One evening at the dinner table Fairy said, with a mocking smile, "How are your Slaughter-house friends to-day, Carol? When I was at the dentist's I saw you coming along, beaming at them in your own inimitable way."

"Oh, they seemed all right," Carol answered, with a deprecating glance toward her father and her aunt.

"I see by last night's paper that Guy Fleisher is just out after his last thirty days up," Fairy continued solicitously. "Did he find his incarceration trying?"

"I didn't discuss it with him," Carol said indignantly. "I never talk to them. I just say 'Good morning' in Christian charity."

Aunt Grace's eyes were smiling as always, but for the first time Carol felt that the smiles were at, instead of with, her.

"You would laugh to see her, Aunt Grace," Fairy explained. "They are generally half intoxicated, sometimes wholly. And Carol trips by, clean, white and shining. They are always lounging against the store windows or posts for support, bleary-eyed, dissipated, swaggery, staggery. Carol nods and smiles as only Carol can, 'Good morning, boys! Isn't it a lovely day? Are you feeling well?' And they grin at her and sway ingratiatingly against one another, and say, 'Mornin', Carol.' Carol is the only really decent person in town that has anything to do with them."

"Carol means all right," declared Lark angrily.

"Yes, indeed," a.s.sented Fairy, "They call them the Slaughter-house Quartette, auntie, because whenever they are sober enough to walk without police a.s.sistance, they wander through the streets slaughtering the peace and serenity of the quiet town with their rendition of all the late, disgraceful sentimental ditties. They are in many ways striking characters. I do not wholly misunderstand their attraction for romantic Carol. They are something like the troubadours of old--only more so."

Carol's face was crimson. "I don't like them," she cried, "but I'm sorry for them. I think maybe I can make them see the difference between us, me so nice and respectable you know, and them so--animalish! It may arouse their better natures--I suppose they have better natures. I want to show them that the decent element, we Christians, are sorry for them and want to make them better."

"Carol wants to be an influence," Fairy continued. "Of course, it is a little embarra.s.sing for the rest of us to have her on such friendly terms with the most unmentionable characters in all Mount Mark. But Carol is like so many reformers,--in the presence of one great truth she has eyes for it only, ignoring a thousand other, greater truths."

"I am sorry for them," Carol repeated, more weakly, abashed by the presence of the united family. Fairy's dissertations on this subject had usually occurred in private.

Mr. Starr mentally resolved that he would talk this over with Carol when the others were not present, for he knew from her face and her voice that she was really sensitive on the subject. And he knew, too, that it is difficult to explain to the very young that the finest of ideas are not applicable to all cases by all people. But it happened that he was spared the necessity of dealing with Carol privately, for matters adjusted themselves without his a.s.sistance.

The second night following was an eventful one in the parsonage. One of the bishops of the church was in Mount Mark for a business conference with the religious leaders, and was to spend the night at the parsonage.

The meeting was called for eight-thirty for the convenience of the business men concerned, and was to be held in the church offices. The men left early, followed shortly by Fairy who designed to spend the evening at the Averys' home, testing their supply of winter apples. The twins and Connie, with the newest and most thrilling book Mr. Carnegie afforded the town, went up-stairs to lie on the bed and take turns reading aloud. And for a few hours the parsonage was as calm and peaceful as though it were not designed for the housing of merry minister's daughters.

Aunt Grace sat down-stairs darning stockings. The girls' intentions had been the best in the world, but in less than a year the family darning had fallen entirely into the capable and willing hands of the gentle chaperon.

It was half past ten. The girls had just seen their heroine rescued from a watery grave and married to her bold preserver by a minister who happened to be writing a sermon on the beach--no mention of how the license was secured extemporaneously--and with sighs of gratified sentiment they lay happily on the bed thinking it all over. And then, from beneath the peach trees cl.u.s.tered on the south side of the parsonage, a burst of melody arose.

"Good morning, Carrie, how are you this morning?"

The girls sat up abruptly, staring at one another, as the curious ugly song wafted in upon them. Conviction dawned slowly, sadly, but unquestionably.

The Slaughter-house Quartette was serenading Carol in return for her winsome smiles!

Carol herself was literally struck dumb. Her face grew crimson, then white. In her heart, she repeated psalms of thanksgiving that Fairy was away, and that her father and the bishop would not be in until this colossal disaster was over.

Connie was mortified. It seemed like a wholesale parsonage insult. Lark, after the first awful realization, lay back on the bed and rolled convulsively.

"You're an influence all right, Carol," she gurgled. "Will you listen to that?"

