"Come at once, Lark."

"All right, then," and added threateningly, "but you'll wish I hadn't."

Then Lark opened the door,--a woeful figure! In one hand she carried
an empty shoe box. And her face was streaked with good rich Iowa mud.
Her clothes were plastered with it. One shoe was caked from the sole
to the very top button, and a great gash in her stocking revealed a
generous portion of round white leg.

Poor Prudence! At that moment, she would have exchanged the whole
parsonage, bathroom, electric lights and all, for a tiny log cabin in
the heart of a great forest where she and Lark might be alone together.

And Fairy laughed. Prudence looked at her with tears in her eyes, and
then turned to the wretched girl.

"What have you been doing, Lark?"

The heart-break expressed in the face of Lark would have made the
angels weep. Beneath the smudges of mud on her cheeks she was pallid,
and try as she would, she could not keep her chin from trembling
ominously. Her eyes were fastened on the floor for the most part, but
occasionally she raised them hurriedly, appealingly, to her sister's
face, and dropped them again. Not for worlds would she have faced the
Ladies! Prudence was obliged to repeat her question before Lark could
articulate a reply. She gulped painfully a few times,--making
meanwhile a desperate effort to hide the gash in one stocking by
placing the other across it, rubbing it up and down in great
embarrassment, and balancing herself with apparent difficulty. Her
voice, when she was able to speak, was barely recognizable.

"We--we--we are making--mud images, Prudence. It--it was awfully
messy, I know, but--they say--it is such a good--and useful thing to
do. We--we didn't expect--the--the Ladies to see us."

"Mud images!" gasped Prudence, and even Fairy stared incredulously.
"Where in the world did you get hold of an idea like that?"

"It--it was in that--that Mother's Home Friend paper you take,
Prudence." Prudence blushed guiltily. "It--it was modeling in clay,
but--we haven't any clay, and--the mud is very nice, but--Oh, I know I
look just--horrible. I--I--Connie pushed me in the--puddle--for fun.
I--I was vexed about it, Prudence, honestly. I--I was chasing her, and
I fell, and tore my stocking,--and--and--but, Prudence, the papers do
say children ought to model, and we didn't think of--getting caught."
Another appealing glance into her sister's face, and Lark plunged on,
bent on sm