into Fairy's room, where Fairy was conscientiously bringing order
+out of the chaos in her bureau drawers, a thing Fairy always did after a
+perfectly happy day. Carol knew that, and it was with genuine reproach
+in her voice that she spoke at last, after standing for some two minutes
+watching Fairy as she deftly twirled long ribbons about her fingers and
+then laid them in methodical piles in separate corners of the drawers.
+
+"Fairy," she said sadly, "you don't seem very appreciative some way.
+Here Larkie and I have tried so hard to give you a genuine
+opportunity--we've worked and schemed and kept ourselves in the
+background, and that's the way you serve us! It's disappointing. It's
+downright disheartening."
+
+Fairy folded a blue veil and laid it on top of a white one. Then she
+turned. "Yes. What?" She inquired coolly.
+
+"There are so few real chances for a woman in Mount Mark, and we felt
+that this was once in a lifetime. And you know how hard we worked. And
+then, when we relaxed our--our vigilance--just for a moment, you spoiled
+it all by--"
+
+"Yes,--talk English, Carrie. What was it you tried to do for me?"
+
+"Well, if you want plain English you can have it," said Carol heatedly.
+"You know what professor is, a swell position like his, and such
+prospects, and New York City, and four thousand a year with a raise for
+next year, and we tried to give you a good fair chance to land him
+squarely, and--"
+
+"To land him--"
+
+"To get him, then! He hasn't any girl. You could have been engaged to
+him this minute--Professor David Arnold Duke--if you had wanted to."
+
+"Oh, is that it?"
+
+"Yes, that's it."
+
+Fairy smiled. "Thank you, dear, it was sweet of you, but you're too
+late. I am engaged."
+
+Carol's lips parted, closed, parted again. "You--you?"
+
+"Exactly so."
+
+Hope flashed into Carol's eyes. Fairy saw it, and answered swiftly.
+
+"Certainly not. I'm not crazy about your little Prof. I am engaged to
+Eugene Babler." She said it with pride, not unmixed with defiance,
+knowing as she did that the twins considered Gene too undignified for a
+parsonage son-in-law. The twins were strong for parsonage dignity!
+
+"You--are?"
+
+"I am."
+
+A long instant Carol stared at her. Then she turned toward the door.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going to tell papa."
+
+Fairy laughed. "Papa knows it."
+
+Carol came slowly back and stood by the dresser again. After a short
+silence she moved away once more.
+
+"Where now?"
+
+"I'll tell Aunt Grace, then."
+
+"Aunt Grace knows it, too."
+
+"Does Prudence know it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Carol swallowed this bitter pill in silence.
+
+"How long?" she inquired at last.
+
+"About a year. Look here, Carol, I'll show you something. Really I'm
+glad you know about it. We're pretty young, and papa thought we ought to
+keep it dark a while to make sure. That's why we didn't tell you. Look
+at this." From her cedar chest--a Christmas gift from Gene--she drew out
+a small velvet jeweler's box, and displayed before the admiring eyes of
+Carol a plain gold ring with a modest diamond.
+
+Carol kissed it. Then she kissed Fairy twice.
+
+"I know you'll be awfully happy, Fairy," she said soberly. "And I'm glad
+of it. But--I can't honestly believe there's any man good enough for our
+girls. Babbie's nice, and dear, and all that, and he's so crazy about
+you, and--do you love him?" Her eyes were wide, rather wondering, as she
+put this question softly.
+
+Fairy put her arm about her sister's shoulders, and her fine steady eyes
+met Carol's clearly.
+
+"Yes," she said frankly, "I love him--with all my heart."
+
+"Is that what makes you so--so shiny, and smiley, and starry all the
+time?"
+
+"I guess it is. It is the most wonderful thing in the world, Carol. You
+can't even imagine it--beforehand. It is magical, it is heavenly."
+
+"Yes, I suppose it is. Prudence says so, too. I can't imagine it, I kind
+of wish I could. Can't I go and tell Connie and Lark? I want to tell
+somebody!"
+
+"Yes, tell them. We decided not to let you know just yet, but
+since--yes, tell them, and bring them up to see it."
+
+Carol kissed her again, and went out, gently closing the door behind
+her. In the hallway she stopped and stared at the wall for an unseeing
+moment. Then she clenched and shook a stern white fist at the door.
+
+"I don't care," she muttered, "they're not good enough for Prudence and
+Fairy! They're not! I just believe I despise men, all of 'em, unless
+it's daddy and Duck!" She smiled a little and then looked grim once
+more. "Eugene Babler, and a little queen like Fairy! I think that must
+be Heaven's notion of a joke." She sighed again. "Oh, well, it's
+something to have something to tell! I'm glad I found it out ahead of
+Lark!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+LARK'S LITERARY VENTURE
+
+
+As commencement drew near, and Fairy began planning momentous things for
+her graduation, a little soberness came into the parsonage life. The
+girls were certainly growing up. Prudence had been married a long, long
+time. Fairy was being graduated from college, her school-days were over,
+and life was just across the threshold--its big black door just slightly
+ajar waiting for her to press it back and catch a glimpse of what lay
+beyond, yes, there was a rosy tinge showing faintly through like the
+light of the early sun shining through the night-fog, but the door was
+only a little ajar! And Fairy was nearly ready to step through. It
+disturbed the parsonage family a great deal.
+
+Even the twins were getting along. They were finishing high school, and
+beginning to prate of college and such things, but the twins were
+still, well, they were growing up, perhaps, but they kept jubilantly
+young along in the process, and their enthusiasm for diplomas and
+ice-cream sodas was so nearly identical that one couldn't feel seriously
+that the twins were tugging at their leashes.
+
+And Connie was a freshman herself,--rather tall, a little awkward, with
+a sober earnest face, and with an incongruously humorous droop to the
+corners of her lips, and in the sparkle of her eyes.
+
+Mr. Starr looked at them and sighed. "I tell you, Grace, it's a
+thankless job, rearing a family. Connie told me to-day that my collars
+should have straight edges now instead of turned-back corners. And Lark
+reminded me that I got my points mixed up in last Sunday's lesson. I'm
+getting sick of this family business, I'm about ready to--"
+
+And just then, as a clear "Father" came floating down the stairway, he
+turned his head alertly. "What do you want?"
+
+"Everybody's out," came Carol's plaintive voice. "Will you come and
+button me up? I can't ask auntie to run clear up here, and I can't come
+down because I'm in my stocking feet. My new slippers pinch so I don't
+put them on until I have to. Oh, thanks, father, you're a dear."
+
+After the excitement of the commencement, the commotion, the glamour,
+the gaiety, ordinary parsonage life seemed smooth and pleasant, and for
+ten days there was not a ruffle on the surface of their domestic waters.
+It was on the tenth day that the twins, strolling down Main Street,
+conversing earnestly together as was their custom, were accosted by a
+nicely-rounded, pompous man with a cordial, "Hello, twins."
+
+In an instant they were bright with smiles, for this was Mr. Raider,
+editor and owner of the _Daily News_, the biggest and most popular of
+Mount Mark's three daily papers. Looking forward, as they did, to a
+literary career for Lark, they never failed to show a touching and
+unnatural deference to any one connected, even ever so remotely, with
+that profession. Indeed, Carol, with the charm of her smile, had
+bewitched the small carriers to the last lad, and in reply to her
+sister's teasing, only answered stoutly, "That's all right,--you don't
+know what they may turn into one of these days. We've got to look ahead
+to Lark's Literary Career."
+
+So when humble carriers, and some of them black at that, received such
+sweet attention, one can well imagine what the nicely rounded, pompous
+editor himself called forth.
+
+They did not resent his nicely-rounded and therefore pointless jokes.
+They smiled at them. They did not call the _Daily News_ the "Raider
+Family Organ," as they yearned to do. They did not admit that they urged
+their father to put Mr. Raider on all church committees to insure
+publicity. They swallowed hard, and told themselves that, after all, Mr.
+Raider was an editor, and perhaps he couldn't help editing his own
+family to the exclusion of the rest of Mount Mark.
+
+When, on this occasion, he looked Lark up and down with his usual rotund
+complacency, Carol only gritted her teeth and reminded her heaving soul
+that he was an editor.
+
+"What are you going to do this summer, Lark?" he asked, without
+preamble.
+
+"Why,--just nothing, I suppose. As usual."
+
+"Well," he said, frowning plumply, "we're running short of men. I've
+heard you're interested in our line, and I thought maybe you could help
+us out during vacation. How about it? The work'll be easy and it'll be
+fine experience for you. We'll pay you five dollars a week. This is a
+little town, and we're called a little publication, but our work and our
+aim and methods are identical with those of the big city papers." He
+swelled visibly, almost alarmingly. "How about it? You're the one with
+the literary longings, aren't you?"
+
+Lark was utterly speechless. If the National Bank had opened its coffers
+to the always hard-pressed twins, she could not have been more
+completely confounded. Carol was in a condition nearly as serious, but
+grasping the gravity of the situation, she rushed into the breach
+headlong.
+
+"Yes,--yes," she gasped. "She's literary. Oh, she's very literary."
+
+Mr. Raider smiled. "Well, would you like to try your hand out with me?"
+
+Again Carol sprang to her sister's relief.
+
+"Yes, indeed, she would," she cried. "Yes, indeed." And then, determined
+to impress upon him that the _Daily News_ was the one to profit chiefly
+from the innovation, she added, "And it's a lucky day for the _Daily
+News_, too, I tell you. There aren't many Larks in Mount Mark, in a
+literary way, I mean, and--the _Daily News_ needs some--that is, I
+think--new blood,--anyhow, Lark will be just fine."
+
+"All right. Come in, Monday morning at eight, Lark, and I'll set you to
+work. It won't be anything very important. You can write up the church
+news, and parties, and goings away, and things like that. It'll be good
+training. You can study our papers between now and then, to catch our
+style."
+
+Carol lifted her head a little higher. If Mr. Raider thought her
+talented twin would be confined to the ordinary style of the _Daily
+News_, which Carol considered atrociously lacking in any style at all,
+he would be most gloriously mistaken, that's certain!
+
+It is a significant fact that after Mr. Raider went back into the
+sanctum of the _Daily News_, the twins walked along for one full block
+without speaking. Such a thing had never happened before in all the
+years of their twinship. At the end of the block, Carol turned her head
+restlessly. They were eight blocks from home. But the twins couldn't run
+on the street, it was so undignified. She looked longingly about for a
+buggy bound their way. Even a grocery cart would have been a welcome
+though humbling conveyance.
+
+Lark's starry eyes were lifted to the skies, and her rapt face was
+glowing. Carol looked behind her, looked ahead. Then she thought again
+of the eight blocks.
+
+"Lark," she said, "I'm afraid we'll be late for dinner. And auntie told
+us to hurry back. Maybe we'd better run."
+
+Running is a good expression for emotion, and Lark promptly struck out
+at a pace that did full credit to her lithe young limbs. Down the street
+they raced, little tendrils of hair flying about their flushed and
+shining faces, faster, faster, breathless, panting, their gladness
+fairly overflowing. And many people turned to look, wondering what in
+the world possessed the leisurely, dignified parsonage twins.
+
+The last block was traversed at a really alarming rate. The passion for
+"telling things" had seized them both, and they whirled around the
+corner and across the lawn at a rate that brought Connie out into the
+yard to meet them, with a childish, "What's the matter? What happened?
+Did something bite you?"
+
+Aunt Grace sat up in her hammock to look, Fairy ran out to the porch,
+and Mr. Starr laid down his book. Had the long and dearly desired war
+been declared at last?
+
+But when the twins reached the porch, they paused sheepishly, shyly.
+
+"What's the matter?" chorused the family.
+
+"Are--are we late for dinner?" Carol demanded earnestly, as though their
+lives depended on the answer.
+
+The family stared in concerted amazement. When before this had the twins
+shown anxiety about their lateness for meals--unless a favorite dessert
+or salad was all consumed in their absence. And it was only half past
+four!
+
+Carol gently shoved Connie off the cushion upon which she had dropped,
+and arranged it tenderly in a chair.
+
+"Sit down and rest, Larkie," she said in a soft and loving voice. "Are
+you nearly tired to death?"
+
+Lark sank, panting, into the chair, and gazed about the circle with
+brilliant eyes.
+
+"Get her a drink, can't you, Connie?" said Carol indignantly. "Can't you
+see the poor thing is just tired to death? She ran the whole way home!"
+
+Still the family stared. The twins' devotion to each other was never
+failing, but this attentiveness on the part of Carol was extremely odd.
+Now she sat down on the step beside her sister, and gazed up into the
+flushed face with adoring, but somewhat patronizing, pride. After all,
+she had had a whole lot to do with training Larkie!
+
+"What in the world?" began their father curiously.
+
+"Had a sunstroke?" queried Fairy, smiling.
+
+"You're both crazy," declared Connie, coming back with the water.
+"You're trying to fool us. I won't ask any questions. You don't catch me
+this time."
+
+"Why don't you lie down and let Lark use you for a footstool, Carol?"
+suggested their father, with twinkling eyes.
+
+"I would if she wanted a footstool," said Carol positively. "I'd love to
+do it. I'd be proud to do it. I'd consider it an honor."
+
+Lark blushed and lowered her eyes modestly.
+
+"What happened?" urged their father, still more curiously.
+
+"Did she get you out of a scrape?" mocked Fairy.
+
+"Oh, just let 'em alone," said Connie. "They think it's smart to be
+mysterious. Nothing happened at all. That's what they call being funny."
+
+"Tell it, Lark." Carol's voice was so intense that it impressed even
+skeptical Connie and derisive Fairy.
+
+Lark raised the glowing eyes once more, leaned forward and said
+thrillingly:
+
+"It's the Literary Career."
+
+The silence that followed this bold announcement was sufficiently
+dramatic to satisfy even Carol, and she patted Lark's knee approvingly.
+
+"Well, go on," urged Connie, at last, when the twins continued silent.
+
+"That's all."
+
+"She's going to run the _Daily News_."
+
+"Oh, I'll only be a cub reporter, I guess that's what you call them."
+
+"Reporter nothing," contradicted Carol. "There's nothing literary about
+that. You must take the whole paper in hand, and color it up a bit. And
+for goodness' sake, polish up Mr. Raider's editorials. I could write
+editorials like his myself."
+
+"And you might tone down the family notes for him," suggested Fairy. "We
+don't really care to know when Mrs. Kelly borrows eggs of the editor's
+wife and how many dolls Betty got for Christmas and Jack's grades in
+high school. We can get along without those personal touches."
+
+"Maybe you can give us a little church write-up now and then, without
+necessitating Mr. Raider as chairman of every committee," interposed
+their father, and then retracted quickly. "I was only joking, of course,
+I didn't mean--"
+
+"No, of course, you didn't, father," said Carol kindly. "We'll consider
+that you didn't say it. But just bear it in mind, Larkie."
+
+Fairy solemnly rose and crossed the porch, and with a hand on Lark's
+shoulder gave her a solemn shake. "Now, Lark Starr, you begin at the
+beginning and tell us. Do you think we're all wooden Indians? We can't
+wait until you make a newspaper out of the _Daily News_! We want to
+know. Talk."
+
+Thus adjured, Lark did talk, and the little story with many striking
+embellishments from Carol was given into the hearing of the family.
+
+"Five dollars a week," echoed Connie faintly.
+
+"Of course, I'll divide that with Carol," was the generous offer.
+
+"No, I won't have it. I haven't any literary brains, and I can't take
+any of your salary. Thanks just the same." Then she added happily: "But
+I know you'll be very generous when I need to borrow, and I do borrow
+pretty often, Larkie."
+
+For the rest of the week Lark's literary career was the one topic of
+conversation in the Starr family. The _Daily News_ became a sort of
+literary center piece, and the whole parsonage revolved enthusiastically
+around it. Lark's clothes were put in the most immaculate condition, and
+her wardrobe greatly enriched by donations pressed upon her by her
+admiring sisters. Every evening the younger girls watched impatiently
+for the carrier of the _Daily News_, and then rushed to meet him. The
+paper was read with avid interest, criticized, commended. They all
+admitted that Lark would be an acquisition to the editorial force,
+indeed, one sorely needed. They begged her to give Mount Mark the news
+while it was news, without waiting to find what the other Republican
+papers of the state thought about it. Why, the instructions and sisterly
+advice and editorial improvements poured into the ears of patient Lark
+would have made an archangel giddy with confusion!
+
+During those days, Carol followed Lark about with a hungry devotion that
+would have been observed by her sister on a less momentous occasion. But
+now she was so full of the darling Career that she overlooked the once
+most-darling Carol. On Monday morning, Carol did not remain up-stairs
+with Lark as she donned her most businesslike dress for her initiation
+into the world of literature. Instead, she sulked grouchily in the
+dining-room, and when Lark, radiant, star-eyed, danced into the room for
+the family's approval, she almost glowered upon her.
+
+"Am I all right? Do I look literary? Oh, oh," gurgled Lark, with music
+in her voice.
+
+Carol sniffed.
+
+"Oh, isn't it a glorious morning?" sang Lark again. "Isn't everything
+wonderful, father?"
+
+"Lark Starr," cried Carol passionately, "I should think you'd be
+ashamed of yourself. It's bad enough to turn your back on your--your
+life-long twin, and raise barriers between us, but for you to be so
+wildly happy about it is--perfectly wicked."
+
+Lark wheeled about abruptly and stared at her sister, the fire slowly
+dying out of her eyes.
+
+"Why, Carol," she began slowly, in a low voice, without music.
+
+"Oh, that's all right. You needn't try to talk me over. A body'd think
+there was nothing in the world but ugly old newspapers. I don't like
+'em, anyhow. I think they're downright nosey! And we'll never be the
+same any more, Larkie, and you're the only twin I've got, and--"
+
+Carol's defiance ended in a poorly suppressed sob and a rush of tears.
+
+Lark threw her gloves on the table.
+
+"I won't go at all," she said. "I won't go a step. If--if you think for
+a minute, Carol, that any silly old Career is going to be any dearer to
+me than you are, and if we aren't going to be just as we've always been,
+I won't go a step."
+
+Carol wiped her eyes. "Well," she said very affectionately, "if you feel
+like that, it's all right. I just wanted you to say you liked me better
+than anything else. Of course you must go, Lark. I really take all the
+credit for you and your talent to myself, and it's as much an honor for
+me as it is for you, and I want you to go. But don't you ever go to
+liking the crazy old stories any better than you do me."
+
+Then she picked up Lark's gloves, and the two went out with an arm
+around each other's waist.
+
+It was a dreary morning for Carol, but none of her sisters knew that
+most of it was spent in the closet of her room, sobbing bitterly. "It's
+just the way of the world," she mourned, in the tone of one who has
+lived many years and suffered untold anguish, "we spend our lives
+bringing them up, and loving them, and finding all our joy and happiness
+in them, and then they go, and we are left alone."
+
+Lark's morning at the office was quiet, but none the less thrilling on
+that account. Mr. Raider received her cordially, and with a great deal
+of unctuous fatherly advice. He took her into his office, which was one
+corner of the press room glassed in by itself, and talked over her
+duties, which, as far as Lark could gather from his discourse, appeared
+to consist in doing as she was told.
+
+"Now, remember," he said, in part, "that running a newspaper is
+business. Pure business. We've got to give folks what they want to hear,
+and they want to hear everything that happens. Of course, it will hurt
+some people, it is not pleasant to have private affairs aired in public
+papers, but that's the newspaper job. Folks want to hear about the
+private affairs of other folks. They pay us to find out, and tell them,
+and it's our duty to do it. So don't ever be squeamish about coming
+right out blunt with the plain facts; that's what we are paid for."
+
+This did not seriously impress Lark. Theoretically, she realized that he
+was right. And he talked so impressively of THE PRESS, and its mission
+in the world, and its rights and its pride and its power, that Lark,
+looking away with hope-filled eyes, saw a high and mighty figure,
+immense, all-powerful, standing free, majestic, beckoning her to come.
+It was her first view of the world's PRESS.
+
+But on the fourth morning, when she entered the office, Mr. Raider met
+her with more excitement in his manner than she had ever seen before.
+As a rule, excitement does not sit well on nicely-rounded, pink-skinned
+men.
+
+"Lark," he began hurriedly, "do you know the Dalys? On Elm Street?"
+
+"Yes, they are members of our church. I know them."
+
+He leaned forward. "Big piece of news down that way. This morning at
+breakfast, Daly shot his daughter Maisie and the little boy. They are
+both dead. Daly got away, and we can't get at the bottom of it. The
+family is shut off alone, and won't see any one."
+
+Lark's face had gone white, and she clasped her slender hands together,
+swaying, quivering, bright lights before her eyes.
+
+"Oh, oh!" she murmured brokenly. "Oh, how awful!"
+
+Mr. Raider did not observe the white horror in Lark's face. "Yes, isn't
+it?" he said. "I want you to go right down there."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Lark, though she shivered at the thought. "Of
+course, I will." Lark was a minister's daughter. If people were in
+trouble, she must go, of course. "Isn't it--awful? I never knew
+of--such a thing--before. Maisie was in my class at school. I never
+liked her very well. I'm so sorry I didn't,--oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, I'll
+go right away. You'd better call papa up and tell him to come, too."
+
+"I will, but you run along. Being the minister's daughter, they'll let
+you right up. They'll tell you all about it, of course. Don't talk to
+any one on the way back. Come right to the office. Don't stay any longer
+than you can help, but get everything they will say about it,
+and--er--comfort them as much as you can."
+
+"Yes,--yes." Lark's face was frightened, but firm. "I--I've never gone
+to the houses much when--there was trouble. Prudence and Fairy have
+always done that. But of course it's right, and I'm going. Oh, I do wish
+I had been fonder of Maisie. I'll go right away."
+
+And she hurried away, still quivering, a cold chill upon her. Three
+hours later she returned to the office, her eyes dark circled, and red
+with weeping. Mr. Raider met her at the door.
+
+"Did you see them?"
+
+"Yes," she said in a low voice. "They--they took me up-stairs, and--"
+She paused pitifully, the memory strong upon her, for the woman, the
+mother of five children, two of whom had been struck down, had lain in
+Lark's strong tender arms, and sobbed out the ugly story.
+
+"Did they tell you all about it?"
