"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.

"RecitationMiss Carol Starr. RecitationMiss 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."