Connie, still solicitous, helped them wash the dishes. The others disappeared. Fairy got her hat and went out without a word. Their father followed scarcely a block behind her. Aunt Grace sought all over the house for Prudence, and finally found her in the attic, comforting herself with a view of the lovely linens which filled her Hope Box.
"I'm going for a walk," announced Aunt Grace briefly.
"All right," assented Prudence. "If I'm not here when you get back, don't worry. I'm going for a walk myself."
Their work done irreproachably, the twins and Connie went to the haymow and lay on the hay, still silent. The twins, buoyant though they were, could not so quickly recover from a shock like this. So intent were they upon the shadows among the cobwebs that they heard no sound from below until their father's head appeared at the top of the ladder.
"Come up," they invited hospitably but seriously.
He did so at once, and stood before them, his face rather flushed, his manner a little constrained, but looking rather satisfied with himself on the whole.
"Twins," he said, "I didn't know you were so crazy about silk stockings. We just thought it would be a good joke—but it was a little too good. It was a boomerang. I don't know when I've felt so contemptible. So I went down and got you some real silk stockings—a dollar and a half a pair,—and I'm glad to clear my conscience so easily."
The twins blushed. "It—it was a good joke, papa," Carol assured him shyly. "It was a dandy. But—all the girls at school have silk stockings for best, and—we've been wanting them—forever. And—honestly, father, I don't know when I've had such a—such a spell of indigestion as when I saw those stockings were April Fool."
"Indigestion," scoffed Connie, restored to normal by her father's handsome amends.
"Yes, indigestion," declared Lark. "You know, papa, that funny, hollow, hungry feeling—when you get a shock. That's nervous indigestion,—we read it in a medicine ad. They've got pills for it. But it was a good joke. We saw that right at the start."