--and Carol laughed. It seems to
me with three grown women in the house we could have holeless napkins,
one for company, anyhow."

"How is your mother, Jim?"

"Just fine, Miss Prudence, thank you. She said to tell you she would
send a basket of red Junes to-morrow, if you want them. The twins can
eat them, I know. Carol ate twenty-two when they were out Saturday."

"Yes, I did, and I'm glad of it," said Carol stoutly. "Such apples you
never saw, Prudence. They're about as big as a thimble, and two-thirds
core. They're good, they're fine, I'll say that,--but there's nothing to
them. I could have eaten as many again if Jim hadn't been counting out
loud, and I got kind of ashamed because every one was laughing. If I had
a ranch as big as yours, Jim, I'll bet you a dollar I'd have apples
bigger than a dime!"

"'Bet you a dollar,'" quoted Fairy.

"Well, I'll wager my soul, if that sounds more like Shakespeare. Don't
go, Jim, we're not fighting. This is just the way Fairy and I make love
to each other. You're perfectly welcome to stay, but be careful of your
grammar, for now that Fairy's a senior--will be next year, if she
lives--she even tries to teach father the approved method of doing a
ministerial sneeze in the pulpit."

"Think I'd better go," decided the tall good-looking youth, laughing as
he looked with frank boyish admiration into Carol's sparkling face.
"With Fairy after my grammar, and you to criticize my manner and my
morals, I see right now that a parsonage is no safe place for a
farmer's son." And laughing again, he thrust his cap into his pocket,
and walked quickly out the new cement parsonage walk. But at the gate he
paused to call back, "Don't make a mistake, Carol, and use the heathen's
pennies for candy."

The girls on the porch laughed, and five pairs of eyes gazed after the
tall figure rapidly disappearing.

"He's nice," said Prudence.

"Yes," assented Carol. "I've got a notion to marry him after a little.
That farm of his is worth about ten thousand."

"Are you going to wait until he asks you?"

"Certainly not! Anybody can marry a man after he asks her. The thing to
do, if you want to be really original and interesting, is to marry him
before he asks you and surprise him."

"Yes," agreed Lark, "if you wait until he asks you he's likely to think
it over once too often and not ask you at all."

"Doesn't that sound exactly like a book, now?" demanded Carol proudly.
"Fairy couldn't have said