+
+"Yes, they told me. They told me."
+
+"Come on into my office," he said. "You must write it up while it is
+fresh in your mind. You'll do it better while the feeling is on you."
+
+Lark gazed at him stupidly, not comprehending.
+
+"Write it up?" she repeated confusedly.
+
+"Yes, for the paper. How they looked, what they said, how it
+happened,--everything. We want to scoop on it."
+
+"But I don't think they--would want it told," Lark gasped.
+
+"Oh, probably not, but people want to know about it. Don't you remember
+what I told you? The PRESS is a powerful task master. He asks hard
+duties of us, but we must obey. We've got to give the people what they
+want. There's a reporter down from Burlington already, but he couldn't
+get anything out of them. We've got a clear scoop on it."
+
+Lark glanced fearfully over her shoulder. A huge menacing shadow lowered
+black behind her. THE PRESS! She shuddered again.
+
+"I can't write it up," she faltered. "Mrs. Daly--she--Oh, I held her in
+my arms, Mr. Raider, and kissed her, and we cried all morning, and I
+can't write it up. I--I am the minister's daughter, you know. I can't."
+
+"Nonsense, now, Lark," he said, "be sensible. You needn't give all the
+sob part. I'll touch it up for you. Just write out what you saw, and
+what they said, and I'll do the rest. Run along now. Be sensible."
+
+Lark glanced over her shoulder again. The PRESS seemed tremendously big,
+leering at her, threatening her. Lark gasped, sobbingly.
+
+Then she sat down at Mr. Raider's desk, and drew a pad of paper toward
+her. For five minutes she sat immovable, body tense, face stern,
+breathless, rigid. Mr. Raider after one curious, satisfied glance,
+slipped out and closed the door softly after him. He felt he could trust
+to the newspaper instinct to get that story out of her.
+
+Finally Lark, despairingly, clutched a pencil and wrote
+
+          "Terrible Tragedy of the Early Morning.
+              Daly Family Crushed with Sorrow."
+
+Her mind passed rapidly back over the story she had heard, the father's
+occasional wild bursts of temper, the pitiful efforts of the family to
+keep his weakness hidden, the insignificant altercation at the breakfast
+table, the cry of the startled baby, and then the sudden ungovernable
+fury that lashed him, the two children--! Lark shuddered! She glanced
+over her shoulder again. The fearful dark shadow was very close, very
+terrible, ready to envelope her in its smothering depths. She sprang to
+her feet and rushed out of the office. Mr. Raider was in the doorway.
+She flung herself upon him, crushing the paper in his hand.
+
+"I can't," she cried, looking in terror over her shoulder as she spoke,
+"I can't. I don't want to be a newspaper woman. I don't want any
+literary career. I am a minister's daughter, Mr. Raider, I can't talk
+about people's troubles. I want to go home."
+
+Mr. Raider looked searchingly into the white face, and noted the
+frightened eyes. "There now," he said soothingly, "never mind the Daly
+story. I'll cover it myself. I guess it was too hard an assignment to
+begin with, and you a friend of the family, and all. Let it go. You stay
+at home this afternoon. Come back to-morrow and I'll start you again.
+Maybe I was too hard on you to-day."
+
+"I don't want to," she cried, looking back at the shadow, which seemed
+somehow to have receded a little. "I don't want to be a newspaper woman.
+I think I'll be the other kind of writer,--not newspapers, you know,
+just plain writing. I'm sure I shall like it better. I wasn't cut out
+for this line, I know. I want to go now."
+
+"Run along," he said. "I'll see you later on. You go to bed. You're
+nearly sick."
+
+Dignity? Lark did not remember that she had ever dreamed of dignity. She
+just started for home, for her father, Aunt Grace and the girls! The
+shabby old parsonage seemed suddenly very bright, very sunny, very
+safe. The dreadful dark shadow was not pressing so close to her
+shoulders, did not feel so smotheringly near.
+
+A startled group sprang up from the porch to greet her. She flung one
+arm around Carol's shoulder, and drew her twin with her close to her
+aunt's side. "I don't want to be a newspaper woman," she cried, in a
+high excited voice. "I don't like it. I am awfully afraid of--THE
+PRESS--" She looked over her shoulder. The shadow was fading away in the
+distance. "I couldn't do it. I--" And then, crouching, with Carol, close
+against her aunt's side, clutching one of the soft hands in her own, she
+told the story.
+
+"I couldn't, Fairy," she declared, looking beseechingly into the strong
+kind face of her sister. "I--couldn't. Mrs. Daly--sobbed so, and her
+hands were so brown and hard, Fairy, she kept rubbing my shoulder, and
+saying, 'Oh, Lark, oh, Lark, my little children.' I couldn't. I don't
+like newspapers, Fairy. Really, I don't."
+
+Fairy looked greatly troubled. "I wish father were at home," she said
+very quietly. "Mr. Raider meant all right, of course, but it was wrong
+to send a young girl like you. Father is there now. It's very terrible.
+You did just exactly right, Larkie. Father will say so. I guess maybe
+it's not the job for a minister's girl. Of course, the story will come
+out, but we're not the ones to tell it."
+
+"But--the Career," suggested Carol.
+
+"Why," said Lark, "I'll wait a little and then have a real literary
+career, you know, stories, and books, and poems, the kind that don't
+harrow people's feelings. I really don't think it is right. Don't you
+remember Prudence says the parsonage is a place to hide sorrows, not to
+hang them on the clothesline for every one to see." She looked for a
+last time over her shoulder. Dimly she saw a small dark cloud,--all that
+was left of the shadow which had seemed so eager to devour her. Her arms
+clasped Carol with renewed intensity.
+
+"Oh," she breathed, "oh, isn't the parsonage lovely, Carol? I wish
+father would come. You all look so sweet, and kind, and--oh, I love to
+be at home."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A CLEAR CALL
+
+
+The tinkle of the telephone disturbed the family as they were at dinner,
+and Connie, who sat nearest, rose to answer the summons, while Carol, at
+her corner of the table struck a tragic attitude.
+
+"If Joe Graves has broken anything, he's broken our friendship for good
+and all. These fellows that break themselves--"
+
+"Break themselves?" asked her father gravely.
+
+"Yes,--any of his members, you know, his leg, or his arm, or,--If he
+has, I must say frankly that I hope it is his neck. These boys that
+break themselves at the last minute, thereby breaking dates, are--"
+
+"Well," Connie said calmly, "if you're through, I'll begin."
+
+"Oh, goodness, Connie, deafen one ear and listen with the other. You've
+got to learn to hear in a hubbub. Go on then, I'm through. But I haven't
+forgotten that I missed the Thanksgiving banquet last year because Phil
+broke his ankle that very afternoon on the ice. What business had he on
+the ice when he had a date--"
+
+"Ready?" asked Connie, as the phone rang again, insistently.
+
+"Go on, then. Don't wait until I get started. Answer it."
+
+Connie removed the receiver and called the customary "Hello." Then,
+"Yes, just a minute. It's for you, Carol."
+
+Carol rose darkly. "It's Joe," she said in a dungeon-dark voice. "He's
+broken, I foresee it. If there's anything I despise and abominate it's a
+breaker of dates. I think it ought to be included among the
+condemnations in the decalogue. Men have no business being broken,
+except their hearts, when girls are mixed up in it.--Hello?--Oh; oh-h-h!
+Yes,--it's professor! How are you?--Yes, indeed,--oh, yes, I'm going to
+be home. Yes, indeed. Come about eight. Of course I'll be here,--nothing
+important,--it didn't amount to anything at all,--just a little old
+every-day affair.--Yes, I can arrange it nicely.--We're so anxious to
+see you.--All right,--Good-by."
+
+She turned back to the table, her face flushed, eyes shining. "It's
+professor! He's in town just overnight, and he's coming out. I'll have
+to phone Joe--"
+
+"Anything I despise and abominate it's a breaker of dates," chanted
+Connie; "ought to be condemned in the decalogue."
+
+"Oh, that's different," explained Carol. "This is professor! Besides,
+this will sort of even up for the Thanksgiving banquet last year."
+
+"But that was Phil and this is Joe!"
+
+"Oh, that's all right. It's just the principle, you know, nothing
+personal about it. Seven-six-two, please. Yes. Seven-six-two? Is Joe
+there? Oh, hello, Joe. Oh, Joe, I'm so sorry to go back on you the last
+minute like this, but one of my old school-teachers is in town just for
+to-night and is coming here, and of course I can't leave. I'm so sorry.
+I've been looking forward to it for so long, but--oh, that is nice of
+you. You'll forgive me this once, won't you? Oh, thanks, Joe, you're so
+kind."
+
+"Hurry up and phone Roy, Larkie. You'll have to break yours, too."
+
+Lark immediately did so, while Carol stood thoughtfully beside the
+table, her brows puckered unbecomingly.
+
+"I think," she said at last slowly, with wary eyes on her father's quiet
+face, "I think I'll let the tuck out of my old rose dress. It's too
+short."
+
+"Too short! Why, Carol--" interrupted her aunt.
+
+"Too short for the occasion, I mean. I'll put it back to-morrow." Once
+more her eyes turned cautiously father-ward. "You see, professor still
+has the 'little twinnie' idea in his brain, and I'm going to get it out.
+It isn't consistent with our five feet seven. We're grown up. Professor
+has got to see it. You skoot up-stairs, Connie, won't you, there's a
+dear, and bring it down, both of them, Lark's too. Lark,--where did you
+put that ripping knife? Aunt Grace, will you put the iron on for me?
+It's perfectly right that professor should see we're growing up. We'll
+have to emphasize it something extra, or he might overlook it. It makes
+him feel Methuselish because he's so awfully smart. But I'll soon change
+his mind for him."
+
+Lark stoutly refused to be "grown up for the occasion," as Carol put it.
+She said it was too much bother to let out the tuck, and then put it
+right back in, just for nonsense. At first this disappointed Carol, but
+finally she accepted it gracefully.
+
+"All right," she said, "I guess I can grow up enough for both of us.
+Professor is not stupid; if he sees I'm a young lady, he'll naturally
+know that you are, too, since we are twins. You can help me rip then if
+you like,--you begin around on that side."
+
+In less than two minutes the whole family was engaged in growing Carol
+up for the occasion. They didn't see any sense in it, but Carol seemed
+so unalterably convinced that it was necessary that they hated to
+question her motives. And, as was both habitual and comfortable, they
+proceeded to do as she directed.
+
+If her idea had been utterly to dumfound the unsuspecting professor, she
+succeeded admirably. Carefully she planned her appearance, giving him
+just the proper interval of patient waiting in the presence of her aunt
+and sisters. Then, a slow parting of the curtains and Carol stood out,
+brightly, gladly, her slender hands held out in welcome, Carol, with
+long skirts swishing around her white-slippered feet, her slender throat
+rising cream-white above the soft fold of old rose lace, her graceful
+head with its royal crown of bronze-gold hair, tilted most charmingly.
+
+The professor sprang to his feet and stared at her. "Why, Carol," he
+exclaimed soberly, almost sadly, as he crossed the room and took her
+hand. "Why, Carol! Whatever have you been doing to yourself overnight?"
+
+Of course, it was far more "overnight" than the professor knew, but
+Carol saw to it that there was nothing to arouse his suspicion on that
+score. He lifted her hand high, and looked frankly down the long lines
+of her skirt, with the white toes of her slippers showing beneath. He
+shook his head. And though he smiled again, his voice was sober.
+
+"I'm beginning to feel my age," he said.
+
+This was not what Carol wanted, and she resumed her old childish manner
+with a gleeful laugh.
+
+"What on earth are you doing in Mount Mark again, P'fessor!" When Carol
+wished to be particularly coy, she said "p'fessor." It didn't sound
+exactly cultured, but spoken in Carol's voice was really irresistible.
+
+"Why, I came to see you before your hair turned gray, and wrinkles
+marred you--"
+
+"Wrinkles won't mar mine," cried Carol emphatically. "Not ever! I use up
+a whole jar of cold cream every three weeks! I won't have 'em. Wrinkles!
+P'fessor, you don't know what a time I have keeping myself young."
+
+She joined in the peal of laughter that rang out as this age-wise
+statement fell from her lips.
+
+"You'll be surprised," he said, "what does bring me to Mount Mark. I
+have given up my position in New York, and am going to school again in
+Chicago this winter. I shall be here only to-night. To-morrow I begin to
+study again."
+
+"Going to school again!" ejaculated Carol, and all the others looked at
+him astonished. "Going to school again. Why, you know enough, now!"
+
+"Think so? Thanks. But I don't know what I'm going to need from this on.
+I am changing my line of work. The fact is, I'm going to enter the
+ministry myself, and will have a couple of years in a theological
+seminary first."
+
+Utter stupefaction greeted this explanation. Not one word was spoken.
+
+"I've been going into these things rather deeply the last two years.
+I've attended a good many special meetings, and taken some studies along
+with my regular work. For a year I've felt it would finally come to
+this, but I preferred my own job, and I thought I would stick it out, as
+Carol says. But I've decided to quit balking, and answer the call."
+
+Aunt Grace nodded, with a warmly approving smile.
+
+"I think it's perfectly grand, Professor," said Fairy earnestly.
+"Perfectly splendid. You will do it wonderfully well, I know, and be a
+big help--in our business."
+
+"But, Professor," said Carol faintly and falteringly, "didn't you tell
+me you were to get five thousand dollars a year with the institute from
+this on?"
+
+"Yes. I was."
+
+Carol gazed at her family despairingly. "It would take an awfully loud
+call to drown the chink of five thousand gold dollars in my ears, I am
+afraid."
+
+"It was a loud call," he said. And he looked at her curiously, for of
+all the family she alone seemed distrait and unenthusiastic.
+
+"Professor," she continued anxiously, "I heard one of the bishops say
+that sometimes young men thought they were called to the ministry when
+it was too much mince pie for dinner."
+
+"I did not have mince pie for dinner," he answered, smiling, but
+conscious of keen disappointment in his friend.
+
+"But, Professor," she argued, "can't people do good without preaching?
+Think of all the lovely things you could do with five thousand dollars!
+Think of the influence a prominent educator has! Think of--"
+
+"I have thought of it, all of it. But haven't I got to answer the call?"
+
+"It takes nerve to do it, too," said Connie approvingly. "I know just
+how it is from my own experience. Of course, I haven't been called to
+enter the ministry, but--it works out the same in other things."
+
+"Indeed, Professor," said Lark, "we always said you were too nice for
+any ordinary job. And the ministry is about the only extraordinary job
+there is!"
+
+"Tell us all about it," said Fairy cordially. "We are so interested in
+it. Of course, we think it is the finest work in the world." She looked
+reproachfully at Carol, but Carol made no response.
+
+He told them, then, something of his plan, which was very simple. He had
+arranged for a special course at the seminary in Chicago, and then would
+enter the ministry like any other young man starting upon his life-work.
+"I'm a Presbyterian, you know," he said. "I'll have to go around and
+preach until I find a church willing to put up with me. I won't have a
+presiding elder to make a niche for me."
+
+He talked frankly, even with enthusiasm, but always he felt the curious
+disappointment that Carol sat there silent, her eyes upon the hands in
+her lap. Once or twice she lifted them swiftly to his face, and lowered
+them instantly again. Only he noticed when they were raised, that they
+were unusually deep, and that something lay within shining brightly,
+like the reflection of a star in a clear dark pool of water.
+
+"I must go now," he said, "I must have a little visit with my uncle, I
+just wanted to see you, and tell you about it. I knew you would like
+it."
+
+Carol's hand was the first placed in his, and she murmured an inaudible
+word of farewell, her eyes downcast, and turned quickly away. "Don't let
+them wait for me," she whispered to Lark, and then she disappeared.
+
+The professor turned away from the hospitable door very much depressed.
+He shook his head impatiently and thrust his hands deep into his pockets
+like a troubled boy. Half-way down the board walk he stopped, and
+smiled. Carol was standing among the rose bushes, tall and slim in the
+cloudy moonlight, waiting for him. She held out her hand with a friendly
+smile.
+
+"I came to take you a piece if you want me," she said. "It's so hard to
+talk when there's a roomful, isn't it? I thought maybe you wouldn't
+mind."
+
+"Mind? It was dear of you to think of it," he said gratefully, drawing
+her hand into the curve of his arm. "I was wishing I could talk with
+you alone. You won't be cold?"
+
+"Oh, no, I like to be out in the night air. Oh," she protested, when he
+turned north from the parsonage instead of south, as he should have
+gone, "I only came for a piece, you know. And you want to visit with
+your uncle." The long lashes hid the twinkle the professor knew was
+there, though he could not see it.
+
+"Yes, all right. But we'll walk a little way first. I'll visit him later
+on. Or I can write him a letter if necessary." He felt at peace with all
+the world. His resentment toward Carol had vanished at the first glimpse
+of her friendly smile.
+
+"I want to talk to you about being a preacher, you know. I think it is
+the most wonderful thing in the world, I certainly do." Her eyes were
+upon his face now seriously. "I didn't say much, I was surprised, and I
+was ashamed, too, Professor, for I never could do it in the world.
+Never! It always makes me feel cheap and exasperated when I see how much
+nicer other folks are than I. But I do think it is wonderful. Really
+sometimes, I have thought you ought to be a preacher, because you're so
+nice. So many preachers aren't, and that's the kind we need."
+
+The professor put his other hand over Carol's, which was restlessly
+fingering the crease in his sleeve. He did not speak. Her girlish,
+impulsive words touched him very deeply.
+
+"I wouldn't want the girls to know it, they'd think it was so funny,
+but--" She paused uncertainly, and looked questioningly into his face.
+"Maybe you won't understand what I mean, but sometimes I'd like to be
+good myself. Awfully good, I mean." She smiled whimsically. "Wouldn't
+Connie scream if she could hear that? Now you won't give me away, will
+you? But I mean it. I don't think of it very often, but sometimes, why,
+Professor, honestly, I wouldn't care if I were as good as Prudence!" She
+paused dramatically, and the professor pressed the slender hand more
+closely in his.
+
+"Oh, I don't worry about it. I suppose one hasn't any business to expect
+a good complexion and just natural goodness, both at once, but--" She
+smiled again. "Five thousand dollars," she added dreamily. "Five
+thousand dollars! What shall I call you now? P'fesser is not appropriate
+any more, is it?"
+
+"Call me David, won't you, Carol? Or Dave."
+
+Carol gasped. "Oh, mercy! What would Prudence say?" She giggled merrily.
+"Oh, mercy!" She was silent a moment then. "I'll have to be contented
+with plain Mr. Duke, I suppose, until you get a D.D. Duckie, D.D.," she
+added laughingly. But in an instant she was sober again. "I do love our
+job. If I were a man I'd be a minister myself. Reverend Carol Starr,"
+she said loftily, then laughed. Carol's laughter always followed fast
+upon her earnest words. "Reverend Carol Starr. Wouldn't I be a peach?"
+
+He laughed, too, recovering his equanimity as her customary buoyant
+brightness returned to her.
+
+"You are," he said, and Carol answered:
+
+"Thanks," very dryly. "We must go back now," she added presently. And
+they turned at once, walking slowly back toward the parsonage.
+
+"Can't you write to me a little oftener, Carol? I hate to be a bother,
+but my uncle never writes letters, and I like to know how my friends
+here are getting along, marriages, and deaths, and just plain gossip.
+I'll like it very much if you can. I do enjoy a good correspondence
+with--"
+
+"Do you?" she asked sweetly. "How you have changed! When I was a
+freshman I remember you told me you received nothing but business
+letters, because you didn't want to take time to write letters, and--"
+
+"Did I?" For a second he seemed a little confused. "Well, I'm not crazy
+about writing letters, as such. But I'll be so glad to get yours that I
+know I'll even enjoy answering them."
+
+Inside the parsonage gate they stood a moment among the rose bushes.
+Once again she offered her hand, and he took it gravely, looking with
+sober intentness into her face, a little pale in the moonlight. He noted
+again the royal little head with its grown-up crown of hair, and the
+slender figure with its grown-up length of skirt.
+
+Then he put his arms around her, and kissed her warmly upon the childish
+unexpecting lips.
+
+A swift red flooded her face, and receding as swiftly, left her pale.
+Her lips quivered a little, and she caught her hands together. Then
+sturdily, and only slightly tremulous, she looked into his eyes and
+laughed. The professor was in nowise deceived by her attempt at
+light-heartedness, remembering as he did the quick quivering of the lips
+beneath his, and the unconscious yielding of the supple body in his
+arms. He condemned himself mentally in no uncertain terms for having
+yielded to the temptation of her young loveliness. Carol still laughed,
+determined by her merriment to set the seal of insignificance upon the
+act.
+
+"Come and walk a little farther, Carol," he said in a low voice. "I want
+to say something else." Then after a few minutes of silence, he began
+rather awkwardly, and David Arnold Duke was not usually awkward:
+
+"Carol, you'll think I'm a cad to say what I'm going to, after doing
+what I have just done, but I'll have to risk that. You shouldn't let men
+kiss you. It isn't right. You're too pretty and sweet and fine for it. I
+know you don't allow it commonly, but don't at all. I hate to think of
+any one even touching a girl like you."
+
+Carol leaned forward, tilting back her head, and looking up at him
+roguishly, her face a-sparkle.
+
+He blushed more deeply. "Oh, I know it," he said. "I'm ashamed of
+myself. But I can't help what you think of me. I do think you shouldn't
+let them, and I hope you won't. They're sure to want to."
+
+"Yes," she said quietly, very grown-up indeed just then, "yes, they do.
+Aren't men funny? They always want to. Sometimes we hear old women say,
+'Men are all alike.' I never believe it. I hate old women who say it.
+But--are they all alike, Professor?"
+
+"No," he said grimly, "they are not. But I suppose any man would like to
+kiss a girl as sweet as you are. But men are not all alike. Don't you
+believe it. You won't then, will you?"
+
+"Won't believe it? No."
+
+"I mean," he said, almost stammering in his confusion, "I mean you won't
+let them touch you."
+
+Carol smiled teasingly, but in a moment she spoke, and very quietly.
+"P'fessor, I'll tell you a blood-red secret if you swear up and down
+you'll never tell anybody. I've never told even Lark--Well, one night,
+when I was a sophomore,--do you remember Bud Garvin?"
