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 listenwith 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 anythingat 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. Itmakes 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 thepresence 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 Markagain, 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 enterthe 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 chinkof 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 ofhis 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 havethought 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'tanybusiness 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 aregetting 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, andonly 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 meagain 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 onearth, 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 meantbeaux, you know. We didn't include uncles, and fathers, and old school-teachers, and things like that. You don't count. That isn't breaking my pledge."
The professor smiled, but he remembered the quivering lips, and the relaxing of the lithe body, and the forced laughter, and was not deceived.
"You're such a strange girl, Carol. You're so honest, usually, so kind-hearted, so generous. But you always seem trying to make yourself look bad, not physically, that isn't what I mean." Carol smiled, and her loving fingers caressed her soft cheek. "But you try to make folks think you are vain and selfish, when you are not. Why do you do it? Every one knows what you really are. All over Mount Mark they say you are the best little kid in town."
"They do!" she said indignantly. "Well, they'd better not. Here I've spent years building up my reputation to suit myself, and then they go and shatter me like that. They'd better leave me alone."
"But what's the object?"
"Why, you know, P'fessor," she said, carefully choosing her words, "you know, it's a pretty hard job living up to a good reputation. Look at Prudence, and Fairy, and Lark. Every one just naturally expects them to be angelically and dishearteningly good. And if they aren't, folks talk. But take me now. No one expects anything of me, and if once in a while, I do happen to turn out all right by accident, it's a sort of joyful surprise to the whole community. It's lots more fun surprising folks by being better than they expect, than shocking them by turning out worse than they think you will."
"But it doesn't do you any good," he assured her. "You can't fool them. Mount Mark knows its Carol."
"You're not going?" she said, as he released her hand and straightened the collar of his coat.
"Yes, your father will chase me off if I don't go now. How about the letters, Carol? Think you can manage a little oftener?"
"I'd love to. It's so inspiring to get a letter from a five-thousand-dollars-a-year scientist, I mean, a was-once. Do my letters sound all right? I don't want to get too chummy, you know."
"Get as chummy as you can," he urged her. "I enjoy it."
"I'll have to be more dignified if you're going toMcCormick. 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?"
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, halffrightened, 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. Theyboth 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, Prudenceand 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 huddledbreathlessly 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!
Let me introduce to you my little daughterLet me introduce to you my little daughter
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said again in the tender, half-laughing voice that Prudence loved, "let me introduce to you my little daughter, Fairy Harmer."
"Not—not Fairy!" cried Fairy, Senior, tearfully. "Oh, Jerry, I don't believe it. Not Fairy! You are joking."
"Of course it is Fairy," he said. "Look out, Connie, do you want to break part of my daughter off the first thing? Oh, I see. It was just the flannel, was it? Well, you must be careful of the flannel, for when ladies are the size of this one,you can't tell which is flannel and which is foot. Fairy Harmer! Here, grandpa, what do you think of this? And Prudence said to send you right up-stairs, and hurry. And the girls must go to bed immediately or they'll be sick to-morrow. Prudence says so."
"Oh, that's enough. That's Prudence all over! You needn't tell us any more. Here, Fairy Harmer, let us look at you. Hold her down, Jerry. Mercy! Mercy!"
"Isn't she a beauty?" boasted the young father proudly.
"A beauty? A beauty! That!" Carol rubbed her slender fingers over her own velvety cheek. "They talk about the matchless skin of a new-born infant. Thanks. I'd just as lief have my own."
"Oh, she isn't acclimated yet, that's all. Do you think she looks like me?"
"No, Jerry, I don't," said Lark candidly. "I never considered you a dream of loveliness by any means, but in due honesty I must admit that you don't look like that."
"Why, it hasn't any hair!" Connie protested.
"Well, give it time," urged the baby's father. "Bereasonable, 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 thestronger 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!"
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 "downrightnosiness." 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 youngfor 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 Prudencetold 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 knowwhen 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 lastchance 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'vedone 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. Justa 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 soglowing 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 waysI 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."