young
men put in an application for Mrs. Duke as teacher of the Young Men's
Bible Class, and David sternly vetoed the measure. The young ladies
asked Carol what kind of powder she used, and however she got her hair
up in that most marvelous manner.

And Carol decided it was not going to be such a burden after all, and
thought perhaps she might make a regular pillar in time.

When, as she later met the elder ones of the church, and was invariably
greeted with a smiling, "How is our little Methodist to-day," she
bitterly swallowed her grief and answered with a brightness all assumed:

"Turned Presbyterian, thank you."

But to David she said:

"I did seriously and religiously ask the Lord to let me get introduced
to the mansers without disgracing myself, and I am just a teeny bit
disappointed because He went back on me in such a crisis."

But David, wise minister and able exponent of his faith, said quickly:

"He didn't go back on you, Carol. It was the best kind of an
introduction, and He stood by you right through. They were more afraid
of you than you were of them. You might have been stiff and reserved,
and they would have been cold and self-conscious, and it would have
been ghastly for every one. But your break broke the ice right off.
You were perfectly natural."

"Hum,--yes--natural enough, I suppose. But it wasn't dignified, and
why do you suppose I have been practising dignity these last ten years?"

CHAPTER III

A BABY IN BUSINESS

"Centerville, Iowa.

"Dear Carol and David--

"Please do not call me the baby of the family any more. I am in
business, and babies have no business in business. Very good, wasn't
it? I am practising verbosity for the book I am going to write some
day. Verbosity is what I want to say, isn't it? I am never sure
whether it is that or obesity. But you know what I mean.

"To begin at the beginning, then, you would be surprised how sensible
father is turning out. I can hardly understand it. You remember when
I insisted on studying stenography, Aunt Grace and Prue, yes, and all
the rest of you, were properly shocked and horrified, and thought I
ought to teach school because it is more ministerial. But I knew I
should need the stenography in my writing, and father looked at me, and
thought a while, and came right out on my side. And that settled it.

"Of course, when I wanted to cut college after my second year so I
could get to work, father talked me