+
+"Yes, tall fellow with black hair and eyes, wasn't he? In the freshman
+zoology class."
+
+"Yes. Well, he took me home from a party. Hartley took Lark, and they
+got in first. And Bud, well--he put his arm around me, and--maybe you
+don't know it, Professor, but there's a big difference in girls, too.
+Now some girls are naturally good. Prudence is, and so's Lark. But Fairy
+and I--well, we've got a lot of the original Adam in us. Most girls,
+especially in books--nice girls, I mean, and you know I'm nice--they
+can't bear to have boys touch them.--P'fessor, I like it, honestly I do,
+if I like the boy. Bud's rather nice, and I let him--oh, just a little,
+but it made me nervous and excited. But I liked it. Prudence was away,
+and I hated to talk to Lark that night so I sneaked in Fairy's room and
+asked if I might sleep with her. She said I could, and told me to turn
+on the light, it wouldn't disturb her. But I was so hot I didn't want
+any light, so I undressed as fast as I could and crept in. Somehow, from
+the way I snuggled up to Fairy, she caught on. I was out of breath,
+really I was ashamed of myself, but I wasn't just sure then whether I'd
+ever let him put his arm around me again or not. But Fairy turned over,
+and began to talk. Professor," she said solemnly, "Fairy and I always
+pretend to be snippy and sarcastic and sneer at each other, but in my
+heart, I think Fairy is very nearly as good as Prudence, yes, sir, I do.
+Why, Fairy's fine, she's just awfully fine."
+
+"Yes, I'm sure she is."
+
+"She said that once, when she was fifteen, one of the boys at Exminster
+kissed her good night. And she didn't mind it a bit. But father was
+putting the horses in the barn, and he came out just in time to see it;
+it was a moonlight night. After the boys had gone, father hurried in and
+took Fairy outdoors for a little talk, just the two of them alone. He
+said that in all the years he and my mother were married, every time he
+kissed her he remembered that no man but he had ever touched her lips,
+and it made him happy. He said he was always sort of thanking God
+inside, whenever he held her in his arms. He said nothing else in the
+world made a man so proud, and glad and grateful, as to know his wife
+was all his own, and that even her lips had been reserved for him like a
+sacred treasure that no one else could share. He said it would take the
+meanest man on earth, and father thinks there aren't many as mean as
+that, to go back on a woman like that. Fairy said she burst out crying
+because her husband wouldn't ever be able to feel that way when he
+kissed her. But father said since she was so young, and innocent, and it
+being the first time, it wouldn't really count. Fairy swore off that
+minute,--never again! Of course, when I knew how father felt about
+mother, I wanted my husband to have as much pleasure in me as father did
+in her, and Fairy and I made a solemn resolve that we would never, even
+'hold hands,' and that's very simple, until we got crazy enough about a
+man to think we'd like to marry him if we got a chance. And I never have
+since then, not once."
+
+"Carol," he said in a low voice, "I wish I had known it. I wouldn't have
+kissed you for anything. God knows I wouldn't. I--I think I am man
+enough not to have done it anyhow if I had only thought a minute, but
+God knows I wouldn't have done it if I had known about this. You don't
+know how--contemptible--I feel."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," she said comfortingly, her eyes glowing. "That's
+all right. We just meant beaux, you know. We didn't include uncles, and
+fathers, and old school-teachers, and things like that. You don't count.
+That isn't breaking my pledge."
+
+The professor smiled, but he remembered the quivering lips, and the
+relaxing of the lithe body, and the forced laughter, and was not
+deceived.
+
+"You're such a strange girl, Carol. You're so honest, usually, so
+kind-hearted, so generous. But you always seem trying to make yourself
+look bad, not physically, that isn't what I mean." Carol smiled, and her
+loving fingers caressed her soft cheek. "But you try to make folks think
+you are vain and selfish, when you are not. Why do you do it? Every one
+knows what you really are. All over Mount Mark they say you are the best
+little kid in town."
+
+"They do!" she said indignantly. "Well, they'd better not. Here I've
+spent years building up my reputation to suit myself, and then they go
+and shatter me like that. They'd better leave me alone."
+
+"But what's the object?"
+
+"Why, you know, P'fessor," she said, carefully choosing her words, "you
+know, it's a pretty hard job living up to a good reputation. Look at
+Prudence, and Fairy, and Lark. Every one just naturally expects them to
+be angelically and dishearteningly good. And if they aren't, folks talk.
+But take me now. No one expects anything of me, and if once in a while,
+I do happen to turn out all right by accident, it's a sort of joyful
+surprise to the whole community. It's lots more fun surprising folks by
+being better than they expect, than shocking them by turning out worse
+than they think you will."
+
+"But it doesn't do you any good," he assured her. "You can't fool them.
+Mount Mark knows its Carol."
+
+"You're not going?" she said, as he released her hand and straightened
+the collar of his coat.
+
+"Yes, your father will chase me off if I don't go now. How about the
+letters, Carol? Think you can manage a little oftener?"
+
+"I'd love to. It's so inspiring to get a letter from a
+five-thousand-dollars-a-year scientist, I mean, a was-once. Do my
+letters sound all right? I don't want to get too chummy, you know."
+
+"Get as chummy as you can," he urged her. "I enjoy it."
+
+"I'll have to be more dignified if you're going to McCormick.
+Presbyterian! The Presbyterians are very dignified. I'll have to be
+formal from this on. Dear Sir: Respectfully yours. Is that proper?"
+
+He took her hands in his. "Good-by, little pal. Thank you for coming
+out, and for telling me the things you have. You have done me good. You
+are a breath of fresh sweet air."
+
+"It's my powder," she said complacently. "It does smell good, doesn't
+it? It cost a dollar a box. I borrowed the dollar from Aunt Grace. Don't
+let on before father. He thinks we use Mennen's baby--twenty-five cents
+a box. We didn't tell him so, but he just naturally thinks it. It was
+the breath of that dollar powder you were talking about."
+
+She moved her fingers slightly in his hand, and he looked down at them.
+Then he lifted them and looked again, admiring the slender fingers and
+the pink nails.
+
+"Don't look," she entreated. "They're teaching me things. I can't help
+it. This spot on my thumb is fried egg, here are three doughnuts on my
+arm,--see them? And here's a regular pancake." She pointed out the
+pancake in her palm, sorrowfully.
+
+"Teaching you things, are they?"
+
+"Yes. I have to darn. Look at the tips of my fingers, that's where the
+needle rusted off on me. Here's where I cut a slice of bread out of my
+thumb! Isn't life serious?"
+
+"Yes, very serious." He looked thoughtfully down at her hands again as
+they lay curled up in his own. "Very, very serious."
+
+"Good-by."
+
+"Good-by." He held her hand a moment longer, and then turned suddenly
+away. She watched until he was out of sight, and then slipped up-stairs,
+undressed in the dark and crept in between the covers. Lark apparently
+was sound asleep. Carol giggled softly to herself a few times, and Lark
+opened one eye, asking, "What's amatter?"
+
+"Oh, such a good joke on p'fessor," whispered Carol, squeezing her twin
+with rapture. "He doesn't know it yet, but he'll be so disgusted with
+himself when he finds it out."
+
+"What in the world is it?" Lark was more coherent now.
+
+"I can't tell, Lark, but it's a dandy. My, he'll feel cheap when he
+finds out."
+
+"Maybe he won't find it out."
+
+"Oh, yes, he will," was the confident answer, "I'll see that he does."
+She began laughing again.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I can't tell you, but you'll certainly scream if you ever do know it."
+
+"You can't tell me?" Lark was wide awake, and quite aghast.
+
+"No, I can't, I truly can't."
+
+Lark drew away from the encircling arm with as much dignity as could be
+expressed in the dark and in bed, and sent out a series of deep breaths,
+as if to indicate that snores were close at hand.
+
+Carol laughed to herself for a while, until Lark really slept, then she
+buried her head in the pillow and her throat swelled with sobs that were
+heavy but soundless.
+
+The next morning was Lark's turn for making the bed. And when she shook
+up Carol's pillow she found it was very damp.
+
+"Why, the little goose," she said to herself, smiling, "she laughed
+until she cried, all by herself. And then she turned the pillow over
+thinking I wouldn't see it. The little goose! And what on earth was she
+laughing at?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JERRY JUNIOR
+
+
+For some time the twins ignored the atmosphere of solemn mystery which
+pervaded their once so cheerful home. But when it finally reached the
+limit of their endurance they marched in upon their aunt and Fairy with
+an admirable admixture of dignity and indignation in their attitude.
+
+"Who's haunted?" inquired Carol abruptly.
+
+"Where's the criminal?" demanded Lark.
+
+"Yes, little twins, talk English and maybe you'll learn something." And
+for the moment the anxious light in Fairy's eyes gave way to a twinkle.
+Sad indeed was the day when Fairy could not laugh at the twins.
+
+"Then, in common vernacular, though it is really beneath us, what's up?"
+
+Fairy turned innocently inquiring eyes toward the ceiling. "What
+indeed?"
+
+"Oh, don't try to be dramatic, Fairy," counseled Lark. "You're too fat
+for a star-Starr."
+
+The twins beamed at each other approvingly at this, and Fairy smiled.
+But Carol returned promptly to the charge. "Are Jerry and Prudence
+having domestic difficulties? There's something going on, and we want to
+know. Father looks like a fallen Samson, and--"
+
+"A fallen Samson, Carol! Mercy! Where did you get it?"
+
+"Yes, kind of sheepish, and ashamed, and yet hopeful of returning
+strength. That's art, a simile like that is.--Prudence writes every day,
+and you hide the letters. And Aunt Grace sneaks around like a convict
+with her hand under her apron. And you look as heavy-laden as if you
+were carrying Connie's conscience around with you."
+
+Aunt Grace looked at Fairy, Fairy looked at Aunt Grace. Aunt Grace
+raised her eyebrows. Fairy hesitated, nodded, smiled. Slowly then Aunt
+Grace drew one hand from beneath her apron and showed to the eagerly
+watching twins, a tiny, hand embroidered dress. They stared at it,
+fascinated, half frightened, and then looked into the serious faces of
+their aunt and sister.
+
+"I--I don't believe it," whispered Carol. "She's not old enough."
+
+Aunt Grace smiled.
+
+"She's older than mother was," said Fairy.
+
+Lark took the little dress and examined it critically. "The neck's too
+small," she announced decidedly. "Nothing could wear that."
+
+"We're using this for a pattern," said Fairy, lifting a yellowed, much
+worn garment from the sewing basket. "I wore this, and so did you and so
+did Connie,--my lovely child."
+
+Carol rubbed her hand about her throat in a puzzled way. "I can't seem
+to realize that we ever grew out of that," she said slowly. "Is Prudence
+all right?"
+
+"Yes, just fine."
+
+The twins looked at each other bashfully. Then, "I'll bet there'll be no
+living with Jerry after this," said Lark.
+
+"Oh, papa," lisped Carol, in a high-pitched voice supposed to represent
+the tone of a little child. They both giggled, and blinked hard to
+crowd back the tears that wouldn't stay choked down. Prudence! And that!
+
+"And see here, twins, Prudence has a crazy notion that she wants to come
+home for it. She says she'll be scared in a hospital, and Jerry's
+willing to come here with her. What do you think about it?"
+
+The twins looked doubtful. "They say it ought to be done in a hospital,"
+announced Carol gravely. "Jerry can afford it."
+
+"Yes, he wanted to. But Prudence has set her heart on coming home. She
+says she'll never feel that Jerry Junior got the proper start if it
+happens any place else. They'll have a trained nurse."
+
+"Jerry--what?" gasped the twins, after a short silence due to amazement.
+
+"Jerry Junior,--that's what they call it."
+
+"But how on earth do they know?"
+
+"They don't know. But they have to call it something, haven't they? And
+they want a Jerry Junior. So of course they'll get it. For Prudence is
+good enough to get whatever she wants."
+
+"Hum, that's no sign," sniffed Carol. "I don't get everything I want, do
+I?"
+
+The girls laughed, from habit not from genuine interest, at Carol's
+subtle insinuation.
+
+"Well, shall we have her come?"
+
+"Yes," said Carol, "but you tell Prue she needn't expect me to hold it
+until it gets too big to wiggle. I call them nasty, treacherous little
+things. Mrs. Miller made me hold hers, and it squirmed right off my
+knee. I wanted to spank it."
+
+"And tell Prudence to uphold the parsonage and have a white one," added
+Lark. "These little Indian effects don't make a hit with me."
+
+"Are you going to tell Connie?"
+
+"I don't think so--yet. Connie's only fourteen."
+
+"You tell her." Carol's voice was emphatic. "There's nothing mysterious
+about it. Everybody does it. And Connie may have a few suggestions of
+her own to offer. You tell Prue I'm thinking out a lot of good advice
+for her, and--"
+
+"You must write her yourselves. She wanted us to tell you long before."
+Fairy picked up the little embroidered dress and kissed it, but her fond
+eyes were anxious.
+
+So a few weeks later, weeks crowded full of tumult and anxiety, yes, and
+laughter, too, Prudence and Jerry came to Mount Mark and settled down
+to quiet life in the parsonage. The girls kissed Prudence very often,
+leaped quickly to do her errands, and touched her with nervous fingers.
+But mostly they sat across the room and regarded her curiously, shyly,
+quite maternally.
+
+"Carol and Lark Starr," Prudence cried crossly one day, when she
+intercepted one of these surreptitious glances, "you march right
+up-stairs and shut yourselves up for thirty minutes. And if you ever sit
+around and stare at me like a stranger again, I'll spank you both. I'm
+no outsider. I belong here just as much as ever I did. And I'm still the
+head of things around here, too!"
+
+The twins obediently marched, and after that Prudence was more like
+Prudence, and the twins were much more twinnish, so that life was very
+nearly normal in the old parsonage. Prudence said she couldn't feel
+quite satisfied because the twins were too old to be punished, but she
+often scolded them in her gentle teasing way, and the twins enjoyed it
+more than anything else that happened during those days of quiet.
+
+Then came a night when the four sisters huddled breathlessly in the
+kitchen, and Aunt Grace and the trained nurse stayed with Prudence
+behind the closed door of the front room up-stairs. And the doctor went
+in, too, after he had inflicted a few light-hearted remarks upon the two
+men in the little library.
+
+After that--silence, an immense hushing silence,--settled down over the
+parsonage. Jerry and Mr. Starr, alone in the library, where a faint odor
+of drugs, anesthetics, something that smelled like hospitals lingered,
+stared away from each other with persistent determination. Now and then
+Jerry walked across the room, but Mr. Starr stood motionless by the
+window looking down at the cherry tree beneath him, wondering vaguely
+how it dared to be so full of snowy blooms!
+
+"Where are the girls?" Jerry asked, picking up a roll of cotton which
+had been left on the library table, and flinging it from him as though
+it scorched his fingers.
+
+"I--think I'll go and see," said Mr. Starr, turning heavily.
+
+Jerry hesitated a minute. "I--think I'll go along," he said.
+
+For an instant their eyes met, sympathetically, and did not smile though
+their lips curved.
+
+Down in the kitchen, meanwhile, Fairy sat somberly beside the table with
+a pile of darning which she jabbed at viciously with the needle. Lark
+was perched on the ice chest, but Carol, true to her childish instincts,
+hunched on the floor with her feet curled beneath her. Connie leaned
+against the table within reach of Fairy's hand.
+
+"They're awfully slow," she complained once.
+
+Nobody answered. The deadly silence clutched them.
+
+"Oh, talk," Carol blurted out desperately. "You make me sick! It isn't
+anything to be so awfully scared about. Everybody does it."
+
+A little mumble greeted this, and then, silence again. Whenever it grew
+too painful, Carol said reproachfully, "Everybody does it." And no one
+ever answered.
+
+They looked up expectantly when the men entered. It seemed cozier
+somehow when they were all together in the little kitchen.
+
+"Is she all right?"
+
+"Sure, she's all right," came the bright response from their father. And
+then silence.
+
+"Oh, you make me sick," cried Carol. "Everybody does it."
+
+"Carol Starr, if you say 'everybody does it' again I'll send you to
+bed," snapped Fairy. "Don't we know everybody does it? But Prudence
+isn't everybody."
+
+"Maybe we'd better have a lunch," suggested their father hopefully,
+knowing the thought of food often aroused his family when all other
+means had failed. But his suggestion met with dark reproach.
+
+"Father, if you're hungry, take a piece of bread out into the woodshed,"
+begged Connie. "If anybody eats anything before me I shall jump up and
+down and scream."
+
+Their father smiled faintly and gave it up. After that the silence was
+unbroken save once when Carol began encouragingly:
+
+"Every--"
+
+"Sure they do," interrupted Fairy uncompromisingly.
+
+And then--the hush.
+
+Long, long after that, when the girls' eyes were heavy, not with want of
+sleep, but just with unspeakable weariness of spirit,--they heard a step
+on the stair.
+
+"Come on up, Harmer," the doctor called. And then, "Sure, she's all
+right. She's fine and dandy,--both of them are."
+
+Jerry was gone in an instant, and Mr. Starr looked after him with
+inscrutable eyes. "Fathers are--only fathers," he said enigmatically.
+
+"Yes," agreed Carol.
+
+"Yes. In a crisis, the other man goes first."
+
+His daughters turned to him then, tenderly, sympathetically.
+
+"You had your turn, father," Connie consoled him. And felt repaid for
+the effort when he smiled at her.
+
+"They are both fine, you know," said Carol. "The doctor said so."
+
+"We heard him," Fairy assured her.
+
+"Yes, I said all the time you were all awfully silly about it. I knew it
+was all right. Everybody does it."
+
+"Jerry Junior," Lark mused. "He's here.--'Aunt Lark, may I have a
+cooky?'"
+
+A few minutes later the door was carefully shoved open by means of a
+cautious foot, and Jerry stood before them, holding in his arms a big
+bundle of delicately tinted flannel.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, beaming at them, his face flushed, his
+eyes bright, embarrassed, but thoroughly satisfied. Of course, Prudence
+was the dearest girl in the world, and he adored her, and--but this was
+different, this was Fatherhood!
+
+[Illustration: Let me introduce to you my little daughter]
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he said again in the tender, half-laughing voice
+that Prudence loved, "let me introduce to you my little daughter, Fairy
+Harmer."
+
+"Not--not Fairy!" cried Fairy, Senior, tearfully. "Oh, Jerry, I don't
+believe it. Not Fairy! You are joking."
+
+"Of course it is Fairy," he said. "Look out, Connie, do you want to
+break part of my daughter off the first thing? Oh, I see. It was just
+the flannel, was it? Well, you must be careful of the flannel, for when
+ladies are the size of this one, you can't tell which is flannel and
+which is foot. Fairy Harmer! Here, grandpa, what do you think of this?
+And Prudence said to send you right up-stairs, and hurry. And the girls
+must go to bed immediately or they'll be sick to-morrow. Prudence says
+so."
+
+"Oh, that's enough. That's Prudence all over! You needn't tell us any
+more. Here, Fairy Harmer, let us look at you. Hold her down, Jerry.
+Mercy! Mercy!"
+
+"Isn't she a beauty?" boasted the young father proudly.
+
+"A beauty? A beauty! That!" Carol rubbed her slender fingers over her
+own velvety cheek. "They talk about the matchless skin of a new-born
+infant. Thanks. I'd just as lief have my own."
+
+"Oh, she isn't acclimated yet, that's all. Do you think she looks like
+me?"
+
+"No, Jerry, I don't," said Lark candidly. "I never considered you a
+dream of loveliness by any means, but in due honesty I must admit that
+you don't look like that."
+
+"Why, it hasn't any hair!" Connie protested.
+
+"Well, give it time," urged the baby's father. "Be reasonable,
+Connie. What can you expect in fifteen minutes."
+
+"But they always have a little hair," she insisted.
+
+"No, indeed they don't, Miss Connie," he said flatly. "For if they
+always did, ours would have. Now, don't try to let on there's anything
+the matter with her, for there isn't.--Look at her nose, if you don't
+like her hair.--What do you think of a nose like that now? Just look at
+it."
+
+"Yes, we're looking at it," was the grim reply.
+
+"And--and chin,--look at her chin. See here, do you mean to say you are
+making fun of Fairy Harmer? Come on, tootsie, we'll go back up-stairs.
+They're crazy about us up there."
+
+"Oh, see the cunning little footies," crowed Connie.
+
+"Here, cover 'em up," said Jerry anxiously. "You mustn't let their feet
+stick out. Prudence says so. It's considered very--er, bad form, I
+believe."
+
+"Fairy! Honestly, Jerry, is it Fairy? When did you decide?"
+
+"Oh, a long time ago," he said, "years ago, I guess. You see, we always
+wanted a girl. Prue didn't think she had enough experience with the
+stronger sex yet, and of course I'm strong for the ladies. But it seems
+that what you want is what you don't get. So we decided to call her
+Fairy when she came, and then we wanted a boy, and talked boy, and got
+the girl! I guess it always works just that way, if you manage it
+cleverly. Come now, Fairy, you needn't wrinkle up that smudge of a nose
+at me.--Let go, Connie, it is my daughter's bedtime. There now, there
+now, baby, was she her daddy's little girl?"
+
+Flushed and laughing, Jerry broke away from the admiring, giggling,
+nearly tearful girls, and hurried up-stairs with Jerry Junior.
+
+But Fairy stood motionless by the door. "Prudence's baby," she
+whispered. "Little Fairy Harmer!--Mmmmmmm!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE END OF FAIRY
+
+
+Now that the twins had attained to the dignity of eighteen years, and
+were respectable students at the thoroughly respectable Presbyterian
+college, they had dates very frequently. And it was along about this
+time that Mr. Starr developed a sudden interest in the evening callers
+at his home. He bobbed up unannounced in most unexpected places and at
+most unexpected hours. He walked about the house with a sharp sly look
+in his eyes, in a way that could only be described as Carol said, by
+"downright nosiness." The girls discussed this new phase of his
+character when they were alone, but decided not to mention it to him,
+for fear of hurting his feelings. "Maybe he's got a new kind of a sermon
+up his brain," said Carol. "Maybe he's beginning to realize that his
+clothes are wearing out again," suggested Lark. "He's too young for
+second childhood," Connie thought. So they watched him curiously.
