Carol leaned close to her and began a violent train of conversation, for the purpose of distracting her attention. Lark grew more pale.

"Recitation--Miss Lark Starr."

Again the applause rang out.

Lark did not move. "I can't," she whispered again. "I can't."

"Lark, Lark," begged Carol desperately. "You must go, you must. 'The wind went drifting o'er the lea,'--it's easy enough. Go on, Lark. You must."

Lark shook her head. "Mmmmm," she murmured indistinctly.

"Remember the parsonage," begged Carol. "Think of Prudence. Think of papa. Look, there he is, right down there. He's expecting you, Lark. You must!"

Lark tried to rise. She could not. She could not see her father's clear encouraging face for those queer flashes of light.

"You can," whispered Carol. "You can do anything if you try. Prudence says so."

People were craning their necks, and peering curiously up to the second row where the twins sat side by side. The other performers nudged one another, smiling significantly. The superintendent creaked heavily across the platform and beckoned with one plump finger.

"I can't," Lark whispered, "I'm sick."

"Lark,--Lark," called the superintendent.

Carol sighed bitterly. Evidently it was up to her. With a grim face, she rose from her chair and started out on the platform. The superintendent stared at her, his lips parting. The people stared at her too, and smiled, and then laughed. Panic-stricken, her eyes sought her father's face. He nodded quickly, and his eyes approved.

"Good!" His lips formed the word, and Carol did not falter again. The applause was nearly drowned with laughter as Carol advanced for her second recitation.

"The wind went drifting o'er the lea," she began,--her voice drifting properly on the words,--and so on to the end of the piece.

Most of the audience, knowing Lark's temperament, had concluded that fear prevented her appearance, and understood that Carol had come to her twin's rescue for the reputation of the parsonage. The applause was deafening as she went back. It grew louder as she sat down with a comforting little grin at Lark. Then as the clapping continued, something of her natural impishness entered her heart.

"Lark," she whispered, "go out and make a bow."

"Mercy!" gasped Lark. "I didn't do anything."

"It was supposed to be you--go on, Lark! Hurry! You've got to! Think what a joke it will be."

Lark hesitated, but Carol's dominance was compelling.

"Do as I tell you," came the peremptory order, and Lark arose from her chair, stepped out before the astonished audience and made a slow and graceful bow.

This time the applause ran riot, for people of less experience than those of Mount Mark could tell that the twins were playing a game. As it continued, Carol caught Larkin's hand in hers, and together they stepped out once more, laughing and bowing right and left.

Lark was the last one in that night, for she and Jim celebrated her defeat with two ice-cream sodas a piece at the corner drug store.

"I disgraced the parsonage," she said meekly, as she stepped into the family circle, waiting to receive her.

"Indeed you didn't," said Fairy. "It was too bad, but Carol pa.s.sed it off nicely, and then, turning it into a joke that way took all the embarra.s.sment out of it. It was perfectly all right, and we weren't a bit ashamed."

"And you did look awfully sweet when you made your bow," Connie said warmly,--for when a member of the family was down, no one ventured a laugh, laugh-loving though they were.

Curious to say, the odd little freak of subst.i.tution only endeared the twins to the people of Mount Mark the more.

"By ginger, you can't beat them bloomin' twins," said Harvey Reel, chuckling admiringly. And no one disagreed.

CHAPTER VII

MAKING MATCHES

Aunt Grace sat in a low rocker with a bit of embroidery in her hands.

And Fairy sat at the table, a formidable array of books before her. Aunt Grace was gazing idly at her sewing basket, a soft smile on her lips.

And Fairy was staring thoughtfully into the twilight, a soft glow in her eyes. Aunt Grace was thinking of the jolly parsonage family, and how pleasant it was to live with them. And Fairy was thinking--ah, Fairy was twenty, and twenty-year-olds always stare into the twilight, with dreamy far-seeing eyes.

In upon this peaceful scene burst the twins, flushed, tempestuous, in spite of their seventeen years. Their hurry to speak had rendered them incapable of speech, so they stood in the doorway panting breathlessly for a moment, while Fairy and her aunt, withdrawn thus rudely from dreamland, looked at them interrogatively.

"Yes, I think so, too," began Fairy, and the twins endeavored to crush her with their lofty scorn. But it is not easy to express lofty scorn when one is red in the face, perspirey and short of breath. So the twins decided of necessity to overlook the offense just this once.

Finally, recovering their vocal powers simultaneously, they cried in unison:

"Duckie!"

"Duck! In the yard! Do you mean a live one? Where did it come from?"

e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed their aunt.

"They mean Professor Duck of their freshman year," explained Fairy complacently. "It's nothing. The twins always make a fuss over him. They feel grateful to him for showing them through freshman science--that's all."

"That's all," gasped Carol. "Why, Fairy Starr, do you know he's employed by the--Society of--a--a Scientific Research Organization--or something--in New York City, and gets four thousand dollars a year and has prospects--all kinds of prospects!"

"Yes, I know it. You haven't seen him, auntie. He's tall, and has wrinkles around his eyes, and a dictatorial nose, and steel gray eyes.

He calls the twins song-birds, and they're so flattered they adore him.

He sends them candy for Christmas. You know that Duckie they rave so much about. It's the very man. Is he here?"

The twins stared at each other in blank exasperation for a full minute.

They knew that Fairy didn't deserve to hear their news, but at the same time they did not deserve such bitter punishment as having to refrain from talking about it,--so they swallowed again, sadly, and ignored her.

"He's in town," said Lark.

"Going to stay a week," added Carol.

"And he said he wanted to have lots of good times with us, and so--we--why, of course it was very sudden, and we didn't have time to ask--"

"But parsonage doors are always open--"

"And I don't know how he ever wormed it out of us, but--one of us--"