"I'd wish it would choke 'em if it wouldn't take so long," she muttered pa.s.sionately, as she hurried in with the pitcher and gla.s.ses, ready to serve the "slums" with her own chaste hands.

She was just serving the melting tenor when she heard her father's voice in the hall.

"Too late," she said aloud, and with such despair in her voice that Fairy relented and mentally promised to "see her through."

Mr. Starr's eyes twinkled freely when he saw the guests in his home, and the gentle bishop's puzzled interest nearly sent them all off into laughter. Fairy had no idea of the young men's names, but she said, quickly, to spare Carol:

"We have been serenaded to-night, Doctor--you just missed it. These are the Mount Mark troubadours. You are lucky to get here in time for the lemonade."

But when she saw the bishop glance concernedly from the yellow fingers to the dull eyes and the brown-streaked mouth, her gravity nearly forsook her. The Slaughterers, already dashed to the ground by embarra.s.sment, were entirely routed by the presence of the bishop. With incoherent apologies, they rose to their unsteady feet and in a cloud of breezy odors, made their escape.

Mr. Starr laughed a little, Aunt Grace put her arm protectingly about Carol's rigid shoulders, and the bishop said, "Well, well, well," with gentle inquiry.

"We call them the Slaughter-house Quartette," Fairy began cheerfully.

"They are the lower strata of Mount Mark, and they make the nights hideous with their choice selection of popular airs. The parsonage is divided about them. Some of us think we should treat them with proud and cold disdain. Some think we should regard them with a tender, gentle, er--smiling pity. And evidently they appreciated the smiles for they gave us a serenade in return for them. Aunt Grace did not know their history, so she invited them in, thinking they were just ordinary schoolboys. It is home mission work run aground."

The bishop nodded sympathetically. "One has to be so careful," he said.

"So extremely careful with characters like those. No doubt they meant well by their serenade, but--girls especially have to be very careful. I think as a rule it is safer to let men show the tender pity and women the fine disdain. I don't imagine they would come serenading your father and me! You carried it off beautifully, girls. I am sure your father was proud of you. I was myself. I'm glad you are Methodists. Not many girls so young could handle a difficult matter as neatly as you did."

"Yes," said Mr. Starr, but his eyes twinkled toward Carol once more; "yes, indeed, I think we are well cleared of a disagreeable business."

But Carol looked at Fairy with such humble, pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude that tears came to Fairy's eyes and she turned quickly away.

"Carol is a sweet girl," she thought. "I wonder if things will work out for her just right--to make her as happy as she ought to be. She's so--lovely."

CHAPTER VI

SUBSt.i.tUTION

The twins came in at dinner-time wrapped in unwonted silence. Lark's face was darkened by an anxious shadow, while Carol wore an expression of heroic determination. They sat down to the table without a word, and helped themselves to fish b.a.l.l.s with a surprising lack of interest.

"What's up?" Connie asked, when the rest of the family dismissed the matter with amused glances.

Lark sighed and looked at Carol, seeming to seek courage from that Spartan countenance.

Carol squared her shoulders.

"Well, go on," Connie urged. "Don't be silly. You know you're crazy to tell us about it, you only want to be coaxed."

Lark sighed again, and gazed appealingly at her stout-hearted twin.

Carol never could resist the appeal of those pleading eyes.

"Larkie promised to speak a piece at the Sunday-school concert two weeks from to-morrow," she vouchsafed, as unconcernedly as possible.

"Mercy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Connie, with an astonishment that was not altogether complimentary.

"Careful, Larkie," cautioned Fairy. "You'll disgrace the parsonage if you don't watch out."

"Nonsense," declared their father, "Lark can speak as well as anybody if she just keeps a good grip on herself and doesn't get stage fright."

Aunt Grace smiled gently.

Connie frowned. "It's a risky business," she said. "Lark can't speak any more than a rabbit, and--"

"I know it," was the humble admission.

"Don't be a goose, Con," interrupted Carol. "Of course Lark can speak a piece. She must learn it, learn it, learn it, so she can rattle it off backwards with her eyes shut. Then even if she gets scared, she can go right on and folks won't know the difference. It gets to be a habit if you know it well enough. That's the whole secret. Of course she can speak."

"How did it happen?" inquired Fairy.

"I don't know," Lark said sorrowfully. "Nothing was ever farther from my thoughts, I a.s.sure you. The first thing I knew, Mrs. Curtiss was thanking me for my promise, and Carol was marching me off like grim death."

Carol smiled, relieved now that the family commentary was over. "It was very natural. Mrs. Curtiss begged her to do it, and Lark refused. That always happens, every time the Sunday-school gives an entertainment. But Mrs. Curtiss went on to say how badly the Sunday-school needs the money, and how big a drawing card it would be for both of us twins to be on the program, one right after the other, and how well it would look for the parsonage, and it never occurred to me to warn Lark, for I never dreamed of her doing it. And all of a sudden she said, 'All right, then, I'll do it,' and Mrs. Curtiss gave her a piece and we came home. But I'm not worried about it. Lark can do anything if she only tries."

"I thought it wouldn't hurt me to try it once," Lark volunteered in her own defense.

Aunt Grace nodded, with a smile of interested approval.

"I'm proud of you, Lark, quite proud of you," her father said warmly.

"It's a big thing for you to make such a plunge,--just fine."

"I'm proud of you now, too," Connie said darkly. "The question is, will we be proud of you after the concert?"

Lark sighed dolorously.

"Oh, pooh!" encouraged Carol. "Anybody can speak a silly little old piece like that. And it will look so nice to have our names right together on the program. It'll bring out all the high-school folks, sure."

"Yes, they'll come to hear Lark all right," Fairy smiled. "But she'll make it go, of course. And it will give Carol a chance to show her cleverness by telling her how to do it."

So as soon as supper was over, Carol said decidedly, "Now, Connie, you'll have to help me with the dishes the next two weeks, for Lark's got to practise on that piece. Lark, you must read it over, very thoughtfully first to get the meaning. Then just read it and read it and read it, a dozen times, a hundred times, over and over and over. And pretty soon you'll know it."

"I'll bet I don't," was the discouraging retort, as Lark, with p.r.o.nounced distaste, took the slip of paper and sat down in the corner to read the "blooming thing," as she muttered crossly to herself.

Connie and Carol did up the dishes in dreadful silence, and then Carol returned to the charge. "How many times did you read it?"

"Fourteen and a half," was the patient answer. "It's a silly thing, Carol. There's no sense to it. 'The wind went drifting o'er the lea.'"

"Oh, that's not so bad," Carol said helpfully. "I've had pieces with worse lines than that. 'The imprint of a dainty foot,' for instance.

When you say, 'The wind went drifting o'er the lea,' you must kind of let your voice glide along, very rhythmically, very--"

"Windily," suggested Connie, who remained to witness the exhibition.

"You keep still, Constance Starr, or you can get out of here! It's no laughing matter I can tell you, and you have to keep out or I won't help and then--"

"I'll keep still. But it ought to be windily you know, since it's the wind. I meant it for a joke," she informed them. The twins had a very disheartening way of failing to recognize Connie's jokes--it took the life out of them.