Unladies-Aid-like way.

And there, beneath a chair, squatted the cause of the confusion, an
innocent, unhappy, blinking toad!

"Oh, Larkie!"

This was a prolonged wail.

"It's all right, Prue, honestly it is," urged Lark with pathetic
solemnity. "We didn't do it for a joke. We're keeping him for a good
purpose. Connie found him in the garden,--and--Carol said we ought to
keep him for Professor Duke,--he asked us to bring him things to cut up
in science, you remember. So we just shoved him into this shoe box,
and--we thought we'd keep him in the bath-tub until morning. We did it
for a good purpose, don't you see we did? Oh, Prudence!"

Prudence was horribly outraged, but even in that critical moment,
justice insisted that Lark's arguments were sound. The professor had
certainly asked the scholars to bring him "things to cut up." But a
toad! A live one!--And the Ladies' Aid! Prudence shivered.

"I am sure you meant well, Larkie," she said in a low voice, striving
hard to keep down the bitter resentment in her heart, "I know you did.
But you should not have brought that--that thing--into the house. Pick
him up at once, and take him out-of-doors and let him go."

But this was not readily done. In spite of her shame and deep dismay,
Lark refused to touch the toad with her fingers.