Mr. Starr's new position necessitated long and frequent absences from home, and that was a drawback to the family comradeship. But the girls' pride in his advancement was so colossal, and their determination to live up to the dignity of the eldership was so deep-seated, that affairs ran on quite serenely in the new home. "Aren't we getting sensible?" Carol frequently asked her sisters, and they agreed enthusiastically that they certainly were. "I don't think we ever were so bad as we thought we were," Lark said. "Even Prudence says now that we were always pretty good. Prudence ought to think so. She got most of our spending money for a good many years, didn't she?" "Prudence didn't get it. She gave it to the heathen." "Well, she got credit for it on the Lord's accounts, I suppose. But she deserved it. It was no joke collecting allowances from us." One day this beautiful serenity was broken in upon in a most unpleasant way. Carol looked up from _De Senectute_ and flung out her arms in an all-relieving yawn. Then she looked at her aunt, asleep on the couch. She looked at Lark, who was aimlessly drawing feathers on the skeletons of birds in her biology text. She looked at Connie, sitting upright in her chair, a small book close to her face, alert, absorbed, oblivious to the world. Connie was wide awake, and Carol resented it. "What are you reading, Con?" she asked reproachfully. Connie looked up, startled, and colored a little. "Oh,--poetry," she stammered. Carol was surprised. "Poetry," she echoed. "Poetry? What kind of poetry? There are many poetries in this world of ours. 'Life is real, life is earnest.' 'There was a young lady from Bangor.' 'A man and a maiden decided to wed.' 'Sunset and, evening star,'--oh, there are lots of poetries. What's yours?" Her senseless dissertation had put her in good humor again. Connie answered evasively. "It is by an old Oriental writer. I don't suppose you've ever read it. Khayyam is his name." "Some name," said Carol suspiciously. "What's the poem?" Her eyes had narrowed and darkened. By this time Carol had firmly convinced herself that she was bringing Connie up,--a belief which afforded lively amusement to self-conducting Connie. "Why, it's _The Rubaiyat_. It's--" "_The Rubaiyat!_" Carol frowned. Lark looked up from the skeletons with sudden interest. "_The Rubaiyat?_ By Khayyam? Isn't that the old fellow who didn't believe in God, and Heaven, and such things--you know what I mean,--the man who didn't believe anything, and wrote about it? Let me see it. I've never read it myself, but I've heard about it." Carol turned the pages with critical disapproving eyes. "Hum, yes, I know about this." She faced Connie sternly. "I suppose you think, Connie, that since we're out of a parsonage we can do anything we like. Haven't we any standards? Haven't we any ideals? Are we--are we--well, anyhow, what business has a minister's daughter reading trash like this?"