"We don't care for a big salary or a stylish congregation," Lark added, "but we don't want to go back to washpans and kerosene lamps again."

"If you have to choose between a bath tub, with a church quarrel, and a wash basin with peace and harmony, we'll take the tub and settle the sc.r.a.p!"

The conference was held in Fairfield, and he informed the girls casually that he would be home on the first train after the a.s.signments were made. He said it casually, for he did not wish them to know how perturbed he was over the coming change. During the conference he tried in many and devious ways to learn the will of the authorities regarding his future, but he found no clue. And at home the girls were discussing the matter very little, but thinking of nothing else. They were determined to be pleased about it.

"It really doesn't make any difference," Lark said. "We've had one year in college, we can get along without any more. Or maybe father would let us borrow the money and stay at the dorm. And Connie's so far along now that she's all right. Any good high school will do for her. It doesn't make any difference at all."

"No, we're so nearly grown up that one place will do just as well as another," agreed Carol unconcernedly.

"I'm rather anxious to move, myself," said Connie. "I'm afraid some of the ladies might carry out their designs on father. They've had five years of practise now, you know."

"Don't be silly, Con. Isn't Aunt Grace here on purpose to chaperon him and keep the ladies off? I'd hate to go to New London, or Mediapolis, or--but after all it doesn't make a bit of difference."

Just the same, on Wednesday evening, the girls sat silent, with intensely flushed faces and painfully shining eyes, watching the clock, listening for the footstep. They had deliberately remained away from the station. They thought they could face it better within the friendly walls of the parsonage. It was all settled now, father knew where they were going. Oh, why hadn't he wired? It must be terribly bad then, he evidently wanted to break it to them gently.

Maybe it was a circuit! There was the whistle now! Only a few minutes now. Suppose his salary were cut down,--good-by to silk stockings and kid gloves,--cheap, but kid, just the same! Suppose the parsonage would be old-fashioned! Suppose there wasn't any parsonage at all, and they would have to pay rent! Sup--Then the door slammed.

Carol and Lark picked up their darning, and Connie bent earnestly over her magazine. Aunt Grace covered a yawn with her slender fingers and looked out of the window.

"h.e.l.lo!"

"Why, h.e.l.lo, papa! Back already?"

They dropped darning and magazine and flew to welcome him home.

"Come and sit down!" "My, it seemed a long time!" "We had lots of fun, father." "Was it a nice conference?" "Mr. James sent us two bushels of potatoes!" "We're going to have chicken to-morrow--the Ladies' Aiders sent it with their farewell love." "Wasn't it a dandy day?"

"Well, it's all settled."

"Yes, we supposed it would be. Was the conference good? We read accounts of it every day, and acted stuck-up when it said nice things about you."

"We are to--"

"Ju-just a minute, father," interrupted Connie anxiously. "We don't care a snap where it is, honestly we don't. We're just crazy about it, wherever it is. We've got it all settled. You needn't be afraid to tell us."

"Afraid to tell us!" mocked the twins indignantly. "What kind of slave-drivers do you think we are?"

"Of course we don't care where we go," explained Lark. "Haven't we been a parsonage bunch long enough to be tickled to death to be sent any place?"

"Father knows we're all right. Go on, daddy, who's to be our next flock?"

"We haven't any, we--"

The girls' faces paled. "Haven't any? You mean--"

"I mean we're to stay in Mount Mark."

"Stay in--What?"

"Mount Mark. They--"

"They extended the limit," cried Connie, springing up.

"No," he denied, laughing. "They made me a presiding elder, and we're--"

"A presiding elder! Father! Honestly? They--"

"They ought to have made you a bishop," cried Carol loyally. "I've been expecting it all my life. That's where the next jump'll land you.

Presiding elder! Now we can snub the Ladies' Aid if we want to."

"Do you want to?"

"No, of course not, but it's lots of fun to know we could if we did want to."

"I pity the next parsonage bunch," said Connie sympathetically.

"Why? There's nothing the matter with our church!"

"Oh, no, that isn't what I mean. But the next minister's family can't possibly come up to us, and so--"

The others broke her sentence with their laughter.

"Talk about me and my complexion!" gasped Carol, wiping her eyes. "I'm nothing to Connie and her family pride. Where will we live now, father?"

"We'll rent a house--any house we like--and live like white folks."

"Rent! Mercy, father, doesn't the conference furnish the elders with houses? We can never afford to pay rent! Never!"

"Oh, we have a salary of twenty-five hundred a year now," he said, with apparent complacence, but careful to watch closely for the effect of this statement. It gratified him, too, much as he had expected. The girls stood stock-still and gazed at him, and then, with a violent struggle for self-composure Carol asked:

"Did you get any of it in advance? I need some new slippers."

So the packing was finished, a suitable house was found--modern, with reasonable rent--on Maple Avenue where the oaks were most magnificent, and the parsonage family became just ordinary "folks," a parsonage household no longer.

"You must be very patient with us if we still try to run things," Carol said apologetically to the president of the Ladies' Aid. "We've been a parsonage bunch all our lives, you know, and it's got to be a habit.

But we'll be as easy on you as we can. We know what it would mean to leave two ministers' families down on you at once."

Mr. Starr's new position necessitated long and frequent absences from home, and that was a drawback to the family comradeship. But the girls'

pride in his advancement was so colossal, and their determination to live up to the dignity of the eldership was so deep-seated, that affairs ran on quite serenely in the new home.

"Aren't we getting sensible?" Carol frequently asked her sisters, and they agreed enthusiastically that they certainly were.

"I don't think we ever were so bad as we thought we were," Lark said.

"Even Prudence says now that we were always pretty good. Prudence ought to think so. She got most of our spending money for a good many years, didn't she?"

"Prudence didn't get it. She gave it to the heathen."

"Well, she got credit for it on the Lord's accounts, I suppose. But she deserved it. It was no joke collecting allowances from us."