IT was half past three on a delightful summer afternoon. The twins stood at the gate with two hatless youths, performing what seemed to be the serious operation of separating their various tennis racquets and shoes from the conglomerate jumble. Finally, laughing and calling back over their shoulders, they sauntered lazily up the walk toward the house, and the young men set off in the direction from which they had come. They were hardly out of hearing distance when the front door opened, and Aunt Grace beckoned hurriedly to the twins.

"Come on, quick," she said. "Where in the world have you been all day? Did you have any luncheon? Mrs. Forrest and Jim were here, and they invited you to go home with them for a week in the country. I said I knew you'd want to go, and they promised to come for you at four, but I couldn't find you any place. I suppose it is too late now. It's—"

"A week!"

"At Forrests'?"

"Come on, Lark, sure we have time enough. We'll be ready in fifteen minutes."

"Come on up, auntie, we'll tell you where we've been."

The twins flew up the stairs, their aunt as close behind as she deemed safe. Inside their own room they promptly, and ungracefully, kicked off their loose pumps, tossed their tennis shoes and racquets on the bed, and began tugging at the cords of their middy blouses.

"You go and wash, Carol," said Lark, "while I comb. Then I can have the bathroom to myself. And hurry up! You haven't any time to primp."

"Pack the suit-case and the bag, will you, auntie, and—"

"I already have," she answered, laughing at their frantic energy. "And I put out these white dresses for you to wear, and—"

"Gracious, auntie! They button in the back and have sixty buttons apiece. We'll never have time to fasten them," expostulated Carol, without diminishing her speed.

"I'll button while you powder, that'll be time enough."

"I won't have time to powder," called back Carol from the bathroom, where she was splashing the water at a reckless rate. "I'll wear a veil and powder when I get there. Did you pack any clean handkerchiefs, auntie? I'm clear out. If you didn't put any in, you'd better go and borrow Connie's. Lucky thing she's not here."

Shining with zeal and soap, Carol dashed out, and Lark dashed in.

"Are there any holes in these stockings?" Carol turned around, lifting her skirts for inspection. "Well, I'm sorry, I won't have time to change them.—Did they come in the auto? Good!" She was brushing her hair as she talked. "Yes, we had a luncheon, all pie, though. We played tennis this morning; we were intending to come home right along, or we'd have phoned you. We were playing with George Castle and Fritzie Zale.—Is it sticking out any place?" She lowered her head backward for her aunt to see. "Stick a pin in it, will you? Thanks. They dared us to go to the pie counter and see which couple could eat the most pieces of lemon pie, the couple which lost paying for all the pie. It's not like betting, you know, it's a kind of reward of merit, like a Sunday-school prize. No, I won't put on my slippers till the last thing, my heel's sore, my tennis shoe rubbed the skin off. My feet seem to be getting tender. Think it's old age?"

Lark now emerged from the bathroom, and both twins performed a flying exchange of dresses.

"Who won?"

"Lark and George ate eleven pieces, and Fritzie and I only nine. So Fritzie paid. Then we went on the campus and played mumble-te-peg, or whatever you call it. It is French, auntie."

"Did they ask us to stay a whole week, auntie?" inquired Lark.

"Yes. Jim was wearing his new gray suit and looked very nice. I've never been out to their home. Is it very nice?"

"Um, swell!" This was from Carol, Lark being less slangily inclined. "They have about sixteen rooms, and two maids—they call them 'girls'—and electric lights, and a private water supply, and—and—horses, and cows—oh, it's great! We've always been awfully fond of Jim. The nicest thing about him is that he always takes a girl home when he goes to class things and socials. I can't endure a fellow who walks home by himself. Jim always asks Larkie and me first, and if we are taken he gets some one else. Most boys, if they can't get first choice, pike off alone."

"Here, Carol, you have my petticoat. This is yours. You broke the drawstring, and forgot—"

"Oh, mercy, so I did. Here, auntie, pin it over for me, will you? I'll take the string along and put it in to-night."

"Now, Carol," said Aunt Grace, smiling. "Be easy on him. He's so nice it would be a shame to—"

Carol threw up her eyes in horror. "I am shocked," she cried. Then she dimpled. "But I wouldn't hurt Jim for anything. I'm very fond of him. Do you really think there are any—er—indications—"

"Oh, I don't know anything about it. I'm just judging by the rest of the community."

Lark was performing the really difficult feat of putting on and buttoning her slippers standing on one foot for the purpose and stooping low. Her face was flushed from the exertion.