+
+Aunt Grace, too, observed this queer devotion on the part of the
+minister, and finally her curiosity overcame her habit of keeping
+silent.
+
+"William," she said gently, "what's the matter with you lately? Is there
+anything on your mind?"
+
+Mr. Starr started nervously. "My mind? Of course not. Why?"
+
+"You seem to be looking for something. You watch the girls so closely,
+you're always hanging around, and--"
+
+He smiled broadly. "Thanks for that. 'Hanging around,' in my own
+parsonage. That is the gratitude of a loving family!"
+
+Aunt Grace smiled. "Well, I see there's nothing much the matter with
+you. I was seriously worried. I thought there was something wrong,
+and--"
+
+"Sort of mentally unbalanced, is that it? Oh, no, I'm just watching my
+family."
+
+She looked up quickly. "Watching the family! You mean--"
+
+"Carol," he said briefly.
+
+"Carol! You're watching--"
+
+"Oh, only in the most honorable way, of course. You see," he gave his
+explanation with an air of relief, "Prudence always says I must keep an
+eye on Carol. She's so pretty, and the boys get stuck on her,
+and--that's what Prudence says. I forgot all about it for a while. But
+lately I have begun to notice that the boys are older, and--we don't
+want Carol falling in love with the wrong man. I got uneasy. I decided
+to watch out. I'm the head of this family, you know."
+
+"Such an idea!" scoffed Aunt Grace, who was not at all of a scoffing
+nature.
+
+"Carol was born for lovers, Prudence says so. And these men's girls have
+to be watched, or the wrong fellow will get ahead, and--"
+
+"Carol doesn't need watching--not any more at least."
+
+"I'm not really watching her, you know. I'm just keeping my eyes open."
+
+"But Carol's all right. That's one time Prudence was away off." She
+smiled as she recognized a bit of Carol's slang upon her lips. "Don't
+worry about her. You needn't keep an eye on her any more. She's coming,
+all right."
+
+"You don't think there's any danger of her falling in love with the
+wrong man?"
+
+"No."
+
+"There aren't many worth-having fellows in Mount Mark, you know."
+
+"Carol won't fall in love with a Mount Mark fellow."
+
+"You seem very positive."
+
+"Yes, I'm positive."
+
+He looked thoughtful for a while. "Well, Prudence always told me to
+watch Carol, so I could help her if she needed it."
+
+"Girls always need their fathers," came the quick reply. "But Carol does
+not need you particularly. There's only one of them who will require
+especial attention."
+
+"That's what Prudence says."
+
+"Yes, just one--not Carol."
+
+"Not Carol!" He looked at her in astonishment. "Why, Fairy and Lark
+are--different. They're all right. They don't need attention."
+
+"No. It's the other one."
+
+"The other one! That's all."
+
+"There's Connie."
+
+"Connie?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Connie?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You don't mean Connie."
+
+Aunt Grace smiled.
+
+"Why, Grace, you're--you're off. Excuse me for saying it, but--you're
+crazy. Connie--why, Connie has never been any trouble in her life.
+Connie!"
+
+"You've never had any friction with Connie, she's always been right so
+far. One of these days she's pretty likely to be wrong, and Connie
+doesn't yield very easily."
+
+"But Connie's so sober and straight, and--"
+
+"That's the kind."
+
+"She's so conscientious."
+
+"Yes, conscientious."
+
+"She's--look here, Grace, there's nothing the matter with Connie."
+
+"Of course not, William. That isn't what I mean. But you ought to be
+getting very, very close to Connie right now, for one of these days
+she's going to need a lot of that extra companionship Prudence told you
+about. Connie wants to know everything. She wants to see everything.
+None of the other girls ever yearned for city life. Connie does. She
+says when she is through school she's going to the city."
+
+"What city?"
+
+"Any city."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"For experience."
+
+Mr. Starr looked about him helplessly. "There's experience right here,"
+he protested feebly. "Lots of it. Entirely too much of it."
+
+"Well, that's Connie. She wants to know, to see, to feel. She wants to
+live. Get close to her, get chummy. She may not need it, and then again
+she may. She's very young yet."
+
+"All right, I will. It is well I have some one to steer me along the
+proper road." He looked regretfully out of the window. "I ought to be
+able to see these things for myself, but the girls seem perfectly all
+right to me. They always have. I suppose it's because they're mine."
+
+Aunt Grace looked at him affectionately. "It's because they're the
+finest girls on earth," she declared. "That's why. But we want to be
+ready to help them if they need it, just because they are so fine. They
+will every one be splendid, if we give them the right kind of a chance."
+
+He sat silent a moment. "I've always wanted one of them to marry a
+preacher," he said, laughing apologetically. "It is very narrow-minded,
+of course, but a man does make a hobby of his own profession. I always
+hoped Prudence would. I thought she was born for it. Then I looked to
+Fairy, and she turned me down. I guess I'll have to give up the notion
+now."
+
+She looked at him queerly. "Maybe not."
+
+"Connie might, I suppose."
+
+"Connie," she contradicted promptly, "will probably marry a genius, or a
+rascal, or a millionaire."
+
+He looked dazed at that.
+
+She leaned forward a little. "Carol might."
+
+"Carol--"
+
+"She might." She watched him narrowly, a smile in her eyes.
+
+"Carol's too worldly."
+
+"You don't believe that."
+
+"No, not really. Carol--she--why, you know when I think of it, Carol
+wouldn't be half bad for a minister's wife. She has a sense of humor,
+that is very important. She's generous, she's patient, she's unselfish,
+a good mixer,--some of the ladies might think her complexion wasn't
+real, but--Grace, Carol wouldn't be half bad!"
+
+"Oh, William," she sighed, "can't you remember that you are a Methodist
+minister, and a grandfather, and--grow up a little?"
+
+After that Mr. Starr returned to normal again, only many times he and
+Connie had little outings together, and talked a great deal. And Aunt
+Grace, seeing it, smiled with satisfaction. But the twins and Fairy
+settled it in their own minds by saying, "Father was just a little
+jealous of all the beaux. He was looking for a pal, and he's found
+Connie."
+
+But in spite of his new devotion to Connie, Mr. Starr also spent a great
+deal of time with Fairy. "We must get fast chums, Fairy," he often said
+to her. "This is our last chance. We have to get cemented for a
+lifetime, you know."
+
+And Fairy, when he said so, caught his hand and laughed a little
+tremulously.
+
+Indeed, he was right when he said it was his last chance with Fairy in
+the parsonage. Two weeks before her commencement she had slipped into
+the library and closed the door cautiously behind her.
+
+"Father," she said, "would you be very sorry if I didn't teach school
+after all?"
+
+"Not a bit," came the ready answer.
+
+"I mean if I--you see, father, since you sent me to college I feel as if
+I ought to work and--help out."
+
+"That's nonsense," he said, drawing the tall girl down to his knees. "I
+can take care of my own family, thanks. Are you trying to run me out of
+my job? If you want to work, all right, do it, but for yourself, and not
+for us. Or if you want to do anything else," he did not meet her eyes,
+"if you want to stay at home a year or so before you get married, it
+would please us better than anything else. And when you want to marry
+Gene, we're expecting it, you know."
+
+"Yes, I know," she fingered the lapel of his coat uneasily. "Do you care
+how soon I get married?"
+
+"Are you still sure it is Gene?"
+
+"Yes, I'm sure."
+
+"Then I think you should choose your own time. I am in no hurry. But
+any time,--it's for you, and Gene, to decide."
+
+"Then you haven't set your heart on my teaching?"
+
+"I set my heart on giving you the best chance possible. And I have done
+it. For the rest, it depends on you. You may work, or you may stay at
+home a while. I only want you to be happy, Fairy."
+
+"But doesn't it seem foolish to go clear through college, and spend the
+money, and then--marry without using the education?"
+
+"I do not think so. They've been fine years, and you are finer because
+of them. There's just as much opportunity to use your fineness in a home
+of your own as in a public school. That's the way I look at it."
+
+"You don't think I'm too young?"
+
+"You're pretty young," he said slowly. "I can hardly say, Fairy. You've
+always been capable and self-possessed. When you and Gene get so crazy
+about each other you can't bear to be apart any longer, it's all right
+here."
+
+She put her arm around his neck and rubbed her fingers over his cheek
+lovingly.
+
+"You understand, don't you, father, that I'm just going to be plain
+married when the time comes? Not a wedding like Prudence's. Gene, and
+the girls, and Prue and Jerry, and you, father, that is all."
+
+"Yes, all right. It's your day, you know."
+
+"And we won't talk much about it beforehand. We all know how we feel
+about things. It would be silly for me to try to tell you what a grand
+sweet father you've been to us. I can't tell you,--if I tried I'd only
+cry. You know what I think."
+
+His face was against hers, and his eyes were away from her, so Fairy did
+not see the moisture in his eyes when he said in a low voice:
+
+"Yes, I know Fairy. And I don't need to say what fine girls you are, and
+how proud I am of you. You know it already. But sometimes," he added
+slowly, "I wonder that I haven't been a bigger man, and haven't done
+finer work, with a houseful of girls like mine."
+
+Her arm pressed more closely about his neck. "Father," she whispered,
+"don't say that. We think you are wonderfully splendid, just as you are.
+It isn't what you've said, not what you've done for us, it's just
+because you have always made us so sure of you. We never had to wonder
+about father, or ask ourselves--we were sure. We've always had you." She
+leaned over and kissed him again. "There never was such a father, they
+all say so, Prudence and Connie, and the twins, too! There couldn't be
+another like you! Now we understand each other, don't we?"
+
+"I guess so. Anyhow, I understand that there'll only be three daughters
+in the parsonage pretty soon. All right, Fairy. I know you will be
+happy." He paused a moment. "So will I."
+
+But the months passed, and Fairy seemed content to stay quietly at home,
+embroidering as Prudence had done, laughing at the twins as they tripped
+gaily, riotously through college. And then in the early spring, she sent
+an urgent note to Prudence.
+
+"You must come home for a few days, Prue, you and Jerry. It's just
+because I want you and I need you, and I know you won't go back on me. I
+want you to get here on the early afternoon train Tuesday, and stay till
+the last of the week. Just wire that you are coming--the three of you. I
+know you'll be here, since it is I who ask it."
+
+It followed naturally that Prudence's answer was satisfactory. "Of
+course we'll come."
+
+Fairy's plans were very simple. "We'll have a nice family dinner Tuesday
+evening,--we'll get Mrs. Green to come and cook and have her niece to
+serve it,--that'll leave us free to visit every minute. I'll plan the
+dinner. Then we'll all be together, nice and quiet, just our own little
+bunch. Don't have dates, twins,--of course Gene will be here, but he's
+part of the family, and we don't want outsiders this time. His parents
+will be in town, and I've asked them to come up. I want a real family
+reunion just for once, and it's my party, for I started it. So you must
+let me have it my own way."
+
+Fairy was generally willing to leave the initiative to the eager twins,
+but when she made a plan it was generally worth adopting, and the other
+members of the family agreed to her arrangements without demur.
+
+After the first confusion of welcoming Prudence home, and making fun of
+"daddy Jerry," and testing the weight and length of little Fairy, they
+all settled down to a parsonage home-gathering. Just a few minutes
+before the dinner hour, Fairy took her father's hand.
+
+"Come into the lime-light," she said softly, "I want you." He passed
+little Fairy over to the outstretched arms of the nearest auntie, and
+allowed himself to be led into the center of the room.
+
+"Gene," said Fairy, and he came to her quickly, holding out a slender
+roll of paper. "It's our license," said Fairy. "We think we'd like to be
+married now, father, if you will."
+
+He looked at her questioningly, but understandingly. The girls clustered
+about them with eager outcries, half protest, half encouragement.
+
+"It's my day, you know," cried Fairy, "and this is my way."
+
+She held out her hand, and Gene took it very tenderly in his. Mr. Starr
+looked at them gravely for a moment, and then in the gentle voice that
+the parsonage girls insisted was his most valuable ministerial asset, he
+gave his second girl in marriage.
+
+It surely was Fairy's way, plain and sweet, without formality. And the
+dinner that followed was just a happy family dinner. Fairy's face was
+so glowing with content, and Gene's attitude was so tender, and so
+ludicrously proud, that the twins at last were convinced that this was
+right, and all was well.
+
+But that evening, when Gene's parents had gone away, and after Fairy and
+Gene themselves had taken the carriage to the station for their little
+vacation together, and Jerry and Prudence were putting little Fairy to
+bed, the three girls left in the home sat drearily in their bedroom and
+talked it over.
+
+"We're thinning out," said Connie. "Who next?"
+
+"We'll stick around as long as we like, Miss Connie, you needn't try to
+shuffle us off," said Lark indignantly.
+
+"Prudence, and Fairy,--it was pretty cute of Fairy, wasn't it?"
+
+"Let's go to bed," said Carol, rising. "I suppose we'll feel better in
+the morning. A good sleep is almost as filling as a big meal after a
+blow like this. Well, that's the end of Fairy. We have to make the best
+of us. Come on, Larkie. You've still got us to boss you, Con, so you
+needn't feel too forlorn. My, but the house is still! In some ways I
+think this family is positively sickening. Good night, Connie. And,
+after this, when you want to eat candy in bed, please use your own. I
+got chocolate all over my foot last night. Good night, Connie. Well,
+it's the end of Fairy. The family is going to pieces, sure enough."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SOWING SEEDS
+
+
+"Have you seen Mrs. Harbert lately, Carol?"
+
+"Yes, she's better, father. I was there a few minutes yesterday."
+
+"Yesterday? You were there Tuesday, weren't you?"
+
+Carol looked uncomfortable. "Why, yes, I was, just for a second."
+
+"She tells me you've been running in nearly every day since she took
+sick."
+
+Carol bent sharply inquiring eyes upon her father. "What else did she
+tell you?"
+
+"She said you were an angel."
+
+"Y-yes,--she seems somehow to think I do it for kindness."
+
+"And don't you?"
+
+"Why, no, father, of course I don't. It's only two blocks out of my way
+and it's such fun to pop in on sick folks and show them how
+disgustingly strong and well I am."
+
+"Where did you get the money for that basket of fruit?"
+
+"I borrowed it from Aunt Grace." Carol's face was crimson with
+mortification. "But it'll be a sweet time before Mrs. Harbert gets
+anything else from me. She promised she wouldn't tell."
+
+"Did any of the others know about the fruit?"
+
+"Why--not--exactly."
+
+"But she thinks it was from the whole family. She thanked me for it."
+
+"I--I made her think that," Carol explained. "I want her to think we're
+the nicest parsonage bunch they've ever had in Mount Mark. Besides, it
+really was from the family. Aunt Grace loaned me the money and I'll have
+to borrow it from you to pay her. And Lark did my dusting so I could go
+on the errand, though she did not know what it was. And
+I--er--accidentally took one of Connie's ribbons to tie it with. Isn't
+that a family gift?"
+
+"Mr. Scott tells me you are the prime mover in the Junior League now,"
+he continued.
+
+"Well, goodness knows our Junior League needs a mover of some sort."
+
+"And Mrs. Davies says you are a whole Mercy and Help Department all by
+yourself."
+
+"What I can't understand," said Carol mournfully, "is why folks don't
+keep their mouths shut. I know that sounds very inelegant, but it
+expresses my idea perfectly. Can't I have a good time in my own way
+without the whole church pedaling me from door to door?"
+
+The twinkle in her father's eyes deepened. "What do you call it, Carol,
+'sowing seeds of kindness'?"
+
+"I should say not," came the emphatic retort. "I call it sowing seeds of
+fun. It's a circus to go around and gloat over folks when they are sick
+or sorry, or--"
+
+"But they tell me you don't gloat. Mrs. Marling says you cried with
+Jeanie half a day when her dog died."
+
+"Oh, that's my way of gloating," said Carol, nothing daunted, but
+plainly glad to get away without further interrogation.
+
+It was a strange thing that of all the parsonage girls, Carol,
+light-hearted, whimsical, mischievous Carol, was the one most dear to
+the hearts of her father's people. Not the gentle Prudence, nor charming
+Fairy, not clever Lark nor conscientious Connie, could rival the
+"naughty twin" in Mount Mark's affections. And in spite of her odd curt
+speeches, and her openly-vaunted vanity, Mount Mark insisted she was
+"good." Certainly she was willing! "Get Carol Starr,--she'll do it," was
+the commonest phrase in Mount Mark's vocabulary. Whatever was wanted,
+whatever the sacrifice involved, Carol stood ready to fill the bill. Not
+for kindness,--oh, dear no,--Carol staunchly disclaimed any such
+niceness as that. She did it for fun, pure and simple. She said she
+liked to show off. She insisted that she liked to feel that she was the
+pivot on which little old Mount Mark turned. But this was only when she
+was found out. As far as she could she kept her little "seeds of fun"
+carefully up her sleeve, and it was only when the indiscreet adoration
+of her friends brought the budding plants to light, that she laughingly
+declared "it was a circus to go and gloat over folks."
+
+Once in the early dusk of a summer evening, she discovered old Ben
+Peters, half intoxicated, slumbering noisily on a pile of sacks in a
+corner of the parsonage barn. Carol was sorry, but not at all
+frightened. The poor, kindly, weak, old man was as familiar to her as
+any figure in Mount Mark. He was always in a more or less helpless state
+of intoxication, but also he was always harmless, kind-hearted and
+generous. She prodded him vigorously with the handle of the pitch-fork
+until he was aroused to consciousness, and then guided him into the
+woodshed with the buggy whip. When he was seated on a chunk of wood she
+faced him sternly.
+
+"Well, you are a dandy," she said. "Going into a parsonage barn, of all
+places in the world, to sleep off an odor like yours! Why didn't you go
+down to Fred Greer's harness shop, that's where you got it. We're such
+an awfully temperance town, you know! But the parsonage! Why, if the
+trustees had happened into the barn and caught a whiff of that smell,
+father'd have lost his job. Now you just take warning from me, and keep
+away from this parsonage until you can develop a good Methodist odor.
+Oh, don't cry about it! Your very tears smell rummy. Just you hang on to
+that chunk of wood, and I'll bring you some coffee."
+
+Like a thief in the night she sneaked into the house, and presently
+returned with a huge tin of coffee, steaming hot. He drank it eagerly,
+but kept a wary eye on the haughty twin, who stood above him with the
+whip in her hand.
+
+"That's better. Now, sit down and listen to me. If you would come to the
+parsonage, you have to take your medicine. Silver and gold have we none,
+but such as we have we give to you. And religion's all we've got. You're
+here, and I'm here. We haven't any choir or any Bible, but parsonage
+folks have to be adaptable. Now then, Ben Peters, you've got to get
+converted."
+
+The poor doddering old fellow, sobered by this awful announcement,
+looked helplessly at the window. It was too small. And slender active
+Carol, with the buggy whip, stood between him and the door.
+
+"No, you can't escape. You're done for this time,--it's the straight and
+narrow from this on. Now listen,--it's really very simple. And you need
+it pretty badly, Ben. Of course you don't realize it when you're drunk,
+you can't see how terribly disgusting you are, but honestly, Ben, a pig
+is a ray of sunshine compared to a drunk man. You're a blot on the
+landscape. You're a--you're a--" She fished vainly for words, longing
+for Lark's literary flow of language.
+
+"I'm not drunk," he stammered.
+
+"No, you're not, thanks to the buggy whip and that strong coffee, but
+you're no beauty even yet. Well now, to come down to religion again. You
+can't stop drinking--"
+
+"I could," he blustered feebly, "I could if I wanted to."
+
+"Oh, no, you couldn't. You haven't backbone enough. You couldn't stop to
+save your life. But," Carol's voice lowered a little, and she grew shy,
+but very earnest, "but God can stop you, because He has enough backbone
+for a hundred thousand--er, jellyfishes. And--you see, it's like this.
+God made the world, and put the people in it. Now listen carefully, Ben,
+and I'll make it just as simple as possible so it can sink through the
+smell and get at you. God made the world, and put the people in it. And
+the people sinned, worshiped idols and went back on God, and--did a lot
+of other mean things. So God was in honor bound to punish them, for
+that's the law, and God's the judge that can't be bought. He had to
+inflict punishment. But God and Jesus talked it over, and they felt
+awfully bad about it, for they kind of liked the people anyhow." She
+stared at the disreputable figure slouching on the chunk of wood. "It's
+very hard to understand, very. I should think they would despise
+us,--some of us," she added significantly. "I'm sure I should. But
+anyhow they didn't. Are you getting me?"
+
+The bleary eyes were really fastened intently on the girl's bright face,
+and he hung upon her words.
+
+"Well, they decided that Jesus should come down here and live, and be
+perfectly good, so He would not deserve any punishment, and then God
+would allow Him to receive the punishment anyhow, and the rest of us
+could go free. That would cover the law. See? Punishing Him when He
+deserved no punishment. Then they could forgive us heathens that didn't
+deserve it. Do you get that?" She looked at him anxiously. "It all
+hinges on that, you know. I'm not a preacher myself, but that's the
+idea. So Jesus was crucified, and then God said, 'There He is! Look on
+Him, believe in Him, worship Him, and in His name you stand O. K.' See?
+That means, if we give Him the chance, God'll let Jesus take our share
+of the punishment. So we've just got to let go, and say, 'All right,
+here I am. I believe it, I give up, I know I don't amount to a hill of
+beans--and you can say it very honestly--but if you want me, and will
+call it square, God knows I'm willing.' And there you are."
+
+"Won't I drink any more?"
+
+"No, not if you let go hard enough. I mean," she caught herself up
+quickly, "I mean if you let clear go and turn the job over to God. But
+you're not to think you can keep decent by yourself, for you can't--it's
+not born in you, and something else is--just let go, and stay let go.
+After that, it's God's job, and unless you stick in and try to manage
+yourself, He'll see you through."
+
+"All right, I'll do it."
+
+Carol gasped. She opened her lips a few times, and swallowed hard. She
+didn't know what to do next. Wildly she racked her brain for the next
+step in this vital performance.
+
+"I--think we ought to pray," she said feebly.
