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them incapable of speech, so they stood in the doorway panting breathlessly for a moment, while Fairy and her aunt, withdrawn thus rudely from dreamland, looked at them interrogatively.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?" ejaculated 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—"

"I can't remember which one!"

"Invited him to come for dinner to-night, and he's coming."

"Goodness," said Aunt Grace. "We were going to have potato soup and toast."

"It'll keep," said Carol. "Of course we're sorry to inconvenience you at this late hour, but Larkie and I will tell Connie what to do, so you won't have much bother. Let's see, now, we must think up a pretty fair meal. Four thousand a year—and prospects!"

Aunt Grace turned questioning eyes toward the older sister.

"All right," said Fairy, smiling. "It's evidently settled. Think up your menu, twins, and put Connie to work."

"Is he nice?" Aunt Grace queried.

"Yes, I think he is. He used to go with our college bunch some. I know him pretty well. He brought me home from things a time or two."

Carol leaned forward and looked at her handsome sister with sudden intentness. "He asked about you," she said, keen eyes on Fairy's. "He asked particularly about you."

"Did he? Thanks. Yes, he's not bad. He's pretty good in a crowd."

By the force of her magnetic gaze, Carol drew Lark out of the room, and the door closed behind them. A few minutes later they returned. There was about them an air of subdued excitement, suggestive of intrigue, that Fairy found disturbing.

"You needn't plan any nonsense, twins," she cautioned. "He's no beau of mine."

"Of course not," they assured her pleasantly. "We're too old for mischief. Seventeen, and sensible for our years! Say, Fairy, you'll be nice to Duckie, won't you? We're too young really to entertain him, and he's so nice we want him to have a good time. Can't you try to make it pleasant for him this week? He'll only be here a few days. Will you do that much for us?"

"Why, I would, twins, of course, to oblige you, but you know Gene's in town this week, and I've got to—"

"Oh, you leave Babbie—Gene, I mean—to us," said Carol airily. Fairy being a junior in college, and Eugene Babler a student of pharmacy in Chicago, she felt obliged to restore him to his Christian name, shortened to Gene. But the twins refused to accede to this propriety, except when they particularly wished to placate Fairy.

"You leave Gene to us," repeated Carol. "We'll amuse him. Is he coming to-night?"

"Yes, at seven-thirty."

"Let's call him up and invite him for dinner, too," suggested Lark. "And you'll do us a favor and be nice to Duckie, won't you? We'll keep Babb—er, Gene—out of the road. You phone to Gene, Carol, and—"

"I'll do my own phoning, thanks," said Fairy, rising quickly. "Yes, we'll have them both. And just as a favor to you, twins, I will help amuse your professor. You'll be good, and help, won't you?"

The twins glowed at Fairy with a warmth that seemed almost triumphant. She stopped and looked at them doubtfully. When she returned after telephoning, they were gone, and she said to her aunt:

"I'm not superstitious, but when the twins act like that, there's usually a cloud in the parsonage sky-light. Prudence says so."

But the twins comported themselves most decorously. All during the week they worked like kitchen slaveys, doing chores, running errands. And they treated Fairy with a gentle consideration which almost drew tears to her eyes, though she still remembered Prudence's cloud in the parsonage sky-light!

They certainly interfered with her own plans. They engineered her off on to their beloved professor at every conceivable turn. And Gene, who nearly haunted the house, had a savage gleam in his eyes quite out of accord with his usual chatty good humor. Fairy knew she was being adroitly managed, but she had promised to help the twins with "Duckie." At first she tried artistically and unobtrusively to free herself from the complication in which her sisters had involved her. But the twins were both persistent and clever, and Fairy found herself no match for them when it came right down to business. She had no idea of their purpose,—she only knew that she and Gene were always on opposite sides of the room, the young man grinning savagely at the twins' merry prattle, and she and the professor trying to keep quiet enough to hear every word from the other corner. And if they walked, Gene was dragged off by the firm slender fingers of the friendly twins, and Fairy and the professor walked drearily along in the rear, talking inanely about the weather,—and wondering what the twins were talking about.