"Do you think he's crazy about you, Carol?" she inquired, rather seriously, and without looking up from the shoe she was so laboriously buttoning.

"Oh, I don't know. There are a few circumstances which seem to point that way. Take that new gray suit for instance. Now you know yourself, Lark, he didn't need a new gray suit, and when a man gets a brand-new suit for no apparent reason, you can generally put it down that he's waxing romantic. Then there's his mother—she's begun telling me all his good points, and how cute he was when he was born, and she showed me one of his curls and a lot of his baby pictures—it made Jim wild when he came in and caught her at it, and she tells me how good he is and how much money he's got. That's pointed, very. But I must confess," she concluded candidly, "that Jim himself doesn't act very loverly."

"He thinks lots of you, I know," said Lark, still seriously. "Whenever he's alone with me he praises you every minute of the time."

"That's nothing. When he's alone with me he praises you all the time, too. Where's my hat, Lark? I'll bet Connie wore it, the little sinner! Now what shall I do?"

"You left it in the barn yesterday,—don't you remember you hung it on the harness hook when we went out for eggs, and—"

"Oh, so I did. There comes Connie now." Carol thrust her head out of the window. "Connie, run out to the barn and bring my hat, will you? It's on the harness hook. And hurry! Don't stop to ask questions, just trot along and do as you're told."

Carol returned again to her toilet. "Well, I guess I have time to powder after all. I don't suppose we'll need to take any money, auntie, do you? We won't be able to spend it in the country."

"I think you'd better take a little. They might drive to town, or go to a social, or something."

"Can't do it. Haven't a cent."

"Well, I guess I can lend you a little," was the smiling reply. It was a standing joke in the family that Carol had been financially hard pressed ever since she began using powder several years previous.

"Are you fond of Jim, Carol?" Lark jumped away backward in the conversation, asking the question gravely, her eyes upon her sister's face.

"Hum! Yes, I am," was the light retort. "Didn't Prudence teach us to love everybody?"

"Don't be silly. I mean if he proposes to you, are you going to turn him down, or not?"

"What would you advise, Lark?" Carol's brows were painfully knitted. "He's got five hundred acres of land, worth at least a hundred an acre, and a lot of money in the bank,—his mother didn't say how much, but I imagine several thousand anyhow. And he has that nice big house, and an auto, and—oh, everything nice! Think of the fruit trees, Larkie! And he's good-looking, too. And his mother says he is always good natured even before breakfast, and that's very exceptional, you know! Very! I don't know that I could do much better, do you, auntie? I'm sure I'd look cute in a sun-bonnet and apron, milking the cows! So, boss, so, there, now! So, boss!"

"Why, Carol!"

"But there are objections, too. They have pigs. I can't bear pigs! Pooooey, pooooey! The filthy little things! I don't know,—Jim and the gray suit and the auto and the cows are very nice, but when I think of Jim and overalls and pigs and onions and freckles I have goose flesh. Here they come! Where's that other slipper? Oh, it's clear under the bed!" She wriggled after it, coming out again breathless. "Did I rub the powder all off?" she asked anxiously.

The low honk of the car sounded outside, and the twins dumped a miscellaneous assortment of toilet articles into the battered suit-case and the tattered hand-bag. Carol grabbed her hat from Connie, leisurely strolling through the hall with it, and sent her flying after her gloves. "If you can't find mine, bring your own," she called after her.

Aunt Grace and Connie escorted them triumphantly down the walk to the waiting car where the young man in the new sentimental gray suit stood beside the open door. His face was boyishly eager, and his eyes were full of a satisfaction that had a sort of excitement in it, too. Aunt Grace looked at him and sighed. "Poor boy," she thought. "He is nice! Carol is a mean little thing!"

He smiled at the twins impartially. "Shall we flip a coin to see who I get in front?" he asked them, laughing.

His mother leaned out from the back seat, and smiled at the girls very cordially. "Hurry, twinnies," she said, "we must start, or we'll be late for supper. Come in with me, won't you, Larkie?"

"What a greasy schemer she is," thought Carol, climbing into her place without delay.

Jim placed the battered suit-case and the tattered bag beneath the seat, and drew the rug over his mother's knees. Then he went to Lark's side, and tucked it carefully about her feet.

"It's awfully dusty," he said. "You shouldn't have dolled up so. Shall I put your purse in my pocket? Don't forget you promised to feed the chickens—I'm counting on you to do it for me."

Then he stepped in beside Carol, laughing into her bright face, and the good-bys rang back and forth as the car rolled away beneath the heavy arch of oak leaves that roofed in Maple Avenue.