+
+"All right, we'll pray." He rolled curiously off the stick of wood, and
+fell, as if by instinct, into the attitude of prayer.
+
+Carol gazed about her helplessly. But true to her training, she knelt
+beside him. Then came silence.
+
+"I--well, I'll pray," she said with grim determination. "Dear Father in
+Heaven," she began weakly, and then she forgot her timidity and her
+fear, and realized only that this was a crisis in the life of the
+drunken man.
+
+"Oh, God, he'll do it. He'll let go, and turn it over to you. He isn't
+worth anything, God, none of us are, but You can handle him, for You've
+had worse jobs than this, though it doesn't seem possible. You'll help
+him, God, and love him, and show him how, for he hasn't the faintest
+idea what to do next, and neither have I. But You brought him into our
+barn to-night, and You'll see him through. Oh, God, for Jesus' sake,
+help Ben Peters. Amen.
+
+"Now, what shall I do?" she wondered.
+
+"What's your father for?" She looked quickly at Ben Peters. He had not
+spoken, but something certainly had asked, "What's your father for?"
+
+"You stay here, Ben, and pray for yourself, and I'll send father out.
+I'm not just sure what to say next, and father'll finish you up. You
+pray for all you're worth."
+
+She was gone in a flash, through the kitchen, through the hall, up the
+stairs two at a time, and her arm thrown closely about her father's
+shoulder.
+
+"Oh, father, I got stuck," she wailed. "I'm so ashamed of myself. But
+you can finish him off, can't you? I honestly believe he's started."
+
+He took her firmly by the arms and squared her around on his lap. "One,
+two, three, ready, go. Now, what?"
+
+"Ben Peters. He was drunk in the barn and I took him into the woodshed
+and gave him some hot coffee,--and some religion, but not enough to hurt
+him. I told him he had to get converted, and he said he would. So I told
+him about it, but you'd better tell him again, for I'm afraid I made
+quite a mess of it. And then we prayed, and I was stuck for fair,
+father, for I couldn't think what to do next. But I do believe it was
+God who said, 'What's your father for?' And so I left him praying for
+himself, and--you'd better hurry, or he may get cold feet and run away.
+Be easy with him, father, but don't let him off. This is the first
+chance we've ever had at Ben Peters, and God'll never forgive us if we
+let him slip through our fingers."
+
+Carol was dumped off on to the floor and her father was half-way down
+the stairs before she caught her breath. Then she smiled. Then she
+blushed.
+
+"That was one bad job," she said to herself sadly. "I'm a disgrace to
+the Methodist church. Thank goodness the trustees'll never hear of it.
+I'll bribe Ben Peters to eternal silence if I have to do it with
+kisses." Then her face grew very soft. "Poor old man! Oh, the poor old
+man!" A quick rush of tears blinded her eyes, and her throat throbbed.
+"Oh, why do they,--what makes men like that? Can't they see, can't they
+know, how awful they are, how--" She shuddered. "I can't see for the
+life of me what makes God treat us decently at all." Her face brightened
+again. "I was a bad job, all right, but I feel kind of pleased about it.
+I hope father won't mention it to the girls."
+
+And Ben Peters truly had a start, incredible as it seemed. Yes, as
+Carol had warned him, he forgot sometimes and tried to steer for
+himself, and always crashed into the rocks. Then Carol, with angry eyes
+and scornful voice, berated him for trying to get hold of God's job, and
+cautioned him anew about "sticking in when it was not his affair any
+more." It took time, a long time, and hard work, and many, many prayers
+went up from Carol's bedside, and from the library at the head of the
+stairs, but there came a time when Ben Peters let go for good and all,
+and turned to Carol, standing beside the bed with sorry frightened eyes,
+and said quietly:
+
+"It's all right, Carol. I've let go. You're a mighty nice little girl.
+I've let go for good this time. I'm just slipping along where He sends
+me,--it's all right," he finished drowsily. And fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE CONNIE PROBLEM
+
+
+Mr. Starr was getting ready to go to conference, and the girls hovered
+about him with anxious eyes. This was their fifth conference since
+coming to Mount Mark,--the time limit for Methodist ministers was five
+years. The Starrs, therefore, would be transferred, and where? Small
+wonder that the girls followed him around the house and spoke in soft
+voices and looked with tender eyes at the old parsonage and the wide
+lawn. They would be leaving it next week. Already the curtains were
+down, and laundered, and packed. The trunks were filled, the books were
+boxed. Yes, they were leaving, but whither were they bound?
+
+"Get your ecclesiastical dander up, father," Carol urged, "don't let
+them give us a church fight, or a twenty-thousand-dollar debt on a
+thousand-dollar congregation."
+
+"We don't care for a big salary or a stylish congregation," Lark added,
+"but we don't want to go back to washpans and kerosene lamps again."
+
+"If you have to choose between a bath tub, with a church quarrel, and a
+wash basin with peace and harmony, we'll take the tub and settle the
+scrap!"
+
+The conference was held in Fairfield, and he informed the girls casually
+that he would be home on the first train after the assignments were
+made. He said it casually, for he did not wish them to know how
+perturbed he was over the coming change. During the conference he tried
+in many and devious ways to learn the will of the authorities regarding
+his future, but he found no clue. And at home the girls were discussing
+the matter very little, but thinking of nothing else. They were
+determined to be pleased about it.
+
+"It really doesn't make any difference," Lark said. "We've had one year
+in college, we can get along without any more. Or maybe father would let
+us borrow the money and stay at the dorm. And Connie's so far along now
+that she's all right. Any good high school will do for her. It doesn't
+make any difference at all."
+
+"No, we're so nearly grown up that one place will do just as well as
+another," agreed Carol unconcernedly.
+
+"I'm rather anxious to move, myself," said Connie. "I'm afraid some of
+the ladies might carry out their designs on father. They've had five
+years of practise now, you know."
+
+"Don't be silly, Con. Isn't Aunt Grace here on purpose to chaperon him
+and keep the ladies off? I'd hate to go to New London, or Mediapolis,
+or--but after all it doesn't make a bit of difference."
+
+Just the same, on Wednesday evening, the girls sat silent, with
+intensely flushed faces and painfully shining eyes, watching the clock,
+listening for the footstep. They had deliberately remained away from the
+station. They thought they could face it better within the friendly
+walls of the parsonage. It was all settled now, father knew where they
+were going. Oh, why hadn't he wired? It must be terribly bad then, he
+evidently wanted to break it to them gently.
+
+Maybe it was a circuit! There was the whistle now! Only a few minutes
+now. Suppose his salary were cut down,--good-by to silk stockings and
+kid gloves,--cheap, but kid, just the same! Suppose the parsonage would
+be old-fashioned! Suppose there wasn't any parsonage at all, and they
+would have to pay rent! Sup--Then the door slammed.
+
+Carol and Lark picked up their darning, and Connie bent earnestly over
+her magazine. Aunt Grace covered a yawn with her slender fingers and
+looked out of the window.
+
+"Hello!"
+
+"Why, hello, papa! Back already?"
+
+They dropped darning and magazine and flew to welcome him home.
+
+"Come and sit down!" "My, it seemed a long time!" "We had lots of fun,
+father." "Was it a nice conference?" "Mr. James sent us two bushels of
+potatoes!" "We're going to have chicken to-morrow--the Ladies' Aiders
+sent it with their farewell love." "Wasn't it a dandy day?"
+
+"Well, it's all settled."
+
+"Yes, we supposed it would be. Was the conference good? We read accounts
+of it every day, and acted stuck-up when it said nice things about
+you."
+
+"We are to--"
+
+"Ju-just a minute, father," interrupted Connie anxiously. "We don't care
+a snap where it is, honestly we don't. We're just crazy about it,
+wherever it is. We've got it all settled. You needn't be afraid to tell
+us."
+
+"Afraid to tell us!" mocked the twins indignantly. "What kind of
+slave-drivers do you think we are?"
+
+"Of course we don't care where we go," explained Lark. "Haven't we been
+a parsonage bunch long enough to be tickled to death to be sent any
+place?"
+
+"Father knows we're all right. Go on, daddy, who's to be our next
+flock?"
+
+"We haven't any, we--"
+
+The girls' faces paled. "Haven't any? You mean--"
+
+"I mean we're to stay in Mount Mark."
+
+"Stay in--What?"
+
+"Mount Mark. They--"
+
+"They extended the limit," cried Connie, springing up.
+
+"No," he denied, laughing. "They made me a presiding elder, and we're--"
+
+"A presiding elder! Father! Honestly? They--"
+
+"They ought to have made you a bishop," cried Carol loyally. "I've been
+expecting it all my life. That's where the next jump'll land you.
+Presiding elder! Now we can snub the Ladies' Aid if we want to."
+
+"Do you want to?"
+
+"No, of course not, but it's lots of fun to know we could if we did want
+to."
+
+"I pity the next parsonage bunch," said Connie sympathetically.
+
+"Why? There's nothing the matter with our church!"
+
+"Oh, no, that isn't what I mean. But the next minister's family can't
+possibly come up to us, and so--"
+
+The others broke her sentence with their laughter.
+
+"Talk about me and my complexion!" gasped Carol, wiping her eyes. "I'm
+nothing to Connie and her family pride. Where will we live now,
+father?"
+
+"We'll rent a house--any house we like--and live like white folks."
+
+"Rent! Mercy, father, doesn't the conference furnish the elders with
+houses? We can never afford to pay rent! Never!"
+
+"Oh, we have a salary of twenty-five hundred a year now," he said, with
+apparent complacence, but careful to watch closely for the effect of
+this statement. It gratified him, too, much as he had expected. The
+girls stood stock-still and gazed at him, and then, with a violent
+struggle for self-composure Carol asked:
+
+"Did you get any of it in advance? I need some new slippers."
+
+So the packing was finished, a suitable house was found--modern, with
+reasonable rent--on Maple Avenue where the oaks were most magnificent,
+and the parsonage family became just ordinary "folks," a parsonage
+household no longer.
+
+"You must be very patient with us if we still try to run things," Carol
+said apologetically to the president of the Ladies' Aid. "We've been a
+parsonage bunch all our lives, you know, and it's got to be a habit.
+But we'll be as easy on you as we can. We know what it would mean to
+leave two ministers' families down on you at once."
+
+Mr. Starr's new position necessitated long and frequent absences from
+home, and that was a drawback to the family comradeship. But the girls'
+pride in his advancement was so colossal, and their determination to
+live up to the dignity of the eldership was so deep-seated, that affairs
+ran on quite serenely in the new home.
+
+"Aren't we getting sensible?" Carol frequently asked her sisters, and
+they agreed enthusiastically that they certainly were.
+
+"I don't think we ever were so bad as we thought we were," Lark said.
+"Even Prudence says now that we were always pretty good. Prudence ought
+to think so. She got most of our spending money for a good many years,
+didn't she?"
+
+"Prudence didn't get it. She gave it to the heathen."
+
+"Well, she got credit for it on the Lord's accounts, I suppose. But she
+deserved it. It was no joke collecting allowances from us."
+
+One day this beautiful serenity was broken in upon in a most unpleasant
+way. Carol looked up from _De Senectute_ and flung out her arms in an
+all-relieving yawn. Then she looked at her aunt, asleep on the couch.
+She looked at Lark, who was aimlessly drawing feathers on the skeletons
+of birds in her biology text. She looked at Connie, sitting upright in
+her chair, a small book close to her face, alert, absorbed, oblivious to
+the world. Connie was wide awake, and Carol resented it.
+
+"What are you reading, Con?" she asked reproachfully.
+
+Connie looked up, startled, and colored a little. "Oh,--poetry," she
+stammered.
+
+Carol was surprised. "Poetry," she echoed. "Poetry? What kind of poetry?
+There are many poetries in this world of ours. 'Life is real, life is
+earnest.' 'There was a young lady from Bangor.' 'A man and a maiden
+decided to wed.' 'Sunset and, evening star,'--oh, there are lots of
+poetries. What's yours?" Her senseless dissertation had put her in good
+humor again.
+
+Connie answered evasively. "It is by an old Oriental writer. I don't
+suppose you've ever read it. Khayyam is his name."
+
+"Some name," said Carol suspiciously. "What's the poem?" Her eyes had
+narrowed and darkened. By this time Carol had firmly convinced herself
+that she was bringing Connie up,--a belief which afforded lively
+amusement to self-conducting Connie.
+
+"Why, it's _The Rubaiyat_. It's--"
+
+"_The Rubaiyat!_" Carol frowned. Lark looked up from the skeletons with
+sudden interest. "_The Rubaiyat?_ By Khayyam? Isn't that the old fellow
+who didn't believe in God, and Heaven, and such things--you know what I
+mean,--the man who didn't believe anything, and wrote about it? Let me
+see it. I've never read it myself, but I've heard about it." Carol
+turned the pages with critical disapproving eyes. "Hum, yes, I know
+about this." She faced Connie sternly. "I suppose you think, Connie,
+that since we're out of a parsonage we can do anything we like. Haven't
+we any standards? Haven't we any ideals? Are we--are we--well, anyhow,
+what business has a minister's daughter reading trash like this?"
+
+"I don't believe it, you know," Connie said coolly. "I'm only reading
+it. How can I know whether it's trash or not, unless I read it? I--"
+
+"Ministers' daughters are supposed to keep their fingers clear of the
+burning ends of matches," said Carol neatly. "We can't handle them
+without getting scorched, or blackened, at least. We have to steer clear
+of things folks aren't sure about. Prudence says so."
+
+"Prudence," said Connie gravely, "is a dear sweet thing, but she's
+awfully old-fashioned, Carol; you know that."
+
+Carol and Lark were speechless. They would as soon have dreamed of
+questioning the catechism as Prudence's perfection.
+
+"She's narrow. She's a darling, of course, but she isn't up-to-date. I
+want to know what folks are talking about. I don't believe this poem.
+I'm a Christian. But I want to know what other folks think about me and
+what I believe. That's all. Prudence is fine, but I know a good deal
+more about some things than Prudence will know when she's a thousand
+years old."
+
+The twins still sat silent.
+
+"Of course, some folks wouldn't approve of parsonage girls reading
+things like this. But I approve of it. I want to know why I disagree
+with this poetry, and I can't until I know where we disagree. It's
+beautiful, Carol, really. It's kind of sad. It makes me want to cry.
+It's--"
+
+"I've a big notion to tell papa on you," said Carol soberly and sadly.
+
+Connie rose at once.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I'm going to tell papa myself."
+
+Carol moved uneasily in her chair. "Oh, let it go this time. I--I just
+mentioned it to relieve my feelings. I won't tell him yet. I'll talk it
+over with you again. I'll have to think it over first."
+
+"I think I'd rather tell him," insisted Connie.
+
+Carol looked worried, but she knew Connie would do as she said. So she
+got up nervously and went with her. She would have to see it through
+now, of course. Connie walked silently up the stairs, with Carol
+following meekly behind, and rapped at her father's door. Then she
+entered, and Carol, in a hushed sort of way, closed the door behind
+them.
+
+"I'm reading this, father. Any objections?" Connie faced him calmly, and
+handed him the little book.
+
+He examined it gravely, his brows contracting, a sudden wrinkling at the
+corners of his lips that might have meant laughter, or disapproval, or
+anything.
+
+"I thought a parsonage girl should not read it," Carol said bravely.
+"I've never read it myself, but I've heard about it, and parsonage girls
+ought to read parsonage things. Prudence says so. But--"
+
+"But I want to know what other folks think about what I believe," said
+Connie. "So I'm reading it."
+
+"What do you think of, it?" he asked quietly, and he looked very
+strangely at his baby daughter. It was suddenly borne in on him that
+this was one crisis in her growth to womanhood, and he felt a great
+yearning tenderness for her, in her innocence, in her dauntless courage,
+in her reaching ahead, always ahead! It was a crisis, and he must be
+very careful.
+
+"I think it is beautiful," Connie said softly, and her lips drooped a
+little, and a wistful pathos crept into her voice. "It seems so sad. I
+keep wishing I could cry about it. There's nothing really sad in it, I
+think it is supposed to be rather jovial, but--it seems terrible to me,
+even when it is the most beautiful. Part of it I don't understand very
+well."
+
+He held out a hand to Connie, and she put her own in it confidently.
+Carol, too, came and stood close beside him.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it is beautiful, Connie, and it is very terrible. We
+can't understand it fully because we can't feel what he felt. It is a
+groping poem, a struggling for light when one is stumbling in darkness."
+He looked thoughtfully at the girls. "He was a marvelous man, that
+Khayyam,--years ahead of his people, and his time. He was big enough to
+see the idiocy of the heathen ideas of God, he was beyond them, he
+spurned them. But he was not quite big enough to reach out, alone, and
+get hold of our kind of a God. He was reaching out, he was struggling,
+but he couldn't quite catch hold. It is a wonderful poem. It shows the
+weakness, the helplessness of a gifted man who has nothing to cling to.
+I think it will do you good to read it, Connie. Read it again and again,
+and thank God, my child, that though you are only a girl, you have the
+very thing this man, this genius, was craving. We admire his talent, but
+we pity his weakness. You will feel sorry for him. You read it, too,
+Carol. You'll like it. We can't understand it, as I say, because we are
+so sure of our God, that we can't feel what he felt, having nothing. But
+we can feel the heart-break, the fear, the shrinking back from the
+Providence that he called Fate,--of course it makes you want to cry,
+Connie. It is the saddest poem in the world."
+
+Connie's eyes were very bright. She winked hard a few times, choking
+back the rush of tears. Then with an impulsiveness she did not often
+show, she lifted her father's hand and kissed it passionately.
+
+"Oh, father," she whispered, "I was so afraid--you wouldn't quite see."
+She kissed his hand again.
+
+Carol looked at her sister respectfully. "Connie," she said, "I
+certainly beg your pardon. I just wanted to be clever, and didn't know
+what I was talking about. When you have finished it, give it to me,
+will you? I want to read it, too; I think it must be wonderful."
+
+She held out a slender shapely hand and Connie took it quickly,
+chummily, and the two girls turned toward the door.
+
+"The danger in reading things," said Mr. Starr, and they paused to
+listen, "the danger is that we may find arguments we can not answer; we
+may feel that we have been in the wrong, that what we read is right.
+There's the danger. Whenever you find anything like that, Connie, will
+you bring it to me? I think I can find the answer for you. If I don't
+know it, I will look until I come upon it. For we have been given an
+answer to every argument. You'll come to me, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, father, I will--I know you'll find the answers."
+
+After the door had closed behind them, Mr. Starr sat for a long time
+staring straight before him into space.
+
+"The Connie problem," he said at last. And then, "I'll have to be better
+pals with her. Connie's going to be pretty fine, I believe."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+BOOSTING CONNIE
+
+
+Connie was past fifteen when she announced gravely one day, "I've
+changed my mind. I'm going to be an author."
+
+"An author," scoffed Carol. "You! I thought you were going to get
+married and have eleven children." Even with the dignity of nineteen
+years, the nimble wits of Carol and Lark still struggled with the
+irreproachable gravity of Connie.
+
+"I was," was the cool retort. "I thought you were going to be a Red
+Cross nurse and go to war."
+
+Carol blushed a little. "I was," she assented, "but there isn't any
+war."
+
+"Well," even in triumph, Connie was imperturbable, "there isn't any
+father for my eleven children either."
+
+The twins had to admit that this was an obstacle, and they yielded
+gracefully.
+
+"But an author, Connie," said Lark. "It's very hard. I gave it up long
+ago."
+
+"I know you did. But I don't give up very easily."
+
+"You gave up your eleven children."
+
+"Oh, I've plenty of time for them yet, when I find a father for them.
+Yes, I'm going to be an author."
+
+"Can you write?"
+
+"Of course I can write."
+
+"Well, you have conceit enough to be anything," said Carol frankly.
+"Maybe you'll make it go, after all. I should like to have an author in
+the family and since Lark's lost interest, I suppose it will have to be
+you. I couldn't think of risking my complexion at such a precarious
+livelihood. But if you get stuck, I'll be glad to help you out a little.
+I really have an imagination myself, though perhaps you wouldn't think
+it."
+
+"What makes you think you can write, Con?" inquired Lark, with genuine
+interest.
+
+"I have already done it."
+
+"Was it any good?"
+
+"It was fine."
+
+Carol and Lark smiled at each other.
+
+"Yes," said Carol, "she has the long-haired instinct. I see it now. They
+always say it is fine. Was it a masterpiece, Connie?" And when Connie
+hesitated, she urged, "Come on, confess it. Then we shall be convinced
+that you have found your field. They are always masterpieces. Was
+yours?"
+
+"Well, considering my youth and inexperience, it was," Connie admitted,
+her eyes sparkling appreciatively. Carol's wit was no longer lost upon
+her, at any rate.
+
+"Bring it out. Let's see it. I've never met a masterpiece yet,--except a
+dead one," said Lark.
+
+"No--no," Connie backed up quickly. "You can't see it, and--don't ask
+any more about it. Has father gone out?"
+
+The twins stared at her again. "What's the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothing, but it's my story and you can't see it. That settles it. Was
+there any mail to-day?"
+
+Afterward the twins talked it over together.
+
+"What made her back down like that?" Carol wondered. "Just when we had
+her going."
+
+"Why, didn't you catch on to that? She has sent it off to a magazine,
+of course, and she doesn't want us to know about it. I saw through it
+right away."
+
+Carol looked at her twin with new interest. "Did you ever send 'em off?"
+
+Lark flushed a little. "Yes, I did, and always got 'em back, too--worse
+luck. That's why I gave it up."
+
+"What did you do with them when they came back?"
+
+"Burned them. They always burn them. Connie'll get hers back, and she'll
+burn it, too," was the laconic answer.
+
+"An author," mused Carol. "Do you think she'll ever make it?"
+
+"Well, honestly, I shouldn't be surprised if she did. Connie's smart,
+and she never gives up. Then she has a way of saying things that--well,
+it takes. I really believe she'll make it, if she doesn't get off on
+suffrage or some other queer thing before she gets to it."
+
+"I'll have to keep an eye on her," said Carol.
+
+"You wait until she can't eat a meal, and then you'll know she's got it
+back. Many's the time Prudence made me take medicine, just because I
+got a story back. Prudence thought it was tummy-ache. The symptoms are a
+good bit the same."
