Then she sat down at Mr. Raider's desk, and drew a pad of paper toward her. For five minutes she sat immovable, body tense, face stern, breathless, rigid. Mr. Raider after one curious, satisfied glance, slipped out and closed the door softly after him. He felt he could trust to the newspaper instinct to get that story out of her.

Finally Lark, despairingly, clutched a pencil and wrote

"Terrible Tragedy of the Early Morning.

Daly Family Crushed with Sorrow."

Her mind pa.s.sed rapidly back over the story she had heard, the father's occasional wild bursts of temper, the pitiful efforts of the family to keep his weakness hidden, the insignificant altercation at the breakfast table, the cry of the startled baby, and then the sudden ungovernable fury that lashed him, the two children--! Lark shuddered! She glanced over her shoulder again. The fearful dark shadow was very close, very terrible, ready to envelope her in its smothering depths. She sprang to her feet and rushed out of the office. Mr. Raider was in the doorway.

She flung herself upon him, crushing the paper in his hand.

"I can't," she cried, looking in terror over her shoulder as she spoke, "I can't. I don't want to be a newspaper woman. I don't want any literary career. I am a minister's daughter, Mr. Raider, I can't talk about people's troubles. I want to go home."

Mr. Raider looked searchingly into the white face, and noted the frightened eyes. "There now," he said soothingly, "never mind the Daly story. I'll cover it myself. I guess it was too hard an a.s.signment to begin with, and you a friend of the family, and all. Let it go. You stay at home this afternoon. Come back to-morrow and I'll start you again.

Maybe I was too hard on you to-day."

"I don't want to," she cried, looking back at the shadow, which seemed somehow to have receded a little. "I don't want to be a newspaper woman.

I think I'll be the other kind of writer,--not newspapers, you know, just plain writing. I'm sure I shall like it better. I wasn't cut out for this line, I know. I want to go now."

"Run along," he said. "I'll see you later on. You go to bed. You're nearly sick."

Dignity? Lark did not remember that she had ever dreamed of dignity. She just started for home, for her father, Aunt Grace and the girls! The shabby old parsonage seemed suddenly very bright, very sunny, very safe. The dreadful dark shadow was not pressing so close to her shoulders, did not feel so smotheringly near.

A startled group sprang up from the porch to greet her. She flung one arm around Carol's shoulder, and drew her twin with her close to her aunt's side. "I don't want to be a newspaper woman," she cried, in a high excited voice. "I don't like it. I am awfully afraid of--THE PRESS--" She looked over her shoulder. The shadow was fading away in the distance. "I couldn't do it. I--" And then, crouching, with Carol, close against her aunt's side, clutching one of the soft hands in her own, she told the story.

"I couldn't, Fairy," she declared, looking beseechingly into the strong kind face of her sister. "I--couldn't. Mrs. Daly--sobbed so, and her hands were so brown and hard, Fairy, she kept rubbing my shoulder, and saying, 'Oh, Lark, oh, Lark, my little children.' I couldn't. I don't like newspapers, Fairy. Really, I don't."

Fairy looked greatly troubled. "I wish father were at home," she said very quietly. "Mr. Raider meant all right, of course, but it was wrong to send a young girl like you. Father is there now. It's very terrible.

You did just exactly right, Larkie. Father will say so. I guess maybe it's not the job for a minister's girl. Of course, the story will come out, but we're not the ones to tell it."

"But--the Career," suggested Carol.

"Why," said Lark, "I'll wait a little and then have a real literary career, you know, stories, and books, and poems, the kind that don't harrow people's feelings. I really don't think it is right. Don't you remember Prudence says the parsonage is a place to hide sorrows, not to hang them on the clothesline for every one to see." She looked for a last time over her shoulder. Dimly she saw a small dark cloud,--all that was left of the shadow which had seemed so eager to devour her. Her arms clasped Carol with renewed intensity.

"Oh," she breathed, "oh, isn't the parsonage lovely, Carol? I wish father would come. You all look so sweet, and kind, and--oh, I love to be at home."

CHAPTER IX

A CLEAR CALL

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 att.i.tude.

"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 listen with 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 "h.e.l.lo." 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.--h.e.l.lo?--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 anything at 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, h.e.l.lo, 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. It makes 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 the presence 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.