The twins fairly reveled in the glories of the country through the golden days that followed, and enjoyed every minute of every day, and begrudged the hours they spent in sleep. The time slipped by "like banana skins," declared Carol crossly, and refused to explain her comparison. And the last day of their visit came. Supper was over at seven o'clock, and Lark said, with something of wistfulness in her voice, "I'm going out to the orchard for a farewell weep all by myself. And don't any of you disturb me,—I'm so ugly when I cry."

So she set out alone, and Jim, a little awkwardly, suggested that Carol take a turn or so up and down the lane with him. Mrs. Forrest stood at the window and watched them, tearful-eyed, but with tenderness.

"My little boy," she said to herself, "my little boy. But she's a dear, sweet, pretty girl."

In the meantime, Jim was acquitting himself badly. His face was pale. He was nervous, ill at ease. He stammered when he spoke. Self-consciousness was not habitual to this young man of the Iowa farm. He was not the awkward, ignorant, gangling farm-hand we meet in books and see on stages. He had attended the high school in Mount Mark, and had been graduated from the state agricultural college with high honors. He was a farmer, as his father had been before him, but he was a farmer of the new era, one of those men who takes plain farming and makes it a profession, almost a fine art. Usually he was self-possessed, assertive, confident, but, in the presence of this sparkling twin, for once he was abashed.

Carol was in an ecstasy of delight. She was not a man-eater, perhaps, but she was nearly romance-mad. She thought only of the wild excitement of having a sure-enough lover, the hurt of it was yet a little beyond her grasp. "Oh, Carol, don't be so sweet," Lark had begged her once. "How can the boys help being crazy about you, and it hurts them." "It doesn't hurt anything but their pride when they get snubbed," had been the laughing answer. "Do you want to break men's hearts?" "Well,—it's not at all bad for a man to have a broken heart," the irrepressible Carol had insisted. "They never amount to anything until they have a real good disappointment. Then they brace up and amount to something. See? I really think it's a kindness to give them a heart-break, and get them started."

The callow youths of Mount Mark, of the Epworth League, and the college, were almost unanimous in laying their adoration at Carol's feet. But Carol saw the elasticity, the buoyancy, of loves like these, and she couldn't really count them. She felt that she was ripe for a bit of solid experience now, and there was nothing callow about Jim—he was solid enough. And now, although she could see that his feelings stirred, she felt nothing but excitement and curiosity. A proposal, a real one! It was imminent, she felt it.

"Carol," he began abruptly, "I am in love."

"A-are you?" Carol had not expected him to begin in just that way.

"Yes,—I have been for a long time, with the sweetest and dearest girl in the world. I know I am not half good enough for her, but—I love her so much that—I believe I could make her happy."

"D-do you?" Carol was frightened. She reflected that it wasn't so much fun as she had expected. There was something wonderful in his eyes, and in his voice. Maybe Lark was right,—maybe it did hurt! Oh, she really shouldn't have been quite so nice to him!

"She is young—so am I—but I know what I want, and if I can only have her, I'll do anything I—" His voice broke a little. He looked very handsome, very grown-up, very manly. Carol quivered. She wanted to run away and cry. She wanted to put her arms around him and tell him she was very, very sorry and she would never do it again as long as she lived and breathed.

"Of course," he went on, "I am not a fool. I know there isn't a girl like her in ten thousand, but—she's the one I want, and—Carol, do you reckon there is any chance for me? You ought to know. Lark doesn't have secrets from you, does she? Do you think she'll have me?"

Certainly this was the surprise of Carol's life. If it was romance she wanted, here it was in plenty. She stopped short in the daisy-bright lane and stared at him.

"Jim Forrest," she demanded, "is it Lark you want to marry, or me?"

"Lark, of course!"

Carol opened her lips and closed them. She did it again. Finally she spoke. "Well, of all the idiots! If you want to marry Lark, what in the world are you out here proposing to me for?"

"I'm not proposing to you," he objected. "I'm just telling you about it."

"But what for? What's the object? Why don't you go and rave to her?"

He smiled a little. "Well, I guess I thought telling you first was one way of breaking it to her gently."

"I'm perfectly disgusted with you," Carol went on, "perfectly. Here I've been expecting you to propose to me all week, and—"

"Propose to you! My stars!"

"Don't interrupt me," Carol snapped. "Last night I lay awake for hours,—look at the rings beneath my eyes—"

"I don't see 'em," he interrupted again, smiling more broadly.

"Just thinking out a good flowery rejection for you, and then you trot me out here and propose to Lark! Well, if that isn't nerve!"