+
+So Carol watched, and sure enough, there came a day when the bright
+light of hope in Connie's eyes gave way to the sober sadness of
+certainty. Her light had failed. And she couldn't eat her dinner.
+
+Lark kicked Carol's foot under the table, and the two exchanged amused
+glances.
+
+"Connie's not well," said Lark with a worried air. "She isn't eating a
+thing. You'd better give her a dose of that tonic, Aunt Grace. Prudence
+says the first sign of decay is the time for a tonic. Give her a dose."
+
+Lark solemnly rose and fetched the bottle. Aunt Grace looked at Connie
+inquiringly. Connie's face was certainly pale, and her eyes were weary.
+And she was not eating her dinner.
+
+"I'm not sick," the crushed young author protested. "I'm just not
+hungry. You trot that bottle back to the cupboard, Lark, and don't get
+gay."
+
+"You can see for yourself," insisted Lark. "Look at her. Isn't she sick?
+Many's the long illness Prudence staved off for me by a dose of this
+magic tonic. You'd better make her take it, father. You can see she's
+sick." The lust of a sweeping family revenge showed in Lark's clear
+eyes.
+
+"You'd better take a little, Connie," her father decided. "You don't
+look very well to-day."
+
+"But, father," pleaded Connie.
+
+"A dose in time saves a doctor bill," quoted Carol sententiously.
+"Prudence says so."
+
+And the aspiring young genius was obliged to swallow the bitter dose.
+Then, with the air of one who has rendered a boon to mankind, Lark
+returned to her chair.
+
+After the meal was over, Carol shadowed Connie closely. Sure enough, she
+headed straight for her own room, and Carol, close outside, heard a
+crumpling of paper. She opened the door quickly and went in. Connie
+turned, startled, a guilty red staining her pale face. Carol sat down
+sociably on the side of the bed, politely ignoring Connie's feeble
+attempt to keep the crumpled manuscript from her sight. She engaged her
+sister in a broad-minded and sweeping conversation, adroitly leading it
+up to the subject of literature. But Connie would not be inveigled into
+a confession. Then Carol took a wide leap.
+
+"Did you get the story back?"
+
+Connie gazed at her with an awe that was almost superstitious. Then, in
+relief at having the confidence forced from her, tears brightened her
+eyes, but being Connie, she winked them stubbornly back.
+
+"I sure did," she said.
+
+"Hard luck," said Carol, in a matter-of-fact voice. "Let's see it."
+
+Connie hesitated, but finally passed it over.
+
+"I'll take it to my own room and read it if you don't mind. What are you
+going to do with it now?"
+
+"Burn it."
+
+"Let me have it, won't you? I'll hide it and keep it for a souvenir."
+
+"Will you keep it hidden? You won't pass it around for the family to
+laugh at, will you?"
+
+Carol gazed at her reproachfully, rose from the bed in wounded dignity
+and moved away with the story in her hand. Connie followed her to the
+door and said humbly:
+
+"Excuse me, Carol, I know you wouldn't do such a thing. But a person
+does feel so ashamed of a story--when it comes back."
+
+"That's all right," was the kind answer. "I know just how it is. I have
+the same feeling when I get a pimple on my face. I'll keep it dark."
+
+More eagerly than she would have liked Connie to know, she curled
+herself upon the bed to read Connie's masterpiece. It was a simple
+story, but Connie did have a way of saying things, and--Carol laid it
+down in her lap and stared at it thoughtfully. Then she called Lark.
+
+"Look here," she said abruptly. "Read this. It's the masterpiece."
+
+She maintained a perfect silence while Lark perused the crumpled
+manuscript.
+
+"How is it?"
+
+"Why, it's not bad," declared Lark in a surprised voice. "It's not half
+bad. It's Connie all right, isn't it? Well, what do you know about
+that?"
+
+"Is it any good?" pursued Carol.
+
+"Why, yes, I think it is. It's just like folks you know. They talk as
+we do, and--I'm surprised they didn't keep it. I've read 'em a whole lot
+worse!"
+
+"Connie's disappointed," Carol said. "I think she needs a little boost.
+I believe she'll really get there if we kind of crowd her along for a
+while. She told me to keep this dark, and so I will. We'll just copy it
+over, and send it out again."
+
+"And if it comes back?"
+
+"We'll send it again. We'll get the name of every magazine in the
+library, and give 'em all a chance to start the newest author on the
+rosy way."
+
+"It'll take a lot of stamps."
+
+"That's so. Do you have to enclose enough to bring them back? I don't
+like that. Seems to me it's just tempting Providence. If they want to
+send them back, they ought to pay for doing it. I say we just enclose a
+note taking it for granted they'll keep it, and tell them where to send
+the money. And never put a stamp in sight for them to think of using
+up."
+
+"We can't do that. It's bad manners."
+
+"Well, I have half a dollar," admitted Carol reluctantly.
+
+After that the weeks passed by. The twins saw finally the shadow of
+disappointment leaving Connie's face, and another expression of
+absorption take its place.
+
+"She's started another one," Lark said, wise in her personal experience.
+
+And when there came the starry rapt gaze once more, they knew that this
+one, too, had gone to meet its fate. But before the second blow fell,
+the twins gained their victory. They embraced each other feverishly, and
+kissed the precious check a hundred times, and insisted that Connie was
+the cleverest little darling that ever lived on earth. Then, when
+Connie, with their father and aunt, was sitting in unsuspecting quiet,
+they tripped in upon her.
+
+[Illustration: We enclose our check for forty-five dollars]
+
+"We have something to read to you," said Carol beaming paternally at
+Connie. "Listen attentively. Put down your paper, father. It's
+important. Go on, Larkie."
+
+          "My dear Miss Starr," read Lark. "We are very much
+          pleased with your story,"--Connie sprang suddenly
+          from her chair--"your story, 'When the Rule worked
+          Backwards.' We are placing it in one of our early
+          numbers, and shall be glad at any time to have the
+          pleasure of examining more of your work. We
+          enclose our check for forty-five dollars. Thanking
+          you, and assuring you of the satisfaction with
+          which we have read your story, I am,
+
+                                    "Very cordially yours,"--
+
+"Tra, lalalalala!" sang the twins, dancing around the room, waving, one
+the letter, the other the check.
+
+Connie's face was pale, and she caught her head with both hands,
+laughingly nervously. "I'm going round," she gasped. "Stop me."
+
+Carol promptly pushed her down in a chair and sat upon her lap.
+
+"Pretty good,--eh, what?"
+
+"Oh, Carol, don't say that, it sounds awful," cautioned Lark.
+
+"What do you think about it, Connie? Pretty fair boost for a struggling
+young author, don't you think? Family, arise! The Chautauqua salute! We
+have arrived. Connie is an author. Forty-five dollars!"
+
+"But however did you do it?" wondered Connie breathlessly.
+
+"Why, we sent it out, and--"
+
+"Just once?"
+
+"Alas, no,--we sent it seven times."
+
+"Oh, girls, how could you! Think of the stamps! I'm surprised you had
+the money."
+
+"Remember that last quarter we borrowed of you? Well!"
+
+Connie laughed excitedly. "Oh, oh!--forty-five dollars! Think of it. Oh,
+father!"
+
+"Where's the story," he asked, a little jealously. "Why didn't you let
+me look it over, Connie?"
+
+"Oh, father, I--couldn't. I--I--I felt shy about it. You don't know how
+it is father, but--we want to keep them hidden. We don't get proud of
+them until they've been accepted."
+
+"Forty-five dollars." Aunt Grace kissed her warmly. "And the letter is
+worth a hundred times more to us than that. And when we see the
+story--"
+
+"We'll go thirds on the money, twins," said Connie.
+
+The twins looked eager, but conscientious. "No," they said, "it's just a
+boost, you know. We can't take the money."
+
+"Oh, you've got to go thirds. You ought to have it all. I would have
+burned it."
+
+"No, Connie," said Carol, "we know you aren't worth devotion like ours,
+but we donate it just the same--it's gratis."
+
+"All right," smiled Connie. "I know what you want, anyhow. Come on,
+auntie, let's go down town. I'm afraid that silver silk mull will be
+sold before we get there."
+
+The twins fell upon her ecstatically. "Oh, Connie, you mustn't. We can't
+allow it. Oh, of course if you insist, dearest, only--" And then they
+rushed to find hats and gloves for their generous sister and devoted
+aunt.
+
+The second story came back in due time, but with the boost still strong
+in her memory, and with the fifteen dollars in the bank, Connie bore it
+bravely and started it traveling once more. Most of the stories never
+did find a permanent lodging place, and Connie carried an old box to
+the attic for a repository for her mental fruits that couldn't make
+friends away from home. But she never despaired again.
+
+And the twins, after their own manner, calmly took to themselves full
+credit for the career which they believed lay not far before her. They
+even boasted of the way they had raised her and told fatuous and
+exaggerated stories of their pride in her, and their gentle sisterly
+solicitude for her from the time of her early babyhood. And Connie gave
+assent to every word. In her heart she admitted that the twins'
+discipline of her, though exceedingly drastic at times, had been
+splendid literary experience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A MILLIONAIRE'S SON
+
+
+"If Jim doesn't ask for a date for the concert next week, Lark, let's
+snub him good."
+
+"But we both have dates," protested Lark.
+
+"What difference does that make? We mustn't let him get independent. He
+always has asked one of us, and he needn't think we shall let him off
+now."
+
+"Oh, don't worry," interrupted Connie. "He always asks. You have that
+same discussion every time there's anything going on. It's just a waste
+of time."
+
+Mr. Starr looked up from his mail. "Soup of boys, and salad of
+boys,--they're beginning to pall on my palate."
+
+"Very classy expression father," approved Carol. "Maybe you can work it
+into a sermon."
+
+"Complexion and boys with Carol, books and boys with Lark, Connie, if
+you begin that nonsense you'll get spanked. One member of my family
+shall rise above it if I have to do it with force."
+
+Connie blushed.
+
+The twins broke into open derision. "Connie! Oh, yes, Connie's above
+that nonsense."
+
+"Connie's the worst in the family, father, only she's one of these
+reserved, supercilious souls who doesn't tell everything she knows."
+
+"'Nonsense.' I wish father could have heard Lee Hanson last night. It
+would have been a revelation to him. 'Aw, go on, Connie, give us a
+kiss.'"
+
+Connie caught her lips between her teeth. Her face was scarlet.
+
+"Twins!"
+
+"It's a fact, father. He kept us awake. 'Aw, go on, Connie, be good to a
+fellow.'"
+
+"That's what makes us so pale to-day,--he kept us awake hours!"
+
+"Carol!"
+
+"Well, quite a while anyhow."
+
+"I--I--" began Connie defensively.
+
+"Well, we know it. Don't interrupt when we're telling things. You always
+spoil a good story by cutting in. 'Aw, go on, Connie, go on now!' And
+Connie said--" The twins rocked off in a paroxysm of laughter, and
+Connie flashed a murderous look at them.
+
+"Prudence says listening is--"
+
+"Sure she does, and she's right about it, too. But what can a body do
+when folks plant themselves right beneath your window to pull off their
+little Romeo concerto. We can't smother on nights like these. 'Aw, go
+on, Connie.'"
+
+"I wanted to drop a pillow on his head, but Carol was afraid he'd run
+off with the pillow, so we just sacrificed ourselves and let it
+proceed."
+
+"Well, I--"
+
+"Give us time, Connie. We're coming to that. And Connie said, 'I'm going
+in now, I'm sleepy.'"
+
+"I didn't--father, I didn't!"
+
+"Well, you might have said a worse thing than that," he told her sadly.
+
+"I mean--I--"
+
+"She did say it," cried the twins. "'I'm sleepy.' Just like that."
+
+"Oh, Connie's the girl for sentiment," exclaimed Lark. "Sleepy is not a
+romantic word and it's not a sentimental feeling, but it can be drawled
+out so it sounds a little mushy at least. 'I sleep, my love, to dream of
+thee,'--for instance. But Connie didn't do it that way. Nix. Just plain
+sleep, and it sounded like 'Get out, and have a little sense.'"
+
+"Well, it would make you sick," declared Connie, wrinkling up her nose
+to express her disgust. "Are boys always like that father?"
+
+"Don't ask me," he hedged promptly. "How should I know?"
+
+"Oh, Connie, how can you! There's father--now, he never cared to kiss
+the girls even in his bad and balmy days, did you, daddy? Oh, no, father
+was all for the strictly orthodox even in his youth!"
+
+Mr. Starr returned precipitately to his mail, and the twins calmly
+resumed the discussion where it had been interrupted.
+
+A little later a quick exclamation from their father made them turn to
+him inquiringly.
+
+"It's a shame," he said, and again: "What a shame!"
+
+The girls waited expectantly. When he only continued frowning at the
+letter in his hand, Carol spoke up brightly, "Yes, isn't it?"
+
+Even then he did not look up, and real concern settled over their
+expressive faces. "Father! Can't you see we're listening?"
+
+He looked up, vaguely at first, then smiling. "Ah, roused your
+curiosity, did I? Well, it's just another phase of this eternal boy
+question."
+
+Carol leaned forward ingratiatingly. "Now indeed, we are all
+absorption."
+
+"Why, it's a letter from Andrew Hedges,--an old college chum of mine.
+His son is going west and Andy is sending him around this way to see me
+and meet my family. He'll be here this afternoon. Isn't it a shame?"
+
+"Isn't it lovely?" exclaimed Carol. "We can use him to make Jim Forrest
+jealous if he doesn't ask for that date?" And she rose up and kissed her
+father.
+
+"Will you kindly get back to your seat, young lady, and not interfere
+with my thoughts?" he reproved her sternly but with twinkling eyes. "The
+trouble is I have to go to Fort Madison on the noon train for that
+Epworth League convention. I'd like to see that boy. Andy's done well, I
+guess. I've always heard so. He's a millionaire, they say."
+
+For a long second his daughters gazed at him speechlessly.
+
+Then, "A millionaire's son," Lark faltered feebly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why on earth didn't you say so in the first place?" demanded Carol.
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"It makes all the difference in the world! Ah! A millionaire's son." She
+looked at Lark with keen speculative eyes. "Good-looking, I suppose,
+young, of course, and impressionable. A millionaire's son."
+
+"But I have to go to Fort Madison. I am on the program to-night. There's
+the puzzle."
+
+"Oh, father, you can leave him to us," volunteered Lark.
+
+"I'm afraid you mightn't carry it off well. You're so likely to run by
+fits and jumps, you know. I should hate it if things went badly."
+
+"Oh, father, things couldn't go badly," protested Carol. "We'll be
+lovely, just lovely. A millionaire's son! Oh, yes, daddy, you can trust
+him to us all right."
+
+At last he caught the drift of their enthusiasm. "Ah! I see! That fatal
+charm. You're sure you'll treat him nicely?"
+
+"Oh, yes, father, so sure. A millionaire's son. We've never even seen
+one yet."
+
+"Now look here, girls, fix the house up and carry it off the best you
+can. I have a lot of old friends in Cleveland, and I want them to think
+I've got the dandiest little family on earth."
+
+"'Dandiest'! Father, you will forget yourself in the pulpit some
+day,--you surely will. And when we take such pains with you, too, I
+can't understand where you get it! The people you associate with, I
+suppose."
+
+"Do your best, girls. I'm hoping for a good report. I'll be gone until
+the end of the week, since I'm on for the last night, too. Will you do
+your best?"
+
+After his departure, Carol gathered the family forces about her without
+a moment's delay.
+
+"A millionaire's son," she prefaced her remarks, and as she had
+expected, was rewarded with immediate attention. "Now, for darling
+father's sake, we've got to manage this thing the very best we can. We
+have to make this Andy Hedges, Millionaire's Son, think we're just
+about all right, for father's sake. We must have a gorgeous dinner, to
+start with. We'll plan that a little later. Now I think, Aunt Grace,
+lovely, it would be nice for you to wear your lavender lace gown, and
+look delicate, don't you? A chaperoning auntie in poor health is so
+aristocratic. You must wear the lavender satin slippers and have a
+bottle of cologne to lift frequently to your sensitive nostrils."
+
+"Why, Carol, William wouldn't like it!"
+
+"Wouldn't like it!" ejaculated the schemer in surprise. "Wouldn't like
+it! Why wouldn't he like it? Didn't he tell us to create a good
+impression? Well, this is it. You'll make a lovely semi-invalid auntie.
+You must have a faintly perfumed handkerchief to press to your eyes now
+and then. It isn't hot enough for you slowly to wield a graceful fan,
+but we can get along without it."
+
+"But, Carol--"
+
+"Think how pleased dear father will be if his old college chum's son is
+properly impressed," interrupted Carol hurriedly, and proceeded at once
+with her plans.
+
+"Connie must be a precocious younger sister, all in white,--she must
+come in late with a tennis racquet, as though she had just returned from
+a game. That will be stagey, won't it? Lark must be the sweet young
+daughter of the home. She must wear her silver mull, her gray slippers,
+and--"
+
+"I can't," said Lark. "I spilt grape juice on it. And I kicked the toe
+out of one of my slippers."
+
+"You'll have to wear mine then. Fortunately that silver mull was always
+too tight for me and I never comported myself in it with freedom and
+destructive ease. As a consequence, it is fresh and charming. You must
+arrange your hair in the most _Ladies' Home Journal_ style, and--"
+
+"What are you going to wear?"
+
+"Who, me? Oh, I have other plans for myself." Carol looked rather
+uneasily at her aunt. "I'll come to me a little later."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Connie. "Carol has something extra up her sleeve.
+She's had the millionaire's son in her mind's eye ever since father
+introduced his pocketbook into the conversation."
+
+Carol was unabashed. "My interest is solely from a family view-point. I
+have no ulterior motive."
+
+Her eyes sparkled eagerly. "You know, auntie darling--"
+
+"Now, Carol, don't you suggest anything--"
+
+"Oh, no indeed, dearest, how could you think of such a thing?"
+disclaimed Carol instantly. "It's such a very tiny thing, but it will
+mean a whole lot on the general impression of a millionaire's son. We've
+simply got to have a maid! To open the door, and curtesy, and take his
+hat, and serve the dinner, and--He's used to it, you know, and if we
+haven't one, he'll go back to Cleveland and say, 'Ah, bah Jove, I had to
+hang up my own hat, don't you know?'"
+
+"That's supposed to be English, but I don't believe it. Anyhow, it isn't
+Cleveland," said Connie flatly.
+
+"Well, he'd think we were awfully cheap and hard up, and Andy Hedges,
+Senior, would pity father, and maybe send him ten dollars, and--no,
+we've got to have a maid!"
+
+"We might get Mamie Sickey," suggested Lark.
+
+"She's so ugly."
+
+"Or Fay Greer," interposed Aunt Grace.
+
+"She'd spill the soup."
+
+"Then there's nobody but Ada Lone," decided Connie.
+
+"She hasn't anything fit to wear," objected Carol.
+
+"Of whom were you thinking, Carol?" asked her aunt, moving uneasily in
+her chair.
+
+Carol flung herself at her aunt's knees. "Me!" she cried.
+
+"As usual?" Connie ejaculated dryly.
+
+"Oh, Carol," wailed Lark, "we can't think of things to talk about when
+you aren't there to keep us stirred up."
+
+"I'm beginning to see daylight," said Connie. She looked speculatively
+at Lark. "Well, it's not half bad, Carol, and I apologize."
+
+"Don't you think it is a glorious idea, Connie?" cried Carol
+rapturously.
+
+"Yes, I think it is."
+
+Carol caught her sister's hand. Here was an ally worth having. "You know
+how sensible Connie is, auntie. She sees how utterly preposterous it
+would be to think of entertaining a millionaire's son without a maid."
+
+"You're too pretty," protested Lark. "He'd try to kiss you."
+
+"'Oh, no, sir, oh, please, sir,'" simpered Carol, with an adorable
+curtesy, "'you'd better wait for the ladies, sir.'"
+
+"Oh, Carol, I think you're awful," said their aunt unhappily. "I know
+your father won't like it."
+
+"Like it? He'll love it. Won't he, Connie?"
+
+"Well, I'm not sure he'll be crazy about it, but it'll be all over when
+he gets home," said Connie.
+
+"And you're very much in favor of it, aren't you, Connie precious?"
+
+"Yes, I am." Connie looked at Lark critically again. "We must get Lark
+some bright flowers to wear with the silver dress--sweet peas would be
+good. But I won't pay for them, and you can put that down right now."
+
+"But what's the idea?" mourned Lark. "What's the sense in it? Father
+said to be good to him, and you know I can't think of things to say to a
+millionaire's son. Oh, Carol, don't be so mean."
+
+"You must practise up. You must be girlish, and light-hearted, and
+ingenuous, you know. That'll be very effective."
+
+"You do it, Carol. Let me be the maid. You're lots more effective than I
+am."
+
+But Carol stood firm, and the others yielded to her persuasions. They
+didn't approve, they didn't sanction, but they did get enthusiastic, and
+a merrier houseful of masqueraders was never found than that. Even Aunt
+Grace allowed her qualms to be quieted and entered into her part as
+semi-invalid auntie with genuine zest.
+
+At three they were all arrayed, ready for the presentation. They
+assembled socially in the parlor, the dainty maid ready to fly to her
+post at a second's warning. At four o'clock, they were a little fagged
+and near the point of exasperation, but they still held their characters
+admirably. At half past four a telegraph message was phoned out from the
+station.
+
+          "Delayed in coming. Will write you later. Very
+          sorry. Andy Hedges, Jr."
+
+Only the absolute ludicrousness of it saved Carol from a rage. She
+looked from the girlish tennis girl to the semi-invalid auntie, and then
+to the sweet young daughter of the home, and burst out laughing. The
+others, though tired, nervous and disappointed, joined her merrily, and
+the vexation was swept away.
+
+The next morning, Aunt Grace went as usual to the all-day meeting of the
+Ladies' Aid in the church parlors. Carol and Lark, with a light lunch,
+went out for a few hours of spring-time happiness beside the creek two
+miles from town.
+
+"We'll come back right after luncheon," Carol promised, "so if Andy the
+Second should come, we'll be on hand."
+
+"Oh, he won't come to-day."
