"Excuse me just a minute, will you?" Fairy was unruffled. She sought her sister. "Look here, Prue,—what do you make of this? I'm coming to pieces! I'm hanging by a single thread, as it were."
Her sleeves were undoubtedly ready to drop off at a second's notice! Prudence was shocked. She grew positively white in the face.
"Oh, Fairy," she wailed. "We are disgraced."
"Not a bit of it," said Fairy coolly. "I remember now that Lark was looking for the scissors before supper. Aren't those twins unique? This is almost bordering on talent, isn't it? Don't look so distressed, Prue. Etiquette itself must be subservient to twins, it seems. Don't forget to bring in the stew at a quarter past nine, and have it as good as possible,—please, dear."
"I will," vowed Prudence, "I'll—I'll use cream. Oh, those horrible twins!"
"Go in and entertain Babbie till I come down, won't you?" And Fairy ran lightly up the stairs, humming a snatch of song.
But Prudence did a poor job of entertaining Babbie during her sister's absence. She felt really dizzy! Such a way to introduce Etiquette into the parsonage life. She was glad to make her escape from the room when Fairy returned, a graceful figure in the fine blue silk! She went back to the dining-room, and painstakingly arranged the big tray for the designated moment of its entrance,—according to etiquette. Fairy and Babbie in the next room talked incessantly, laughing often and long, and Prudence, hearing, smiled in sympathy. She herself thought it would be altogether stupid to be shut up in a room alone with "just a man" for a whole evening,—but etiquette required it. Fairy knew about such things, of course.
A little after nine, she called out dismally, "Fairy!" And Fairy, fearing fresh disaster, came running out.
"What now? What——"
"I forget what you told me to say," whispered Prudence wretchedly, "what was it? The soup is ready, and piping hot,—but what is it you want me to say?"