THE SERENADE
A SUBJECT that never failed to arouse the sarcasm and the ire of Fairy was that of the Slaughter-house Quartette. This was composed of four young men—men quite outside the pale as far as the parsonage was concerned—the disreputable characters of the community, familiar in the local jail for frequent bursts of intoxication. They slouched, they smoked, they lounged, they leered. The churches knew them not. They were the slum element, the Bowery of Mount Mark, Iowa.
Prudence, in her day, had passed them by with a shy slight nod and a glance of tender pity. Fairy and Lark, and even Connie, sailed by with high heads and scornful eyes,—haughty, proud, icily removed. But Carol, by some weird and inexplicable fancy, treated them with sweet and gracious solicitude, quite friendly. Her smile as she passed was as sweet as for her dearest friend. Her "Good morning,—isn't this glorious weather?" was as affably cordial as her, "Breakfast is ready, papa!"
This was the one subject of dispute between the twins.
"Oh, please don't, Carol, it does make me so ashamed," Lark entreated.
"You mustn't be narrow-minded, Larkie," Carol argued. "We're minister's girls, and we've got to be a good influence,—an encouragement to the—er, weak and erring, you know. Maybe my smiles will be an inspiration to them."
And on this point Carol stood firm even against the tears of her precious twin.
One evening at the dinner table Fairy said, with a mocking smile, "How are your Slaughter-house friends to-day, Carol? When I was at the dentist's I saw you coming along, beaming at them in your own inimitable way."
"Oh, they seemed all right," Carol answered, with a deprecating glance toward her father and her aunt.
"I see by last night's paper that Guy Fleisher is just out after his last thirty days up," Fairy continued solicitously. "Did he find his incarceration trying?"