"Too short! Why, Carol—" interrupted her aunt.
"Too short for the occasion, I mean. I'll put it back to-morrow." Once more her eyes turned cautiously father-ward. "You see, professor still has the 'little twinnie' idea in his brain, and I'm going to get it out. It isn't consistent with our five feet seven. We're grown up. Professor has got to see it. You skoot up-stairs, Connie, won't you, there's a dear, and bring it down, both of them, Lark's too. Lark,—where did you put that ripping knife? Aunt Grace, will you put the iron on for me? It's perfectly right that professor should see we're growing up. We'll have to emphasize it something extra, or he might overlook it. It makes him feel Methuselish because he's so awfully smart. But I'll soon change his mind for him."
Lark stoutly refused to be "grown up for the occasion," as Carol put it. She said it was too much bother to let out the tuck, and then put it right back in, just for nonsense. At first this disappointed Carol, but finally she accepted it gracefully.
"All right," she said, "I guess I can grow up enough for both of us. Professor is not stupid; if he sees I'm a young lady, he'll naturally know that you are, too, since we are twins. You can help me rip then if you like,—you begin around on that side."
In less than two minutes the whole family was engaged in growing Carol up for the occasion. They didn't see any sense in it, but Carol seemed so unalterably convinced that it was necessary that they hated to question her motives. And, as was both habitual and comfortable, they proceeded to do as she directed.
If her idea had been utterly to dumfound the unsuspecting professor, she succeeded admirably. Carefully she planned her appearance, giving him just the proper interval of patient waiting in the presence of her aunt and sisters. Then, a slow parting of the curtains and Carol stood out, brightly, gladly, her slender hands held out in welcome, Carol, with long skirts swishing around her white-slippered feet, her slender throat rising cream-white above the soft fold of old rose lace, her graceful head with its royal crown of bronze-gold hair, tilted most charmingly.
The professor sprang to his feet and stared at her. "Why, Carol," he exclaimed soberly, almost sadly, as he crossed the room and took her hand. "Why, Carol! Whatever have you been doing to yourself overnight?"
Of course, it was far more "overnight" than the professor knew, but Carol saw to it that there was nothing to arouse his suspicion on that score. He lifted her hand high, and looked frankly down the long lines of her skirt, with the white toes of her slippers showing beneath. He shook his head. And though he smiled again, his voice was sober.
"I'm beginning to feel my age," he said.
This was not what Carol wanted, and she resumed her old childish manner with a gleeful laugh.