Then she apologized gently to the Ladies, and the conversation went on, but Prudence was uncomfortably conscious of keen and quizzical eyes turned her way. Evidently they thought she was too lenient.
"Well, it wasn't very naughty," she thought wretchedly. "How can I pretend it was terribly bad, when I feel in my heart that it wasn't!"
Before long, the meeting was called to order, and the secretary instructed to read the minutes.
"Oh," fluttered Miss Carr excitedly, "I forgot to bring the book. I haven't been secretary very long, you know."
"Only six months," interrupted Mrs. Adams tartly.
"How do you expect to keep to-day's minutes?" demanded the president.
"Oh, I am sure Miss Prudence will give me a pencil and paper, and I'll copy them in the book as soon as ever I get home."
"Yes, indeed," said Prudence. "There is a tablet on that table beside you, and pencils, too. I thought we might need them."
Then the president made a few remarks, but while she talked, Miss Carr was excitedly opening the tablet. Miss Carr was always excited, and always fluttering, and always giggling girlishly. Carol called her a sweet old simpering soul, and so she was. But now, right in the midst of the president's serious remarks, she quite giggled out.
The president stared at her in amazement. The Ladies looked up curiously. Miss Carr was bending low over the tablet, and laughing gaily to herself.
"Oh, this is very cute," she said. "Who wrote it? Oh, it is just real cunning."
Fairy sprang up, suddenly scarlet. "Oh, perhaps you have one of the twins' books, and they're always scribbling and----"
"No, it is yours, Fairy. I got it from among your school-books."
Fairy sank back, intensely mortified, and Miss Carr chirped brightly:
"Oh, Fairy, dear, did you write this little poem? How perfectly sweet! And what a queer, sentimental little creature you are. I never dreamed you were so romantic. Mayn't I read it aloud?"
Fairy was speechless, but the Ladies, including the president, were impatiently waiting. So Miss Carr began reading in a sentimental, dreamy voice that must have been very fetching fifty years before. At the first suggestion of poetry, Prudence sat up with conscious pride,--Fairy was so clever! But before Miss Carr had finished the second verse, she too was literally drowned in humiliation.