"Yes. Do you know where the bottom of that chair has gone?"

"Why, no, Prudence--gracious! That chair!--Why, I didn't know you were
going to bring that chair in here--Why,--oh, I am so sorry! Why in the
world didn't you tell us beforehand?"

Some of the Ladies smiled. Others lifted their brows and shoulders in
a mildly suggestive way, that Prudence, after nineteen years in the
parsonage, had learned to know and dread.

"And where is the chair-bottom now?" she inquired. "And why did you
take it?"

"Why we wanted to make----"

"You and Lark?"

"Well, yes,--but it was really all my fault, you know. We wanted to
make a seat up high in the peach tree, and we couldn't find a board the
right shape. So she discovered--I mean, I did--that by pulling out two
tiny nails we could get the bottom off the chair, and it was just fine.
It's a perfectly adorable seat," brightening, but sobering again as she
realized the gravity of the occasion. "And we put the cushion in the
chair so that it wouldn't be noticed. We never use that chair, you
know, and we didn't think of your needing it to-day. We put it away
back in the cold corner of the sitting--er, living-room where no one
ever sits. I'm so sorry about it."

Carol was really quite crushed, but true to her parsonage training, she