+
+"Well, he just better get here before father comes home. I know father
+will like our plan after it's over, but I also know he'll veto it if he
+gets home in time. Wish you could go with us, Connie."
+
+"Thanks. But I've got to sew on forty buttons. And--if I pick the
+cherries on the little tree, will you make a pie for dinner?"
+
+"Yes. If I'm too tired Larkie will. Do pick them, Con, the birds have
+had more than their share now."
+
+After her sisters had disappeared, Connie considered the day's program.
+
+"I'll pick the cherries while it's cool. Then I'll sew on the buttons.
+Then I'll call on the Piersons, and they'll probably invite me to stay
+for luncheon." And she went up-stairs to don a garment suitable for
+cherry-tree service. For cherry trees, though lovely to behold when
+laden with bright red clusters showing among the bright green leaves,
+are not at all lovely to climb into. Connie knew that by experience.
+Belonging to a family that wore its clothes as long as they possessed
+any wearing virtue, she found nothing in her immediate wardrobe fitted
+for the venture. But from a rag-bag in the closet at the head of the
+stairs, she resurrected some remains of last summer's apparel. First she
+put on a blue calico, but the skirt was so badly torn in places that it
+proved insufficiently protecting. Further search brought to light
+another skirt, pink, in a still worse state of delapidation. However,
+since the holes did not occur simultaneously in the two garments, by
+wearing both she was amply covered. For a waist she wore a red crape
+dressing sacque, and about her hair she tied a broad, ragged ribbon of
+red to protect the soft waves from the ruthless twigs. She looked at
+herself in the mirror. Nothing daunted by the sight of her own
+unsightliness, she took a bucket and went into the back yard.
+
+Gingerly she climbed into the tree, gingerly because Connie was not fond
+of scratches on her anatomy, and then began her task. It was a glorious
+morning. The birds, frightened away by the living scare-crow in the
+tree, perched in other, cherry-less trees around her and burst into
+derisive song. And Connie, light-hearted, free from care, in love with
+the whole wide world, sang, too, pausing only now and then to thrust a
+ripe cherry between her teeth.
+
+She did not hear the prolonged ringing of the front-door bell. She did
+not observe the young man in the most immaculate of white spring suits
+who came inquiringly around the house. But when the chattering of a
+saucy robin became annoying, she flung a cherry at him crossly.
+
+"Oh, chase yourself!" she cried. And nearly fell from her perch in
+dismay when a low voice from beneath said pleasantly:
+
+"I beg your pardon! Miss Starr?"
+
+Connie swallowed hard, to get the last cherry and the mortification out
+of her throat.
+
+"Yes," she said, noting the immaculate white spring suit, and the
+handsome shoes, and the costly Panama held so lightly in his hand. She
+knew the Panama was costly because they had wanted to buy one for her
+father's birthday, but decided not to.
+
+"I am Andrew Hedges," he explained, smiling sociably.
+
+Connie wilted completely at that. "Good night," she muttered with a
+vanishing mental picture of their lovely preparations the day previous.
+"I--mean good morning. I'm so glad to meet you. You--you're late, aren't
+you? I mean, aren't you ahead of yourself? At least, you didn't write,
+did you?"
+
+"No, I was not detained so long as I had anticipated, so I came right
+on. But I'm afraid I'm inconveniencing you."
+
+"Oh, not a bit, I'm quite comfortable," she assured him. "Auntie is gone
+just now, and the twins are away, too, but they'll all be back
+presently." She looked longingly at the house. "I'll have to come down,
+I suppose."
+
+"Let me help you," he offered eagerly. Connie in the incongruous
+clothes, with the little curls straying beneath the ragged ribbon, and
+with stains of cherry on her lips, looked more presentable than Connie
+knew.
+
+"Oh, I--" she hesitated, flushing. "Mr. Hedges," she cried imploringly,
+"will you just go around the corner until I get down. I look fearful."
+
+"Not a bit of it," he said. "Let me take the cherries."
+
+Connie helplessly passed them down to him, and saw him carefully
+depositing them on the ground. "Just give me your hand."
+
+And what could Connie do? She couldn't sternly order a millionaire's son
+to mosy around the house and mind his own business until she got some
+decent clothes on, though that was what she yearned to do. Instead she
+held out a slender hand, grimy and red, with a few ugly scratches here
+and there, and allowed herself to be helped ignominiously out from the
+sheltering branches into the garish light of day.
+
+She looked at him reproachfully. He never so much as smiled.
+
+"Laugh if you like," she said bitterly. "I looked in the mirror. I know
+all about it."
+
+"Run along," he said, "but don't be gone long, will you? Can you trust
+me with the cherries?"
+
+Connie walked into the house with great decorum, afraid the ragged
+skirts might swing revealingly, but the young man bent over the cherries
+while she made her escape.
+
+It was another Connie who appeared a little later, a typical tennis
+girl, all in white from the velvet band in her hair to the canvas shoes
+on her dainty feet. She held out the slender hand, no longer grimy and
+stained, but its whiteness still marred with sorry scratches.
+
+"I am glad to see you," she said gracefully, "though I can only pray you
+won't carry a mental picture of me very long."
+
+"I'm afraid I will though," he said teasingly.
+
+"Then please don't paint me verbally for my sisters' ears; they are
+always so clever where I am concerned. It is too bad they are out.
+You'll stay for luncheon with me, won't you? I'm all alone,--we'll have
+it in the yard."
+
+"It sounds very tempting, but--perhaps I had better come again later in
+the afternoon."
+
+"You may do that, too," said Connie. "But since you are here, I'm
+afraid I must insist that you help amuse me." And she added ruefully,
+"Since I have done so well amusing you this morning."
+
+"Why, he's just like anybody else," she was thinking with relief. "It's
+no trouble to talk to him, at all. He's nice in spite of the millions.
+Prudence says millionaires aren't half so dollar-marked as they are
+cartooned, anyhow."
+
+He stayed for luncheon, he even helped carry the folding table out
+beneath the cherry tree, and trotted docilely back and forth with plates
+and glasses, as Connie decreed.
+
+"Oh, father," she chuckled to herself, as she stood at the kitchen
+window, twinkling at the sight of the millionaire's son spreading
+sandwiches according to her instructions. "Oh, father, the boy question
+is complicated, sure enough."
+
+It was not until they were at luncheon that the grand idea visited
+Connie. Carol would have offered it harborage long before. Carol's mind
+worked best along that very line. It came to Connie slowly, but she gave
+it royal welcome. Back to her remembrance flashed the thousand witty
+sallies of Carol and Lark, the hundreds of times she had suffered at
+their hands. And for the first time in her life, she saw a clear way of
+getting even. And a millionaire's son! Never was such a revenge fairly
+crying to be perpetrated.
+
+"Will you do something for me, Mr. Hedges?" she asked. Connie was only
+sixteen, but something that is born in woman told her to lower her eyes
+shyly, and then look up at him quickly beneath her lashes. She was no
+flirt, but she believed in utilizing her resources. And she saw in a
+flash that the ruse worked.
+
+Then she told him softly, very prettily.
+
+"But won't she dislike me if I do?" he asked.
+
+"No, she won't," said Connie. "We're a family of good laughers. We enjoy
+a joke nearly as much when it's on us, as when we are on top."
+
+So it was arranged, and shortly after luncheon the young man in the
+immaculate spring suit took his departure. Then Connie summoned her aunt
+by phone, and told her she must hasten home to help "get ready for the
+millionaire's son." It was after two when the twins arrived, and Connie
+and their aunt hurried them so violently that they hadn't time to ask
+how Connie got her information.
+
+"But I hope I'm slick enough to get out of it without lying if they do
+ask," she told herself. "Prudence says it's not really wicked to get out
+of telling things if we can manage it."
+
+He had arrived! A millionaire's son! Instantly their enthusiasm returned
+to them. The cushions on the couch were carefully arranged for the
+reclining of the semi-invalid aunt, who, with the sweet young daughter
+of the home, was up-stairs waiting to be summoned. Connie, with the
+tennis racquet, was in the shed, waiting to arrive theatrically. Carol,
+in her trim black gown with a white cap and apron, was a dream.
+
+And when he came she ushered him in, curtesying in a way known only on
+the stage, and took his hat and stick, and said softly:
+
+"Yes, sir,--please come in, sir,--I'll call the ladies."
+
+She knew she was bewitching, of course, since she had done it on
+purpose, and she lifted her eyes just far enough beneath the lashes to
+give the properly coquettish effect. He caught her hand, and drew her
+slowly toward him, admiration in his eyes, but trepidation in his heart,
+as he followed Connie's coaching. But Carol was panic-seized, she broke
+away from him roughly and ran up-stairs, forgetting her carefully
+rehearsed. "Oh, no, sir,--oh, please, sir,--you'd better wait for the
+ladies."
+
+But once out of reach she regained her composure. The semi-invalid aunt
+trailed down the stairs, closely followed by the attentive maid to
+arrange her chair and adjust the silken shawl. Mr. Hedges introduced
+himself, feeling horribly foolish in the presence of the lovely serving
+girl, and wishing she would take herself off. But she lingered
+effectively, whispering softly:
+
+"Shall I lower the window, madame? Is it too cool? Your bottle, madame!"
+
+And the guest rubbed his hand swiftly across his face to hide the slight
+twitching of his lips.
+
+Then the model maid disappeared, and presently the sweet daughter of the
+house, charming in the gray silk mull and satin slippers, appeared,
+smiling, talking, full of vivacity and life. And after a while the
+dashing tennis girl strolled in, smiling inscrutably into the eyes that
+turned so quizzically toward her. For a time all went well. The
+chaperoning aunt occasionally lifted a dainty cologne bottle to her
+sensitive nostrils, and the daughter of the house carried out her
+girlish vivacity to the point of utter weariness. Connie said little,
+but her soul expanded with the foretaste of triumph.
+
+"Dinner is served, madame," said the soft voice at the door, and they
+all walked out sedately. Carol adjusted the invalid auntie's shawl once
+more, and was ready to go to the kitchen when a quiet:
+
+"Won't Miss Carol sit down with us?" made her stop dead in her tracks.
+
+He had pulled a chair from the corner up to the table for her, and she
+dropped into it. She put her elbows on the table, and leaning her dainty
+chin in her hands, gazed thoughtfully at Connie, whose eyes were bright
+with the fires of victory.
+
+"Ah, Connie, I have hopes of you yet,--you are improving," she said
+gently. "Will you run out to the kitchen and bring me a bowl of soup, my
+child?"
+
+And then came laughter, full and free,--and in the midst of it Carol
+looked up, wiping her eyes, and said:
+
+"I'm sorry now I didn't let you kiss me, just to shock father!"
+
+But the visit was a great success. Even Mr. Starr realized that. The
+millionaire's son remained in Mount Mark four days, the cynosure of all
+eyes, for as Carol said, "What's the use of bothering with a
+millionaire's son if you can't brag about him."
+
+And his devotion to his father's college chum was such that he wrote to
+him regularly for a long time after, and came westward now and again to
+renew the friendship so auspiciously begun.
+
+"But you can't call him a problem, father," said Carol keenly. "They
+aren't problematic until they discriminate. And he doesn't. He's as fond
+of Connie's conscience as he is of my complexion, as far as I can see."
+She rubbed her velvet skin regretfully. She had two pimples yesterday
+and he never even noticed them. Then she leaned forward and smiled.
+"Father, you keep an eye on Connie. There's something in there that we
+aren't on to yet." And with this cryptic remark, Carol turned her
+attention to a small jar of cold cream the druggist had given her to
+sample.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE TWINS HAVE A PROPOSAL
+
+
+It was half past three on a delightful summer afternoon. The twins stood
+at the gate with two hatless youths, performing what seemed to be the
+serious operation of separating their various tennis racquets and shoes
+from the conglomerate jumble. Finally, laughing and calling back over
+their shoulders, they sauntered lazily up the walk toward the house, and
+the young men set off in the direction from which they had come. They
+were hardly out of hearing distance when the front door opened, and Aunt
+Grace beckoned hurriedly to the twins.
+
+"Come on, quick," she said. "Where in the world have you been all day?
+Did you have any luncheon? Mrs. Forrest and Jim were here, and they
+invited you to go home with them for a week in the country. I said I
+knew you'd want to go, and they promised to come for you at four, but I
+couldn't find you any place. I suppose it is too late now. It's--"
+
+"A week!"
+
+"At Forrests'?"
+
+"Come on, Lark, sure we have time enough. We'll be ready in fifteen
+minutes."
+
+"Come on up, auntie, we'll tell you where we've been."
+
+The twins flew up the stairs, their aunt as close behind as she deemed
+safe. Inside their own room they promptly, and ungracefully, kicked off
+their loose pumps, tossed their tennis shoes and racquets on the bed,
+and began tugging at the cords of their middy blouses.
+
+"You go and wash, Carol," said Lark, "while I comb. Then I can have the
+bathroom to myself. And hurry up! You haven't any time to primp."
+
+"Pack the suit-case and the bag, will you, auntie, and--"
+
+"I already have," she answered, laughing at their frantic energy. "And I
+put out these white dresses for you to wear, and--"
+
+"Gracious, auntie! They button in the back and have sixty buttons
+apiece. We'll never have time to fasten them," expostulated Carol,
+without diminishing her speed.
+
+"I'll button while you powder, that'll be time enough."
+
+"I won't have time to powder," called back Carol from the bathroom,
+where she was splashing the water at a reckless rate. "I'll wear a veil
+and powder when I get there. Did you pack any clean handkerchiefs,
+auntie? I'm clear out. If you didn't put any in, you'd better go and
+borrow Connie's. Lucky thing she's not here."
+
+Shining with zeal and soap, Carol dashed out, and Lark dashed in.
+
+"Are there any holes in these stockings?" Carol turned around, lifting
+her skirts for inspection. "Well, I'm sorry, I won't have time to change
+them.--Did they come in the auto? Good!" She was brushing her hair as
+she talked. "Yes, we had a luncheon, all pie, though. We played tennis
+this morning; we were intending to come home right along, or we'd have
+phoned you. We were playing with George Castle and Fritzie Zale.--Is it
+sticking out any place?" She lowered her head backward for her aunt to
+see. "Stick a pin in it, will you? Thanks. They dared us to go to the
+pie counter and see which couple could eat the most pieces of lemon pie,
+the couple which lost paying for all the pie. It's not like betting, you
+know, it's a kind of reward of merit, like a Sunday-school prize. No, I
+won't put on my slippers till the last thing, my heel's sore, my tennis
+shoe rubbed the skin off. My feet seem to be getting tender. Think it's
+old age?"
+
+Lark now emerged from the bathroom, and both twins performed a flying
+exchange of dresses.
+
+"Who won?"
+
+"Lark and George ate eleven pieces, and Fritzie and I only nine. So
+Fritzie paid. Then we went on the campus and played mumble-te-peg, or
+whatever you call it. It is French, auntie."
+
+"Did they ask us to stay a whole week, auntie?" inquired Lark.
+
+"Yes. Jim was wearing his new gray suit and looked very nice. I've never
+been out to their home. Is it very nice?"
+
+"Um, swell!" This was from Carol, Lark being less slangily inclined.
+"They have about sixteen rooms, and two maids--they call them
+'girls'--and electric lights, and a private water supply,
+and--and--horses, and cows--oh, it's great! We've always been awfully
+fond of Jim. The nicest thing about him is that he always takes a girl
+home when he goes to class things and socials. I can't endure a fellow
+who walks home by himself. Jim always asks Larkie and me first, and if
+we are taken he gets some one else. Most boys, if they can't get first
+choice, pike off alone."
+
+"Here, Carol, you have my petticoat. This is yours. You broke the
+drawstring, and forgot--"
+
+"Oh, mercy, so I did. Here, auntie, pin it over for me, will you? I'll
+take the string along and put it in to-night."
+
+"Now, Carol," said Aunt Grace, smiling. "Be easy on him. He's so nice it
+would be a shame to--"
+
+Carol threw up her eyes in horror. "I am shocked," she cried. Then she
+dimpled. "But I wouldn't hurt Jim for anything. I'm very fond of him. Do
+you really think there are any--er--indications--"
+
+"Oh, I don't know anything about it. I'm just judging by the rest of the
+community."
+
+Lark was performing the really difficult feat of putting on and
+buttoning her slippers standing on one foot for the purpose and stooping
+low. Her face was flushed from the exertion.
+
+"Do you think he's crazy about you, Carol?" she inquired, rather
+seriously, and without looking up from the shoe she was so laboriously
+buttoning.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. There are a few circumstances which seem to point
+that way. Take that new gray suit for instance. Now you know yourself,
+Lark, he didn't need a new gray suit, and when a man gets a brand-new
+suit for no apparent reason, you can generally put it down that he's
+waxing romantic. Then there's his mother--she's begun telling me all his
+good points, and how cute he was when he was born, and she showed me one
+of his curls and a lot of his baby pictures--it made Jim wild when he
+came in and caught her at it, and she tells me how good he is and how
+much money he's got. That's pointed, very. But I must confess," she
+concluded candidly, "that Jim himself doesn't act very loverly."
+
+"He thinks lots of you, I know," said Lark, still seriously. "Whenever
+he's alone with me he praises you every minute of the time."
+
+"That's nothing. When he's alone with me he praises you all the time,
+too. Where's my hat, Lark? I'll bet Connie wore it, the little sinner!
+Now what shall I do?"
+
+"You left it in the barn yesterday,--don't you remember you hung it on
+the harness hook when we went out for eggs, and--"
+
+"Oh, so I did. There comes Connie now." Carol thrust her head out of the
+window. "Connie, run out to the barn and bring my hat, will you? It's on
+the harness hook. And hurry! Don't stop to ask questions, just trot
+along and do as you're told."
+
+Carol returned again to her toilet. "Well, I guess I have time to powder
+after all. I don't suppose we'll need to take any money, auntie, do you?
+We won't be able to spend it in the country."
+
+"I think you'd better take a little. They might drive to town, or go to
+a social, or something."
+
+"Can't do it. Haven't a cent."
+
+"Well, I guess I can lend you a little," was the smiling reply. It was
+a standing joke in the family that Carol had been financially hard
+pressed ever since she began using powder several years previous.
+
+"Are you fond of Jim, Carol?" Lark jumped away backward in the
+conversation, asking the question gravely, her eyes upon her sister's
+face.
+
+"Hum! Yes, I am," was the light retort. "Didn't Prudence teach us to
+love everybody?"
+
+"Don't be silly. I mean if he proposes to you, are you going to turn him
+down, or not?"
+
+"What would you advise, Lark?" Carol's brows were painfully knitted.
+"He's got five hundred acres of land, worth at least a hundred an acre,
+and a lot of money in the bank,--his mother didn't say how much, but I
+imagine several thousand anyhow. And he has that nice big house, and an
+auto, and--oh, everything nice! Think of the fruit trees, Larkie! And
+he's good-looking, too. And his mother says he is always good natured
+even before breakfast, and that's very exceptional, you know! Very! I
+don't know that I could do much better, do you, auntie? I'm sure I'd
+look cute in a sun-bonnet and apron, milking the cows! So, boss, so,
+there, now! So, boss!"
+
+"Why, Carol!"
+
+"But there are objections, too. They have pigs. I can't bear pigs!
+Pooooey, pooooey! The filthy little things! I don't know,--Jim and the
+gray suit and the auto and the cows are very nice, but when I think of
+Jim and overalls and pigs and onions and freckles I have goose flesh.
+Here they come! Where's that other slipper? Oh, it's clear under the
+bed!" She wriggled after it, coming out again breathless. "Did I rub the
+powder all off?" she asked anxiously.
+
+The low honk of the car sounded outside, and the twins dumped a
+miscellaneous assortment of toilet articles into the battered suit-case
+and the tattered hand-bag. Carol grabbed her hat from Connie, leisurely
+strolling through the hall with it, and sent her flying after her
+gloves. "If you can't find mine, bring your own," she called after her.
+
+Aunt Grace and Connie escorted them triumphantly down the walk to the
+waiting car where the young man in the new sentimental gray suit stood
+beside the open door. His face was boyishly eager, and his eyes were
+full of a satisfaction that had a sort of excitement in it, too. Aunt
+Grace looked at him and sighed. "Poor boy," she thought. "He is nice!
+Carol is a mean little thing!"
+
+He smiled at the twins impartially. "Shall we flip a coin to see who I
+get in front?" he asked them, laughing.
+
+His mother leaned out from the back seat, and smiled at the girls very
+cordially. "Hurry, twinnies," she said, "we must start, or we'll be late
+for supper. Come in with me, won't you, Larkie?"
+
+"What a greasy schemer she is," thought Carol, climbing into her place
+without delay.
+
+Jim placed the battered suit-case and the tattered bag beneath the seat,
+and drew the rug over his mother's knees. Then he went to Lark's side,
+and tucked it carefully about her feet.
+
+"It's awfully dusty," he said. "You shouldn't have dolled up so. Shall I
+put your purse in my pocket? Don't forget you promised to feed the
+chickens--I'm counting on you to do it for me."
+
+Then he stepped in beside Carol, laughing into her bright face, and the
+good-bys rang back and forth as the car rolled away beneath the heavy
+arch of oak leaves that roofed in Maple Avenue.
+
+The twins fairly reveled in the glories of the country through the
+golden days that followed, and enjoyed every minute of every day, and
+begrudged the hours they spent in sleep. The time slipped by "like
+banana skins," declared Carol crossly, and refused to explain her
+comparison. And the last day of their visit came. Supper was over at
+seven o'clock, and Lark said, with something of wistfulness in her
+voice, "I'm going out to the orchard for a farewell weep all by myself.
+And don't any of you disturb me,--I'm so ugly when I cry."
+
+So she set out alone, and Jim, a little awkwardly, suggested that Carol
+take a turn or so up and down the lane with him. Mrs. Forrest stood at
+the window and watched them, tearful-eyed, but with tenderness.
+
+"My little boy," she said to herself, "my little boy. But she's a dear,
+sweet, pretty girl."
