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!



"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.



"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.