Prudence Says So.

by Ethel Hueston.

CHAPTER I

THE CHAPERON

"Girls,--come down! Quick!--I want to see how you look!"

Prudence stood at the foot of the stairs, deftly drawing on her black silk gloves,--gloves still good in Prudence's eyes, though Fairy had long since discarded them as unfit for service. There was open anxiety in Prudence's expression, and puckers of worry perpendicularly creased her white forehead.

"Girls!" she called again. "Come down! Father, you'd better hurry,--it's nearly train time. Girls, are you deaf!"

Her insistence finally brought response. A door opened in the hallway above, and Connie started down the stairs, fully dressed, except that she limped along in one stocking-foot, her shoe in her hand.

"It's so silly of you to get all dressed before you put on your shoes, Connie," Prudence reproved her as she came down. "It wrinkles you up so.

But you do look nice. Wasn't it dear of the Ladies' Aid to give you that dress for your birthday? It's so dainty and sweet,--and goodness knows you needed one. They probably noticed that. Let me fix your bow a little. Do be careful, dear, and don't get mussed before we come back.

Aunt Grace will be so much gladder to live with us if we all look sweet and clean. And you'll be good, won't you, Connie, and--Twins, will you come!"

"They are sewing up the holes in each other's stockings," Connie vouchsafed. "They're all dressed."

The twins, evidently realizing that Prudence's patience was near the breaking point, started down-stairs for approval, a curious procession.

All dressed as Connie had said, and most charming, but they walked close together, Carol stepping gingerly on one foot and Lark stooping low, carrying a needle with great solicitude,--the thread reaching from the needle to a small hole on Carol's instep.

"What on earth are you doing?"

"I'm sewing up the holes in Carol's stocking," Lark explained. "If you had waited a minute I would have finished--Hold still, Carol,--don't walk so jerky or you'll break the thread. There were five holes in her left stocking, Prudence, and I'm--"

Prudence frowned disapprovingly. "It's a very bad habit to sew up holes in your stockings when you are wearing them. If you had darned them all yesterday as I told you, you'd have had plenty of--Mercy, Lark, you have too much powder on!"

"I know it,--Carol did it. She said she wanted me to be of an intellectual pallor." Lark mopped her face with one hand.

"You'd better not mention to papa that we powdered to-day," Carol suggested. "He's upset. It's very hard for a man to be reasonable when he's upset, you know."

"You look nice, twins." Prudence advanced a step, her eyes on Carol's hair, sniffing suspiciously. "Carol, did you curl your hair?"

Carol blushed. "Well, just a little," she confessed. "I thought Aunt Grace would appreciate me more with a crown of frizzy ringlets."

"You'll spoil your hair if you don't leave it alone, and it will serve you right, too. It's very pretty as it is naturally,--plenty curly enough and--Oh, Fairy, I know Aunt Grace will love you," she cried ecstatically. "You look like a dream, you--"

"Yes,--a nightmare," said Carol snippily. "If I saw Fairy coming at me on a dark night I'd--"

"Papa, we'll miss the train!" Then as he came slowly down the stairs, she said to her sisters again, anxiously: "Oh, girls, do keep nice and clean, won't you? And be very sweet to Aunt Grace! It's so--awfully good of her--to come--and take care of us,--" Prudence's voice broke a little. The admission of another to the parsonage mothering hurt her.

Mr. Starr stopped on the bottom step, and with one foot as a pivot, slowly revolved for his daughters' inspection.

"How do I look?" he demanded. "Do you think this suit will convince Grace that I am worth taking care of? Do I look twenty-five dollars better than I did yesterday?"

The girls gazed at him with most adoring and exclamatory approval.

"Father! You look perfectly grand!--Isn't it beautiful?--Of course, you looked nicer than anybody else even in the old suit, but--it--well, it was--"

"Perfectly disgracefully shabby," put in Fairy quickly. "Entirely unworthy a minister of your--er--lovely family!"

"I hope none of you have let it out among the members how long I wore that old suit. I don't believe I could face my congregation on Sundays if I thought they were mentally calculating the wearing value of my various garments.--We'll have to go, Prudence.--You all look very fine--a credit to the parsonage--and I am sure Aunt Grace will think us well worth living with."

"And don't muss the house up," begged Prudence, as her father opened the door and pushed her gently out on the step.

The four sisters left behind looked at one another solemnly. It was a serious business,--most serious. Connie gravely put on her shoe, and b.u.t.toned it. Lark sewed up the last hole in Carol's stocking,--Carol balancing herself on one foot with nice precision for the purpose. Then, all ready, they looked at one another again,--even more solemnly.

"Well," said Fairy, "let's go in--and wait."

Silently the others followed her in, and they all sat about, irreproachably, on the well-dusted chairs, their hands folded Methodistically in their smooth and spotless laps.

The silence, and the solemnity, were very oppressive.

"We look all right," said Carol belligerently.

No one answered.

"I'm sure Aunt Grace is as sweet as anybody could be," she added presently.

Dreary silence!

"Don't we love her better than anybody on earth,--except ourselves?"

Then, when the silence continued, her courage waned. "Oh, girls," she whimpered, "isn't it awful? It's the beginning of the end of everything.

Outsiders have to come in now to take care of us, and Prudence'll get married, and then Fairy will, and maybe us twins,--I mean, we twins. And then there'll only be father and Connie left, and Miss Greet, or some one, will get ahead of father after all,--and Connie'll have to live with a step-mother, and--it'll never seem like home any more, and--"

Connie burst into loud and mournful wails.

"You're very silly, Carol," Fairy said sternly. "Very silly, indeed. I don't see much chance of any of us getting married very soon. And Prudence will be here nearly a year yet. And--Aunt Grace is as sweet and dear a woman as ever lived--mother's own sister--and she loves us dearly and--"

"Yes," agreed Lark, "but it's not like having Prudence at the head of things."

"Prudence will be at the head of things for nearly a year, and--I think we're mighty lucky to get Aunt Grace. It's not many women would be willing to leave a fine stylish home, with a hundred dollars to spend on just herself, and with a maid to wait on her, and come to an ugly old house like this to take care of a preacher and a riotous family like ours. It's very generous of Aunt Grace--very."

"Yes, it is," admitted Lark. "And as long as she was our aunt with her fine home, and her hundred dollars a month, and her maid, I loved her dearly. But--I don't want anybody coming in to manage us. We can manage ourselves. We--"

"We need a chaperon," put in Fairy deftly. "She isn't going to do the housework, or the managing, or anything. She's just our chaperon. It isn't proper for us to live without one, you know. We're too young. It isn't--conventional."

"And for goodness' sake, Connie," said Carol, "remember and call her our chaperon, and don't talk about a housekeeper. There's some style to a chaperon."

"Yes, indeed," said Fairy cheerfully. "And she wears such pretty clothes, and has such pretty manners that she will be a distinct acquisition to the parsonage. We can put on lots more style, of course.

And then it was awfully nice of her to send so much of her good furniture,--the piano, for instance, to take the place of that old tin pan of ours."

Carol smiled a little. "If she had written, 'Dear John: I can't by any means live in a house with furniture like that of yours, so you'll have to let me bring some of my own,'--wouldn't we have been furious? That was what she meant all right, but she put it very neatly."