+
+In the meantime, Jim was acquitting himself badly. His face was pale. He
+was nervous, ill at ease. He stammered when he spoke. Self-consciousness
+was not habitual to this young man of the Iowa farm. He was not the
+awkward, ignorant, gangling farm-hand we meet in books and see on
+stages. He had attended the high school in Mount Mark, and had been
+graduated from the state agricultural college with high honors. He was a
+farmer, as his father had been before him, but he was a farmer of the
+new era, one of those men who takes plain farming and makes it a
+profession, almost a fine art. Usually he was self-possessed, assertive,
+confident, but, in the presence of this sparkling twin, for once he was
+abashed.
+
+Carol was in an ecstasy of delight. She was not a man-eater, perhaps,
+but she was nearly romance-mad. She thought only of the wild excitement
+of having a sure-enough lover, the hurt of it was yet a little beyond
+her grasp. "Oh, Carol, don't be so sweet," Lark had begged her once.
+"How can the boys help being crazy about you, and it hurts them." "It
+doesn't hurt anything but their pride when they get snubbed," had been
+the laughing answer. "Do you want to break men's hearts?" "Well,--it's
+not at all bad for a man to have a broken heart," the irrepressible
+Carol had insisted. "They never amount to anything until they have a
+real good disappointment. Then they brace up and amount to something.
+See? I really think it's a kindness to give them a heart-break, and get
+them started."
+
+The callow youths of Mount Mark, of the Epworth League, and the college,
+were almost unanimous in laying their adoration at Carol's feet. But
+Carol saw the elasticity, the buoyancy, of loves like these, and she
+couldn't really count them. She felt that she was ripe for a bit of
+solid experience now, and there was nothing callow about Jim--he was
+solid enough. And now, although she could see that his feelings stirred,
+she felt nothing but excitement and curiosity. A proposal, a real one!
+It was imminent, she felt it.
+
+"Carol," he began abruptly, "I am in love."
+
+"A-are you?" Carol had not expected him to begin in just that way.
+
+"Yes,--I have been for a long time, with the sweetest and dearest girl
+in the world. I know I am not half good enough for her, but--I love her
+so much that--I believe I could make her happy."
+
+"D-do you?" Carol was frightened. She reflected that it wasn't so much
+fun as she had expected. There was something wonderful in his eyes, and
+in his voice. Maybe Lark was right,--maybe it did hurt! Oh, she really
+shouldn't have been quite so nice to him!
+
+"She is young--so am I--but I know what I want, and if I can only have
+her, I'll do anything I--" His voice broke a little. He looked very
+handsome, very grown-up, very manly. Carol quivered. She wanted to run
+away and cry. She wanted to put her arms around him and tell him she was
+very, very sorry and she would never do it again as long as she lived
+and breathed.
+
+"Of course," he went on, "I am not a fool. I know there isn't a girl
+like her in ten thousand, but--she's the one I want, and--Carol, do you
+reckon there is any chance for me? You ought to know. Lark doesn't have
+secrets from you, does she? Do you think she'll have me?"
+
+Certainly this was the surprise of Carol's life. If it was romance she
+wanted, here it was in plenty. She stopped short in the daisy-bright
+lane and stared at him.
+
+"Jim Forrest," she demanded, "is it Lark you want to marry, or me?"
+
+"Lark, of course!"
+
+Carol opened her lips and closed them. She did it again. Finally she
+spoke. "Well, of all the idiots! If you want to marry Lark, what in the
+world are you out here proposing to me for?"
+
+"I'm not proposing to you," he objected. "I'm just telling you about
+it."
+
+"But what for? What's the object? Why don't you go and rave to her?"
+
+He smiled a little. "Well, I guess I thought telling you first was one
+way of breaking it to her gently."
+
+"I'm perfectly disgusted with you," Carol went on, "perfectly. Here I've
+been expecting you to propose to me all week, and--"
+
+"Propose to you! My stars!"
+
+"Don't interrupt me," Carol snapped. "Last night I lay awake for
+hours,--look at the rings beneath my eyes--"
+
+"I don't see 'em," he interrupted again, smiling more broadly.
+
+"Just thinking out a good flowery rejection for you, and then you trot
+me out here and propose to Lark! Well, if that isn't nerve!"
+
+Jim laughed loudly at this. He was used to Carol, and enjoyed her
+little outbursts. "I can't think what on earth made you imagine I'd want
+to propose to you," he said, shaking his head as though appalled at the
+idea.
+
+Carol's eyes twinkled at that, but she did not permit him to see it.
+"Why shouldn't I think so? Didn't you get a new gray suit? And haven't I
+the best complexion in Mount Mark? Don't all the men want to propose to
+a complexion like mine?"
+
+"Shows their bum taste," he muttered.
+
+Carol twinkled again. "Of course," she agreed, "all men have bum taste,
+if it comes to that."
+
+He laughed again, then he sobered. "Do you think Lark will--"
+
+"I think Lark will turn you down," said Carol promptly, "and I hope she
+does. You aren't good enough for her. No one in the world is good enough
+for Lark except myself. If she should accept you--I don't think she
+will, but if she has a mental aberration and does--I'll give you my
+blessing, and come and live with you six months in the year, and Lark
+shall come and live with me the other six months, and you can run the
+farm and send us an allowance. But I don't think she'll have you; I'll
+be disappointed in her if she does."
+
+Carol was silent a moment then. She was remembering many things,--Lark's
+grave face that day in the parsonage when they had discussed the love of
+Jim, her unwonted gentleness and her quiet manners during this visit,
+and one night when Carol, suddenly awakening, had found her weeping
+bitterly into her pillow. Lark had said it was a headache, and was
+better now, and Carol had gone to sleep again, but she remembered now
+that Lark never had headaches! And she remembered how very often lately
+Lark had put her arms around her shoulders and looked searchingly into
+her face, and Lark was always wistful, too, of late! She sighed. Yes,
+she caught on at last, "had been pushed on to it," she thought angrily.
+She had been a wicked, blind, hateful little simpleton or she would have
+seen it long ago. But she said nothing of this to Jim.
+
+"You'd better run along then, and switch your proposal over to her, or
+I'm likely to accept you on my own account, just for a joke. And be
+sure and tell her I'm good and sore that I didn't get a chance to use
+my flowery rejection. But I'm almost sure she'll turn you down."
+
+Then Carol stood in the path, and watched Jim as he leaped lightly over
+fences and ran through the sweet meadow. She saw Lark spring to her feet
+and step out from the shade of an apple tree, and then Jim took her in
+his arms.
+
+After that, Carol rushed into the house and up the stairs. She flung
+herself on her knees beside her bed and buried her face in the white
+spread.
+
+"Lark," she whispered, "Lark!" She clenched her hands, and her shoulders
+shook. "My little twin," she cried again, "my nice old Lark." Then she
+got up and walked back and forth across the floor. Sometimes she shook
+her fist. Sometimes a little crooked smile softened her lips. Once she
+stamped her foot, and then laughed at herself. For an hour she paced up
+and down. Then she turned on the light, and went to the mirror, where
+she smoothed her hair and powdered her face as carefully as ever.
+
+"It's a good joke on me," she said, smiling, "but it's just as good a
+one on Mrs. Forrest. I think I'll go and have a laugh at her. And I'll
+pretend I knew it all along."
+
+She found the woman lying in a hammock on the broad piazza where a broad
+shaft of light from the open door fell upon her. Carol stood beside her,
+smiling brightly.
+
+"Mrs. Forrest," she said, "I know a perfectly delicious secret. Shall I
+tell you?"
+
+The woman sat up, holding out her arms. Carol dropped on her knees
+beside her, smiling mischievously at the expression on her face.
+
+"Cupid has been at work," she said softly, "and your own son has fallen
+a victim."
+
+Mrs. Forrest sniffed slightly, but she looked lovingly at the fair sweet
+face. "I am sure I can not wonder," she answered in a gentle voice. "Is
+it all settled?"
+
+"I suppose so. At any rate, he is proposing to her in the orchard, and I
+am pretty sure she's going to accept him."
+
+Mrs. Forrest's arms fell away from Carol's shoulders. "Lark!" she
+ejaculated.
+
+"Yes,--didn't you know it?" Carol's voice was mildly and innocently
+surprised.
+
+"Lark!" Mrs. Forrest was plainly dumfounded. "I--I thought it was you!"
+
+"Me!" Carol was intensely astonished. "Me? Oh, dear Mrs. Forrest,
+whatever in the world made you think that?"
+
+"Why--I don't know," she faltered weakly, "I just naturally supposed it
+was you. I asked him once where he left his heart, and he said, 'At the
+parsonage,' and so of course I thought it was you."
+
+Carol laughed gaily. "What a joke," she cried. "But you are more
+fortunate than you expected, for it is my precious old Larkie. But don't
+be too glad about it, or you may hurt my feelings."
+
+"Well, I am surprised, I confess, but I believe I like Lark as well as I
+do you, and of course Jim's the one to decide. People say Lark is more
+sensible than you are, but it takes a good bit of a man to get beyond a
+face as pretty as yours. I'm kind o' proud of Jim!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T PROPOSE
+
+
+It took a long time for Carol to recover from the effect of Lark's
+disloyalty, as she persisted in calling it. For several weeks she didn't
+twinkle at all. But when at last the smiles came easy again, she wrote
+to Mr. Duke, her p'fessor no longer, but now a full-fledged young
+minister. She apologized sweetly for her long delay.
+
+          "But you will forgive me when you have read this,"
+          she wrote. "Cupid is working havoc in our family.
+          Of course, no one outside the home circle knows
+          yet, but I insisted on telling you because you
+          have been such a grand good friend to us for so
+          long. We may seem young to you, because you can't
+          forget when we were freshmen, but we are really
+          very grown up. We act quite mature now, and never
+          think of playing jokes. But I didn't finish my
+          news, did I?
+
+          "It is Jim Forrest--he was in high school when we
+          were. Remember him? Larkie and I were out to spend
+          a week, and--but I needn't go into particulars. I
+          knew you would be interested. The whole family is
+          very happy about it, he is a great favorite with
+          every one. But how our family is going to pieces!
+          Still, since it is Jim--! He _is_ nice, isn't he?
+          But you wouldn't dare say no."
+
+Carol's eyes glittered wickedly as she sealed this letter, which she had
+penned with greatest care. And a few days later, when the answer came,
+she danced gleefully up the stairs,--not at all "mature" in manner, and
+locked the door behind her while she read:
+
+          "Dear Carol:
+
+          "Indeed I am very interested, and I wish you all
+          the joy in the world. Tell Jim for me how very
+          much I think he is to be congratulated. He seems a
+          fine fellow, and I know you will be happy. It was
+          a surprise, I admit--I knew he was doing the very
+          devoted--but you have seemed so young to me,
+          always. I can't imagine you too grown up for
+          jokes, though you do sound more 'mature' in this
+          letter than you have before. Lark will be lonely,
+          I am afraid.
+
+          "I am very busy with my work, so you will
+          understand if my letters come less frequently,
+          won't you? And you will be too busy with your own
+          happiness to bother with an old professor any more
+          anyhow. I have enjoyed our friendship very
+          much,--more than you will ever know,--and I want
+          once more to hope you may be the happiest woman in
+          the world. You deserve to be.
+
+                      "Very sincerely your friend,
+
+                                             "DAVID A. DUKE."
+
+Carol lay down on the bed and crushed the letter ecstatically between
+her hands. Then she burst out laughing. Then she cried a little,
+nervously, and laughed again. Then she smoothed the letter
+affectionately, and curled up on the bed with a pad of paper and her
+father's fountain-pen to answer the letter.
+
+          "My dear Mr. Duke: However in the world could you
+          make such a mistake. I've been laughing ever
+          since I got your letter, but I'm vexed too. He's
+          nice, all right; he's just fine, but I don't want
+          him! And think how annoyed Lark would be if she
+          could see it. I am not engaged to Jim
+          Forrest,--nor to any one. It's Lark. I certainly
+          didn't say it was I, did I? We're all so fond of
+          Jim that it really is a pleasure to the whole
+          family to count him one of us, and Lark grows more
+          deliriously joyful all the time. But I! I know
+          you're awfully busy, of course, and I hate to
+          intrude, but you must write one little postal card
+          to apologize for your error, and I'll understand
+          how hard you are working when you do not write
+          again.
+
+                     "Hastily, but always sincerely,
+
+                                                 "CAROL."
+
+Carol jumped up and caught up her hat and rushed all the way down-town
+to the post-office to get that letter started for Danville, Illinois,
+where the Reverend Mr. Duke was located. Her face was so radiant, and
+her eyes were so heavenly blue, and so sparkling bright, that people on
+the street turned to look after her admiringly.
+
+She was feverishly impatient until the answer arrived, and was not at
+all surprised that it came under special delivery stamp, though Lark
+lifted her eyebrows quizzically, and Aunt Grace smiled suggestively, and
+her father looked up with sudden questioning in his face. Carol made no
+comment, only ran up to her room and locked the door once more.
+
+          "Carol, you awful little scamp, you did that on
+          purpose, and you know it. You never mentioned
+          Lark's name. Well, if you wanted to give me the
+          scare of my life, you certainly succeeded. I
+          didn't want to lose my little chum, and I knew
+          very well that no man in his proper senses would
+          allow his sweetheart to be as good a comrade to
+          another man as I want you to be to me. Of course I
+          was disappointed. Of course I expected to be busy
+          for a while. Of course I failed to see the
+          sterling worth of Jim Forrest. I see it now,
+          though. I think he's a prince, and as near worth
+          being in your family as anybody could be. I'm sure
+          we'll be great friends, and tell Lark for me that
+          I am waxing enthusiastic over his good qualities
+          even to the point of being inarticulate. Tell her
+          how happy I am over it, a good deal happier than
+          I've been for the past several days, and I am
+          wishing them both a world of joy. I'm having one
+          myself, and I find it well worth having. I could
+          shake you, Carol, for playing such a trick on me.
+          I can just see you crouch down and giggle when you
+          read this. You wait, my lady. My turn is coming. I
+          think I'll run down to Mount Mark next week to see
+          my uncle--he's not very well. Don't have any
+          dates.
+
+                                          "Sincerely, D. D."
+
+And Carol laughed again, and wiped her eyes.
+
+The Reverend Mr. Duke's devotion to his elderly uncle in Mount Mark was
+a most beautiful thing to see. Every few weeks he "ran down for a few
+days," and if he spent most of his time recounting his uncle's symptoms
+before the sympathetic Starrs, no one could be surprised at that. He and
+Mr. Starr naturally had much in common, both ministers, and both--at any
+rate, he was very devoted to his uncle, and Carol grew up very, very
+fast, and smiled a great deal, but laughed much less frequently than in
+other days. There was a shy sweetness about her that made her father
+watch her anxiously.
+
+"Is Carol sick, Grace?" he asked one day, turning suddenly to his
+sister-in-law.
+
+She smiled curiously. "N-no, I think not. Why?"
+
+"She seems very--sweet."
+
+"Yes. She feels very--sweet," was the enigmatical response. And Mr.
+Starr muttered something about women and geometry and went away, shaking
+his head. And Aunt Grace smiled again.
+
+But the months passed away. Lark, not too absorbed in her own happiness
+to find room for her twin's affairs, at last grew troubled. She and Aunt
+Grace often held little conferences together when Carol was safely out
+of the way.
+
+"Whatever do you suppose is the matter?" Lark would wonder anxiously. To
+which her aunt always answered patiently, "Oh, just wait. He isn't sure
+she's grown-up enough yet."
+
+Then there came a quiet night when Carol and Mr. Duke sat in the
+living-room, idly discussing the weather, and looking at Connie who was
+deeply immersed in a book on the other side of the big reading lamp.
+Conversation between them lagged so noticeably that they sighed with
+relief when she finally laid down her book, and twisted around in her
+chair until she had them both in full view.
+
+"Books are funny," she began brightly. "I don't believe half the written
+stuff ever did happen--I don't believe it could. Do girls ever propose,
+Mr. Duke?"
+
+"No one ever proposed to me," he answered, laughing.
+
+"No?" she queried politely. "Maybe no one wanted you badly enough. But I
+wonder if they ever do? Writers say so. I can't believe it somehow. It
+seems so--well--unnecessary, someway. Carol and I were talking about it
+this afternoon."
+
+Carol looked up startled.
+
+"What does Carol think about it?" he queried.
+
+"Well, she said she thought in ordinary cases girls were clever enough
+to get what they wanted without asking for it."
+
+Carol moved restlessly in her chair, her face drooping a little, and Mr.
+Duke laughed.
+
+"Of course, I know none of our girls would do such a thing," said
+Connie, serene in her family pride. "But Carol says she must admit she'd
+like to find some way to make a man say what anybody could see with half
+an eye he wanted to say anyhow, only--"
+
+Connie stopped abruptly. Mr. Duke had turned to Carol, his keen eyes
+searching her face, but Carol sank in the big chair and turned her face
+away from him against the leather cushion.
+
+"Connie," she said, "of course no girl would propose, no girl would want
+to--I was only joking--"
+
+Mr. Duke laughed openly then. "Let's go and take a walk, shan't we,
+Carol? It's a grand night."
+
+"You needn't go to get rid of me," said Connie, rising. "I was just
+going anyhow."
+
+"Oh, don't go," said Mr. Duke politely.
+
+"Don't go," echoed Carol pleadingly.
+
+Connie stepped to the doorway, then paused and looked back at them.
+Sudden illumination came to her as she scanned their faces, the man's
+clear-cut, determined, eager--Carol's shy, and scared, and--hopeful. She
+turned quickly back toward her sister, pain darkening her eyes. Carol
+was the last of all the girls,--it would leave her alone,--and he was
+too old for her. Her lips quivered a little, and her face shadowed more
+darkly. But they did not see it. The man's eyes were intent on Carol's
+lovely features, and Carol was studying her slender fingers. Connie drew
+a long breath, and looked down upon her sister with a great protecting
+tenderness in her heart. She wanted to catch her up in her strong young
+arms and carry her wildly out of the room--away from the man who sat
+there--waiting for her.
+
+Carol lifted her face at that moment, and turned slowly toward Mr. Duke.
+Connie saw her eyes. They were luminous.
+
+Connie's tense figure relaxed then, and she turned at once toward the
+door. "I am going," she said in a low voice. But she looked back again
+before she closed the door after her. "Carol," she said in a whisper,
+"you--you're a darling. I--I've always thought so."
+
+Carol did not hear her,--she did not hear the door closing behind
+her--she had forgotten Connie was there.
+
+Mr. Duke stood up and walked quickly across the room and Carol rose to
+meet him. He put his arms about her, strongly, without hesitating.
+
+"Carol," he said, "my little song-bird,"--and he laughed, but very
+tenderly, "would you like to know how to make me say what you know I
+want to say?"
+
+"I--I--" she began tremulously, clasping her hands against his breast,
+and looking intently, as if fascinated, at his square firm chin so very
+near her eyes. She had never observed it so near at hand before. She
+thought it was a lovely chin,--in another man she would have called it
+distinctly "bossy."
+
+"You _would_ try to make me, when you know I've been gritting my teeth
+for years, waiting for you to get grown up. You've been awfully slow
+about it, Carol, and I've been in such a hurry for you."
+
+She rested limply in his arms now, breathing in little broken sighs, not
+trying to speak.
+
+"You have known it a long time, haven't you? And I thought I was hiding
+it so cleverly." He drew her closer in his arms. "You are too young for
+me, Carol," he said regretfully. "I am very old."
+
+"I--I like 'em old," she whispered shyly.
+
+With one hand he drew her head to his shoulder, where he could feel the
+warm fragrant breath against the "lovely chin."
+
+"You like 'them' old," he repeated, smiling. "You are very generous. One
+old one is all I want you to like." But when he leaned toward her lips,
+Carol drew away swiftly. "Don't be afraid of me, Carol. You didn't mind
+once when I kissed you." He laid his hand softly on her round cheek. "I
+am too old, dearest, but I've been loving you for years I guess. I've
+been waiting for you since you were a little freshman, only I didn't
+know it for a while. Say something, Carol--I don't want you to feel
+timid with me. You love me, don't you? Tell me, if you do."
+
+"I--I." She looked up at him desperately. "I--well, I made you say it,
+didn't I?"
+
+"Did you want me to say it, dearest? Have you been waiting, too? How
+long have you--"
+
+"Oh, a long time; since that night among the rose bushes at the
+parsonage."
+
+"Since then?"
+
+"Yes; that was why it didn't break my pledge when you kissed me. Because
+I--was waiting then."
+
+"Do you love me?"
+
+"Oh, P'fessor, don't make me say it right out in plain English--not
+to-night. I'm pretty nearly going to cry now, and--" she twinkled a
+little then, like herself, "you know what crying does to my complexion."
+
+But he did not smile. "Don't cry," he said. "We want to be happy
+to-night. You will tell me to-morrow. To-night--"
+
+"To-night," she said sweetly, turning in his arms so that her face was
+toward him again, "to-night--" She lifted her arms, and put them softly
+about his neck, the laces falling back and showing her pink dimpled
+elbows. "To-night, my dearest,--" She lifted her lips to him, smiling.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   Obvious punctuation errors correcteded.
+
+   Page 17, "make" changed to "made". (made a mistake)
+
+   Page 61, "Fairly" changed to "Fairy". (declared Fairy earnestly)
+
+   Page 72, "envoleped" changed to "enveloped". (enveloped in a)
+
+   Page 112, word "a" added to text. (playing a game)
+
+   Page 135, "ordinariy" changed to "ordinary". (ordinary style of)
+
+   Page 142, "though" changed to "thought". (thought about it)
+
+   Page 150, "Daly" changed to "Raider". (office. Mr. Raider)
+
+   Page 166, "ny" changed to "any". (any business to)
+
+   Page 193, "noisiness" changed to "nosiness". (downright nosiness)
+
+   Page 212, "stanchly" changed to "staunchly". (Carol staunchly
+             disclaimed)
+
+   Page 224, "of" changed to "or". (or Mediapolis)
+
+   Page 247, "dissappointment" changed to "disappointment". (shadow of
+             disappointment)
+
+   Page 250, "mustn't" changed to "mustn't". (you mustn't. We)
+
+   Page 266, "brough" changed to "brought". (search brought to)
+
+   Page 274, "whisperingly" changed to "whispering". (whispering softly)
+
+   Page 295, "A" changed to "At". (At any rate)
+
+   One instance each of "twinship" and "twin-ship" was retained.
+
+
+
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