And the week passed. Gene finally fell off in his attendance, and the twins took a much needed rest. On Friday afternoon they flattered themselves that all was well. Gene was not coming, Fairy was in the hammock waiting for the professor. So the twins hugged each other gleefully and went to the haymow to discuss the strain and struggle of the week. And then—

"Why, the big mutt!" cried Carol, in her annoyance ignoring the Methodist grammatical boundaries, "here comes that bubbling Babler this minute. And he said he was going to New London for the day. Now we'll have to chase down there and shoo him off before Duckie comes." The twins, growling and grumbling, gathered themselves up and started. But they started too reluctantly, too leisurely. They were not in time.

Fairy sat up in the hammock with a cry of surprise, but not vexation, when Gene's angry countenance appeared before her.

"Look here, Fairy," he began, "what's the joke? Are your fingers itching to get hold of that four thousand a year the twins are eternally bragging about? Are you trying to throw yourself into the old school-teacher's pocketbook, or what?"

"Don't be silly, Gene," she said, "come and sit down and—"

"Sit down, your grandmother!" he snapped still angrily. "Old Double D. D. will be bobbing up in a minute, and the twins'll drag me off to hear about a sick rooster, or something. He is coming, isn't he?"

"I—guess he is," she said confusedly.

"Let's cut and run, will you?" he suggested hopefully. "We can be out of sight before—Come on, Fairy, be good to me. I haven't had a glimpse or a touch of you the whole week. What do you reckon I came down here for? Come on. Let's beat it." He looked around with a worried air. "Hurry, or the twins'll get us."

Fairy hesitated, and was lost. Gene grabbed her hand, and the next instant, laughing, they were crawling under the fence at the south corner of the parsonage lawn just as the twins appeared at the barn door. They stopped. They gasped. They stared at each other in dismay.

"It was a put-up job," declared Carol.

"Now what'll we do? But Babbie's got more sense than I thought he had, I must confess. Do you suppose he was kidnaping her?"

Carol snorted derisively. "Kidnaping nothing! She was ahead when I saw 'em. What'll we tell the professor?"

Two humbled gentle twins greeted the professor some fifteen minutes later.

"We're so sorry," Carol explained faintly. "Babbie came and he and Fairy—I guess they had an errand somewhere. We think they'll be back very soon. Fairy will be so sorry."

The professor smiled and looked quite bright.

"Are they gone?"

"Yes, but we're sure they'll be back,—that is, we're almost sure." Carol, remembering the mode of their departure, felt far less assurance on that point than she could have wished.

"Well, that's too bad," he said cheerfully. "But my loss is Babler's gain. I suppose we ought in Christian decency to give him the afternoon. Let's go out to the creek for a stroll ourselves, shall we? That'll leave him a clear field when they return. You think they'll be back soon, do you?"

He looked down the road hopefully, but whether hopeful they would return, or wouldn't, the twins could not have told. At any rate, he seemed quite impatient until they were ready to start, and then, very gaily, the three wended their way out the pretty country road toward the creek and Blackbird Lane. They had a good time, the twins always did insist that no one on earth was quite so entertaining as dear old Duckie, but in her heart Carol registered a solemn vow to have it out with Fairy when she got back. She had no opportunity that night. Fairy and Gene telephoned that they would not be home for dinner, and the professor had gone, and the twins were sleeping soundly, when Fairy crept softly up the stairs.

But Carol did not forget her vow. Early the next morning she stalked grimly into Fairy's room, where Fairy was conscientiously bringing order out of the chaos in her bureau drawers, a thing Fairy always did after a perfectly happy day. Carol knew that, and it was with genuine reproach in her voice that she spoke at last, after standing for some two minutes watching Fairy as she deftly twirled long ribbons about her fingers and then laid them in methodical piles in separate corners of the drawers.

