Prudence of the Parsonage | Page 2

details in its requirements of applicants. Possibly it furnishes the gray suits and the tan shoes, and even the eye-glasses. Of course, the reporters can practise balancing them scientifically,--but how does it happen that they always have aquiline noses? At any rate, that is the Mount Mark type. It never varies.
The young woman going to Burlington to spend the week-end was surrounded with about fifteen other young women who had come to "see her off." She had relatives in Burlington and went there very often, and she used to say she was glad she didn't have to exchange Christmas presents with all the "friends" who witnessed her arrivals and departures at the station. Mount Mark is a very respectable town, be it understood, and girls do not go to the station without an excuse!
The Adams Express wagon was drawn close to the track, and the agent was rushing about with a breathless energy which seemed all out of proportion to his accomplishments. The telegraph operator was gazing earnestly out of his open window, and his hands were busily moving papers from one pigeon-hole to another, and back again. Old Harvey Reel, who drove the hotel bus, was discussing politics with the man who kept the restaurant, and the baggage master, superior and supremely dirty, was checking baggage with his almost unendurably lordly air.
This was one of the four daily rejuvenations that gladdened the heart of Mount Mark.
A man in a black business suit stood alone on the platform, his hands in his pockets, his eyes wandering from one to another of the strange faces about him. His plain white ready-made tie proclaimed his calling.
"It's the new Methodist preacher," volunteered the baggage master, crossing the platform, ostensibly on business bound, but really to see "who all" was there. "I know him. He's not a bad sort."
"They say he's got five kids, and most of 'em girls," responded the Adams Express man. "I've ordered me a dress suit to pay my respects in when they get here. I want to be on hand early to pick me out a girl."
"Yah," mocked the telegraph operator, bobbing his head through the window, "you need to. They tell me every girl in Mount Mark has turned you down a'ready."
But the Methodist minister, gazing away down the track where a thin curl of smoke announced the coming of Number Nine, and Prudence,--heard nothing of this conversation. He was not a handsome man. His hair was gray at the temples, his face was earnest, only saved from severity by the little clusters of lines at his eyes and mouth which proclaimed that he laughed often, and with relish.
"Train going east!"
The minister stood back from the crowd, but when the train came pounding in a brightness leaped into his eyes that entirely changed the expression of his face. A slender girl stood in the vestibule, leaning dangerously outward, and waving wildly at him a small gloved hand. When the train stopped she leaped lightly from the steps, ignoring the stool placed for her feet by the conductor.
"Father!" she cried excitedly and small and slight as she was, she elbowed her way swiftly through the gaping crowd. "Oh, father!" And she flung her arms about him joyously, unconscious of the admiring eyes of the Adams Express man, and the telegraph operator, and old Harvey Reel, whose eyes were always admiring when girls passed by. She did not even observe that the Slaughterhouse Quartette looked at her unanimously, with languid interest from out the wreaths of smoke they had created.
Her father kissed her warmly. "Where is your baggage?" he asked, a hand held out to relieve her.
"Here!" And with a radiant smile she thrust upon him a box of candy and a gaudy-covered magazine.
"Your suit-case," he explained patiently.
"Oh!" she gasped. "Run, father, run! I left it on the train!"
Father did run, but Prudence, fleeter-footed, out-distanced him and clambered on board, panting.
When she rejoined her father her face was flushed. "Oh, father," she said quite snappily, "isn't that just like me?"
"Yes, very like," he agreed, and he smiled. "Where is your umbrella?"
Prudence stopped abruptly. "I don't know," she said, with a stony face. "I can't remember a blessed thing about the old umbrella. Oh, I guess I didn't bring it, at all." She breathed long in her relief. "Yes, that's it, father, I left it at Aunt Grace's. Don't you worry about it. Fairy'll bring it to-morrow. Isn't it nice that we can count on Fairy's remembering?"
"Yes, very nice," he said, but his eyes were tender as he looked down at the little figure beside him.
"And so this is Mount Mark! Isn't it a funny name, father? Why do they call it Mount Mark?"
"I don't know. I hadn't thought to inquire. We turn here, Prudence; we are going north now. This