For _Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown_ was the second choice of her cavaliers below in the darkness.

"Rufus Rastus," Lark cried, and then was choked with laughter. "Of course, it would be--proper if they sang hymns but--oh, listen!"

The rollicking strains of _Budweiser_ were swung gaily out upon the night.

Carol writhed in anguish. The serenade was bad enough, but this unmerciful mocking derision of her adored twin was unendurable.

Then the quartette waxed sentimental. They sang, and not badly, a few old southern melodies, and started slowly around the corner of the house, still singing.

It has been said that Aunt Grace was always kind, always gentle, unsuspicious and without guile. She had heard the serenade, and promptly concluded that it was the work of some of the high-school boys who were unanimously devoted to Carol. She had a big box of chocolates up-stairs, for Connie's birthday celebration. She could get them, and make lemonade, and--

She opened the door softly and stepped out, directly in the path of the startled youths. Full of her hospitable intent, she was not discerning as parsonage people need to be.

"Come in, boys," she said cordially, "the girls will be down in a minute."

The appearance of a guardian angel summoning them to Paradise could not have confounded them more utterly. They stumbled all over one another in trying to back away from her. She laughed softly.

"Don't be bashful. We enjoyed it very much. Yes, come right in."

Undoubtedly they would have declined if only they could have thought of the proper method of doing so. As it was, they only succeeded in shambling through the parsonage door, instinctively concealing their half-smoked cigarettes beneath their fingers.

Aunt Grace ushered them into the pleasant living-room, and ran up to summon her nieces.

Left alone, the boys looked at one another with amazement and with grief, and the leader, the touching tenor, said with true musical fervor, "Well, this is a go!"

In the meantime, the girls, with horror, had heard their aunt's invitation. What in the world did she mean? Was it a trick between her and Fairy? Had they hired the awful Slaughterers to bring this disgrace upon the parsonage? Sternly they faced her when she opened their door.

"Come down, girls--I invited them in. I'm going to make lemonade and serve my nice chocolates. Hurry down."

"You invited them in!" echoed Connie.

"The Slaughter-house Quartette," hissed Lark.

Then Aunt Grace whirled about and stared at them. "Mercy!" she whispered, remembering for the first time Fairy's words. "Mercy! Is it--that? I thought it was high-school boys and--mercy!"

"Mercy is good," said Carol grimly.

"You'll have to put them out," suggested Connie.

"I can't! How can I?--How did I know?--What on earth,--Oh, Carol whatever made you smile at them?" she wailed helplessly. "You know how men are when they are smiled at! The bishop--"

"You'll have to get them out before the bishop comes back," said Carol.

"You must. And if any of you ever give this away to father or Fairy I'll--"

"You'd better go down a minute, girls," urged their aunt. "That will be the easiest way. I'll just pa.s.s the candy and invite them to come again and then they'll go. Hurry now, and we'll get rid of them before the others come. Be as decent as you can, and it'll soon be over."

Thus adjured, with the dignity of the bishop and the laughter of Fairy ever in their thoughts, the girls arose and went down, proudly, calmly, loftily. Their inborn senses of humor came to their a.s.sistance when they entered the living-room. The Slaughter boys looked far more slaughtered than slaughtering. They sat limply in their chairs, nervously twitching their yellowed slimy fingers, their dull eyes intent upon the worn spots in the carpet. It was funny! Even Carol smiled, not the serene sweet smile that melted hearts, but the grim hard smile of the joker when the tables are turned! She flattered herself that this wretched travesty on parsonage courtesy would be ended before there were any further witnesses to her downfall from her proud fine heights, but she was doomed to disappointment. Fairy, on the Averys' porch, had heard the serenade. After the first shock, and after the helpless laughter that followed, she bade her friends good night.

"Oh, I've just got to go," she said. "It's a joke on Carol. I wouldn't miss it for twenty-five bushels of apples,--even as good as these are."

Her eyes twinkling with delight, she ran home and waited behind the rose bushes until the moment for her appearance seemed at hand. Then she stepped into the room where her outraged sisters were stoically pa.s.sing precious and luscious chocolates to tobacco-saturated youths.

"Good evening," she said. "The Averys and I enjoyed the concert, too. I do love to hear music outdoors on still nights like these. Carol, maybe your friends would like a drink. Are there any lemons, auntie? We might have a little lemonade."

Carol writhed helplessly. "I'll make it," she said, and rushed to the kitchen to vent her fury by shaking the very life out of the lemons. But she did not waste time. Her father's twinkles were nearly as bad as Fairy's own--and the bishop!