Jim laughed loudly at this. He was used to Carol, and enjoyed her little outbursts. "I can't think what on earth made you imagine I'd want to propose to you," he said, shaking his head as though appalled at the idea.

Carol's eyes twinkled at that, but she did not permit him to see it. "Why shouldn't I think so? Didn't you get a new gray suit? And haven't I the best complexion in Mount Mark? Don't all the men want to propose to a complexion like mine?"

"Shows their bum taste," he muttered.

Carol twinkled again. "Of course," she agreed, "all men have bum taste, if it comes to that."

He laughed again, then he sobered. "Do you think Lark will—"

"I think Lark will turn you down," said Carol promptly, "and I hope she does. You aren't good enough for her. No one in the world is good enough for Lark except myself. If she should accept you—I don't think she will, but if she has a mental aberration and does—I'll give you my blessing, and come and live with you six months in the year, and Lark shall come and live with me the other six months, and you can run the farm and send us an allowance. But I don't think she'll have you; I'll be disappointed in her if she does."

Carol was silent a moment then. She was remembering many things,—Lark's grave face that day in the parsonage when they had discussed the love of Jim, her unwonted gentleness and her quiet manners during this visit, and one night when Carol, suddenly awakening, had found her weeping bitterly into her pillow. Lark had said it was a headache, and was better now, and Carol had gone to sleep again, but she remembered now that Lark never had headaches! And she remembered how very often lately Lark had put her arms around her shoulders and looked searchingly into her face, and Lark was always wistful, too, of late! She sighed. Yes, she caught on at last, "had been pushed on to it," she thought angrily. She had been a wicked, blind, hateful little simpleton or she would have seen it long ago. But she said nothing of this to Jim.

"You'd better run along then, and switch your proposal over to her, or I'm likely to accept you on my own account, just for a joke. And be sure and tell her I'm good and sore that I didn't get a chance to use my flowery rejection. But I'm almost sure she'll turn you down."

Then Carol stood in the path, and watched Jim as he leaped lightly over fences and ran through the sweet meadow. She saw Lark spring to her feet and step out from the shade of an apple tree, and then Jim took her in his arms.

After that, Carol rushed into the house and up the stairs. She flung herself on her knees beside her bed and buried her face in the white spread.

"Lark," she whispered, "Lark!" She clenched her hands, and her shoulders shook. "My little twin," she cried again, "my nice old Lark." Then she got up and walked back and forth across the floor. Sometimes she shook her fist. Sometimes a little crooked smile softened her lips. Once she stamped her foot, and then laughed at herself. For an hour she paced up and down. Then she turned on the light, and went to the mirror, where she smoothed her hair and powdered her face as carefully as ever.

"It's a good joke on me," she said, smiling, "but it's just as good a one on Mrs. Forrest. I think I'll go and have a laugh at her. And I'll pretend I knew it all along."

She found the woman lying in a hammock on the broad piazza where a broad shaft of light from the open door fell upon her. Carol stood beside her, smiling brightly.

"Mrs. Forrest," she said, "I know a perfectly delicious secret. Shall I tell you?"

The woman sat up, holding out her arms. Carol dropped on her knees beside her, smiling mischievously at the expression on her face.

"Cupid has been at work," she said softly, "and your own son has fallen a victim."

Mrs. Forrest sniffed slightly, but she looked lovingly at the fair sweet face. "I am sure I can not wonder," she answered in a gentle voice. "Is it all settled?"

"I suppose so. At any rate, he is proposing to her in the orchard, and I am pretty sure she's going to accept him."

Mrs. Forrest's arms fell away from Carol's shoulders. "Lark!" she ejaculated.

"Yes,—didn't you know it?" Carol's voice was mildly and innocently surprised.

"Lark!" Mrs. Forrest was plainly dumfounded. "I—I thought it was you!"

"Me!" Carol was intensely astonished. "Me? Oh, dear Mrs. Forrest, whatever in the world made you think that?"

"Why—I don't know," she faltered weakly, "I just naturally supposed it was you. I asked him once where he left his heart, and he said, 'At the parsonage,' and so of course I thought it was you."

Carol laughed gaily. "What a joke," she cried. "But you are more fortunate than you expected, for it is my precious old Larkie. But don't be too glad about it, or you may hurt my feelings."

"Well, I am surprised, I confess, but I believe I like Lark as well as I do you, and of course Jim's the one to decide. People say Lark is more sensible than you are, but it takes a good bit of a man to get beyond a face as pretty as yours. I'm kind o' proud of Jim!"