good time, the twins always did
insist that no one on earth was quite so entertaining as dear old
Duckie, but in her heart Carol registered a solemn vow to have it out
with Fairy when she got back. She had no opportunity that night. Fairy
and Gene telephoned that they would not be home for dinner, and the
professor had gone, and the twins were sleeping soundly, when Fairy
crept softly up the stairs.

But Carol did not forget her vow. Early the next morning she stalked
grimly into Fairy's room, where Fairy was conscientiously bringing order
out of the chaos in her bureau drawers, a thing Fairy always did after a
perfectly happy day. Carol knew that, and it was with genuine reproach
in her voice that she spoke at last, after standing for some two minutes
watching Fairy as she deftly twirled long ribbons about her fingers and
then laid them in methodical piles in separate corners of the drawers.

"Fairy," she said sadly, "you don't seem very appreciative some way.
Here Larkie and I have tried so hard to give you a genuine
opportunity--we've worked and schemed and kept ourselves in the
background, and that's the way you serve us! It's disappointing. It's
downright disheartening."

Fairy folded a blue veil and laid it on top of a white one. Then she
turned. "Yes. What?" She inquired coolly.

"There are so few real chances for a woman in Mount Mark, and we felt
that this was once in a lifetime. And you know how hard we worked. And
then, when we relaxed our--our vigilance--just for a moment, you spoiled
it all by--"

"Yes,--talk English, Carrie. What was it you tried to do for me?"

"Well, if you want plain English you can have it," said Carol heatedly.
"You know what professor is, a swell position like his, and such
prospects, and New York City, and four thousand a year with a raise for
next year, and we tried to give you a good fair chance to land him
squarely, and--"

"To land him--"

"To get him, then! He hasn't any girl. You could have been engaged to
him this minute--Professor David Arnold Duke--if you had wanted to."

"Oh, is that it?"

"Yes, that's it."

Fairy smiled. "Thank you, dear, it was sweet of you, but you're too
late. I am engaged."

Carol's lips parted, closed, parted again. "You--you?"

"Exactly so."

Hope flashed into Carol's eyes. Fairy saw it, and answered swiftly.

"Certainly not. I'm not crazy about your little Prof. I am engaged to
Eugene Babler." She said it with pride, not unmixed