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 Ladie