"How do I look?" he demanded. "Do you think this suit will convince Grace that I am worth taking care of? Do I look twenty-five dollars better than I did yesterday?" The girls gazed at him with most adoring and exclamatory approval. "Father! You look perfectly grand!--Isn't it beautiful?--Of course, you looked nicer than anybody else even in the old suit, but--it--well, it was--" "Perfectly disgracefully shabby," put in Fairy quickly. "Entirely unworthy a minister of your--er--lovely family!" "I hope none of you have let it out among the members how long I wore that old suit. I don't believe I could face my congregation on Sundays if I thought they were mentally calculating the wearing value of my various garments.--We'll have to go, Prudence.--You all look very fine--a credit to the parsonage--and I am sure Aunt Grace will think us well worth living with." "And don't muss the house up," begged Prudence, as her father opened the door and pushed her gently out on the step. The four sisters left behind looked at one another solemnly. It was a serious business,--most serious. Connie gravely put on her shoe, and buttoned it. Lark sewed up the last hole in Carol's stocking,--Carol balancing herself on one foot with nice precision for the purpose. Then, all ready, they looked at one another again,--even more solemnly. "Well," said Fairy, "let's go in--and wait." Silently the others followed her in, and they all sat about, irreproachably, on the well-dusted chairs, their hands folded Methodistically in their smooth and spotless laps. The silence, and the solemnity, were very oppressive. "We look all right," said Carol belligerently. No one answered. "I'm sure Aunt Grace is as sweet as anybody could be," she added presently. Dreary silence! "Don't we love her better than anybody on earth,--except ourselves?" Then, when the silence continued, her courage waned. "Oh, girls," she whimpered, "isn't it awful? It's the beginning of the end of everything. Outsiders have to come in now to take care of us, and Prudence'll get married, and then Fairy will, and maybe us twins,--I mean, we twins. And then there'll only be father and Connie left, and Miss Greet, or some one, will get ahead of father after all,--and Connie'll have to live with a step-mother, and--it'll never seem like home any more, and--" Connie burst into loud and mournful wails. "You're very silly, Carol," Fairy said sternly. "Very silly, indeed. I don't see much chance of any of us getting married very soon. And Prudence will be here nearly a year yet. And--Aunt Grace is as sweet and dear a woman as ever lived--mother's own sister--and she loves us dearly and--" "Yes," agreed Lark, "but it's not like having Prudence at the head of things."