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?" "I didn't discuss it with him," Carol said indignantly. "I never talk to them. I just say 'Good morning' in Christian charity." Aunt Grace's eyes were smiling as always, but for the first time Carol felt that the smiles were at, instead of with, her. "You would laugh to see her, Aunt Grace," Fairy explained. "They are generally half intoxicated, sometimes wholly. And Carol trips by, clean, white and shining. They are always lounging against the store windows or posts for support, bleary-eyed, dissipated, swaggery, staggery. Carol nods and smiles as only Carol can, 'Good morning, boys! Isn't it a lovely day? Are you feeling well?' And they grin at her and sway ingratiatingly against one another, and say, 'Mornin', Carol.' Carol is the only really decent person in town that has anything to do with them." "Carol means all right," declared Lark angrily. "Yes, indeed," assented Fairy, "They call them the Slaughter-house Quartette, auntie, because whenever they are sober enough to walk without police assistance, they wander through the streets slaughtering the peace and serenity of the quiet town with their rendition of all the late, disgraceful sentimental ditties. They are in many ways striking characters. I do not wholly misunderstand their attraction for romantic Carol. They are something like the troubadours of old--only more so."