ng to be?" inquired Mrs. Adams, looking with real
affection at the bright sweet face.

But Prudence laughed. "Oh, dear me, Mrs. Adams, seems to me if I just
get the others raised up properly, I'll have my hands full. I used to
have aims, dozens of them. Now I have just one, and I'm working at it
every day."

"You ought to go to school," declared Mrs. Adams. "You're just a girl
yourself."

"I don't want to go to school," laughed Prudence. "Not any more. I
like it, just taking care of father and the girls,--with Fairy to keep
me balanced! I read, but I do not like to study.--No, you'll have to
get along with me just the way I am, Mrs. Adams. It's all I can do to
keep things going now, without spending half the time dreaming of big
things to do in the future."

"Don't you have dreams?" gasped Mrs. Adams. "Don't you have dreams of
the future? Girls in books nowadays dream----"

"Yes, I dream," interrupted Prudence, "I dream lots,--but it's mostly
of what Fairy and the others will do when I get them properly raised.
You'll like the girls, Mrs. Adams, I know you will. They really are a
gifted little bunch,--except me. But I don't mind. It's a great honor
for me to have the privilege of bringing up four clever girls to do
great things,--don't you think? And I'm only nineteen myself! I don't
see what more a body could want."

"It seems to me," said Mrs. Adams, "that I know more about your sisters
than I do about you. I feel more acquainted with them right now, than
with you."

"That's so, too," said Prudence, nodding. "But they are the ones that
really count, you know. I'm just common little Prudence of the
Parsonage,--but the others!" And Prudence flung out her hands
dramatically.

CHAPTER II

THE REST OF THE FAMILY

It was Saturday morning when the four young parsonage girls arrived in
Mount Mark. The elderly Misses Avery, next door, looked out of their
windows, pending their appearance on Main Street, with interest and
concern. It was a serious matter, this having a whole parsonage-full of
young girls so close to the old Avery mansion. To be sure, the Averys
had a deep and profound respect for ministerial households, but they were
Episcopalians themselves, and in all their long lives they had never so
much as heard of a widower-rector with five daughters, and no
housekeeper. There was something blood-curdling in the bare idea.

The Misses Avery considered Prudence herself rather a