nd 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!"

CHAPTER VIII

LARK'S LITERARY VENTURE

As commencement drew near, and Fairy began planning momentous things for
her graduation, a little soberness came into the parsonage life. The
girls were certainly growing up. Prudence had been married a long, long
time. Fairy was being graduated from college, her school-days were over,
and life was just across the threshold--its big black door just slightly
ajar waiting for her to press it back and catch a glimpse of what lay
beyond, yes, there was a rosy tinge showing faintly through like the
light of the early sun shining through the night-fog, but the door was
only a little ajar! And Fairy was nearly ready to step through. It
disturbed the parsonage family a great deal.

Even the twins were getting along. They were finishing high school, and
beginning to prate of college and such things, but the twins were
still, well, they were growing up, perhaps, but they kept jubilantly
young along in the process, and their enthusiasm for diplomas and
ice-cream sodas was so nearly identical that one couldn't feel seriously
that the twins were tugging at their leashes.

And Connie was a freshman herself,--rather tall, a little awkward, with
a sober earnest face, and with an incongruously humorous droop to the
corners of her lips, and in the sparkle of her eyes.

Mr. Starr looked at them and sighed. "I tell you, Grace, it's a
thankless job, rearing a family. Connie told me to-day that my collars
should have straight edges now instead of turned-back corners. And Lark
reminded me that I got my points mixed up in last Sunday's lesson. I'm
getting sick of this family business, I'm about ready to--"

And just then, as a clear "Father" came floating down the stairway, he
turned his head alertly. "What do you want?"

"Everybody's out," came Carol's plaintive voice. "Will you come and
button me up? I can't ask auntie to run clear up here, and I can't come
down because I'm in my stocking feet. My new slippers pinch so I don't
put them on until I have to. Oh, thanks, father, you're a dear."

After the excitement of the commencement, the commotion, the glamour,
the gaiety, ordinary parsonage life seemed smooth and pleasant, and for
ten days there was