"Carol Starr! Fifteen years old and—"
"That's a very much exaggerated story, Prue. Connie blamed it on me as usual. She piled them up herself to see if there were two feet of them,—she put her stockings on the floor first so the dust wouldn't rub off. It was Lark's turn to sweep and you know how Lark sweeps, and Connie was very careful, indeed, and—"
"Come on, Fairy, and see the veil!"
"The veil! Did it come?"
With a joyous undignified whoop the parsonage girls scrambled to their feet and rushed indoors in a fine Kilkenny jumble. Aunt Grace looked after them, thoughtfully, smiling for a second, and then with a girlish shrug of her slender shoulders she slipped out and followed them inside.
The last thing that night, before she said her prayers, Prudence carried a big bottle of witch hazel into the twins' room. Both were sleeping, but she roused Carol, and Lark turned over to listen.
"You must bathe your eyes with this, Carol. I forgot to tell you. What would Jerry say if he had a bleary-eyed bridesmaid!"
And although the twins grumbled and mumbled about the idiotic nonsense of getting-married folks, Carol obediently bathed the bloodshot eyes. For in their heart of hearts, every one of the parsonage girls held this wedding to be the affair of prime importance, national and international, as well as just plain Methodist.
The twins were undeniably lazy, and slept as late of mornings as the parsonage law allowed. So it was that when Lark skipped into the dining-room, three minutes late for breakfast, she found the whole family, with the exception of Carol, well in the midst of their meal.
"She was sick," she began quickly, then interrupting herself,—"Oh, good morning! Beg pardon for forgetting my manners. But Carol was sick, Prudence, and I hope you and Fairy are ashamed of yourselves—and auntie, too—for making fun of her. She couldn't sleep all night, and rolled and tossed, and her head hurt and she talked in her sleep, and—"