"What on earth are you doing?"
"I'm sewing up the holes in Carol's stocking," Lark explained. "If you had waited a minute I would have finished—Hold still, Carol,—don't walk so jerky or you'll break the thread. There were five holes in her left stocking, Prudence, and I'm—"
Prudence frowned disapprovingly. "It's a very bad habit to sew up holes in your stockings when you are wearing them. If you had darned them all yesterday as I told you, you'd have had plenty of—Mercy, Lark, you have too much powder on!"
"I know it,—Carol did it. She said she wanted me to be of an intellectual pallor." Lark mopped her face with one hand.
"You'd better not mention to papa that we powdered to-day," Carol suggested. "He's upset. It's very hard for a man to be reasonable when he's upset, you know."
"You look nice, twins." Prudence advanced a step, her eyes on Carol's hair, sniffing suspiciously. "Carol, did you curl your hair?"
Carol blushed. "Well, just a little," she confessed. "I thought Aunt Grace would appreciate me more with a crown of frizzy ringlets."
"You'll spoil your hair if you don't leave it alone, and it will serve you right, too. It's very pretty as it is naturally,—plenty curly enough and—Oh, Fairy, I know Aunt Grace will love you," she cried ecstatically. "You look like a dream, you—"
"Yes, —a nightmare," said Carol snippily. "If I saw Fairy coming at me on a dark night I'd—"
"Papa, we'll miss the train!" Then as he came slowly down the stairs, she said to her sisters again, anxiously: "Oh, girls, do keep nice and clean, won't you? And be very sweet to Aunt Grace! It's so—awfully good of her—to come—and take care of us,—" Prudence's voice broke a little. The admission of another to the parsonage mothering hurt her.