Dignity? Lark did not remember that she had ever dreamed of dignity. She just started for home, for her father, Aunt Grace and the girls! The shabby old parsonage seemed suddenly very bright, very sunny, very safe. The dreadful dark shadow was not pressing so close to her shoulders, did not feel so smotheringly near. A startled group sprang up from the porch to greet her. She flung one arm around Carol's shoulder, and drew her twin with her close to her aunt's side. "I don't want to be a newspaper woman," she cried, in a high excited voice. "I don't like it. I am awfully afraid of--THE PRESS--" She looked over her shoulder. The shadow was fading away in the distance. "I couldn't do it. I--" And then, crouching, with Carol, close against her aunt's side, clutching one of the soft hands in her own, she told the story. "I couldn't, Fairy," she declared, looking beseechingly into the strong kind face of her sister. "I--couldn't. Mrs. Daly--sobbed so, and her hands were so brown and hard, Fairy, she kept rubbing my shoulder, and saying, 'Oh, Lark, oh, Lark, my little children.' I couldn't. I don't like newspapers, Fairy. Really, I don't." Fairy looked greatly troubled. "I wish father were at home," she said very quietly. "Mr. Raider meant all right, of course, but it was wrong to send a young girl like you. Father is there now. It's very terrible. You did just exactly right, Larkie. Father will say so. I guess maybe it's not the job for a minister's girl. Of course, the story will come out, but we're not the ones to tell it." "But--the Career," suggested Carol. "Why," said Lark, "I'll wait a little and then have a real literary career, you know, stories, and books, and poems, the kind that don't harrow people's feelings. I really don't think it is right. Don't you remember Prudence says the parsonage is a place to hide sorrows, not to hang them on the clothesline for every one to see." She looked for a last time over her shoulder. Dimly she saw a small dark cloud,--all that was left of the shadow which had seemed so eager to devour her. Her arms clasped Carol with renewed intensity. "Oh," she breathed, "oh, isn't the parsonage lovely, Carol? I wish father would come. You all look so sweet, and kind, and--oh, I love to be at home." CHAPTER IX A CLEAR CALL The tinkle of the telephone disturbed the family as they were at dinner, and Connie, who sat nearest, rose to answer the summons, while Carol, at her corner of the table struck a tragic attitude. "If Joe Graves has broken anything, he's broken our friendship for good and all. These fellows that break themselves--" "Break themselves?" asked her father gravely. "Yes,--any of his members, you know, his leg, or his arm, or,--If he has, I must say frankly that I hope it is his neck. These boys that break themselves at the last minute, thereby breaking dates, are--" "Well," Connie said calmly, "if you're through, I'll begin."