"Fairy," she said sadly, "you don't seem very appreciative some way. Here Larkie and I have tried so hard to give you a genuine opportunity—we've worked and schemed and kept ourselves in the background, and that's the way you serve us! It's disappointing. It's downright disheartening."

Fairy folded a blue veil and laid it on top of a white one. Then she turned. "Yes. What?" She inquired coolly.

"There are so few real chances for a woman in Mount Mark, and we felt that this was once in a lifetime. And you know how hard we worked. And then, when we relaxed our—our vigilance—just for a moment, you spoiled it all by—"

"Yes,—talk English, Carrie. What was it you tried to do for me?"

"Well, if you want plain English you can have it," said Carol heatedly. "You know what professor is, a swell position like his, and such prospects, and New York City, and four thousand a year with a raise for next year, and we tried to give you a good fair chance to land him squarely, and—"

"To land him—"

"To get him, then! He hasn't any girl. You could have been engaged to him this minute—Professor David Arnold Duke—if you had wanted to."

"Oh, is that it?"

"Yes, that's it."

Fairy smiled. "Thank you, dear, it was sweet of you, but you're too late. I am engaged."

Carol's lips parted, closed, parted again. "You—you?"

"Exactly so."

Hope flashed into Carol's eyes. Fairy saw it, and answered swiftly.

"Certainly not. I'm not crazy about your little Prof. I am engaged to Eugene Babler." She said it with pride, not unmixed with defiance, knowing as she did that the twins considered Gene too undignified for a parsonage son-in-law. The twins were strong for parsonage dignity!

"You—are?"

"I am."

A long instant Carol stared at her. Then she turned toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to tell papa."

Fairy laughed. "Papa knows it."

Carol came slowly back and stood by the dresser again. After a short silence she moved away once more.

"Where now?"

"I'll tell Aunt Grace, then."

"Aunt Grace knows it, too."

"Does Prudence know it?"

"Yes."

Carol swallowed this bitter pill in silence.

"How long?" she inquired at last.

"About a year. Look here, Carol, I'll show you something. Really I'm glad you know about it. We're pretty young, and papa thought we ought to keep it dark a while to make sure. That's why we didn't tell you. Look at this." From her cedar chest—a Christmas gift from Gene—she drew out a small velvet jeweler's box, and displayed before the admiring eyes of Carol a plain gold ring with a modest diamond.

Carol kissed it. Then she kissed Fairy twice.

"I know you'll be awfully happy, Fairy," she said soberly. "And I'm glad of it. But—I can't honestly believe there's any man good enough for our girls. Babbie's nice, and dear, and all that, and he's so crazy about you, and—do you love him?" Her eyes were wide, rather wondering, as she put this question softly.

Fairy put her arm about her sister's shoulders, and her fine steady eyes met Carol's clearly.

"Yes," she said frankly, "I love him—with all my heart."

"Is that what makes you so—so shiny, and smiley, and starry all the time?"

"I guess it is. It is the most wonderful thing in the world, Carol. You can't even imagine it—beforehand. It is magical, it is heavenly."

"Yes, I suppose it is. Prudence says so, too. I can't imagine it, I kind of wish I could. Can't I go and tell Connie and Lark? I want to tell somebody!"

"Yes, tell them. We decided not to let you know just yet, but since—yes, tell them, and bring them up to see it."

Carol kissed her again, and went out, gently closing the door behind her. In the hallway she stopped and stared at the wall for an unseeing moment. Then she clenched and shook a stern white fist at the door.

"I don't care," she muttered, "they're not good enough for Prudence and Fairy! They're not! I just believe I despise men, all of 'em, unless it's daddy and Duck!" She smiled a little and then looked grim once more. "Eugene Babler, and a little queen like Fairy! I think that must be Heaven's notion of a joke." She sighed again. "Oh, well, it's something to have something to tell! I'm glad I found it out ahead of Lark!"