"Say, Jess!" exclaimed Bobby.
"Say it," urged Josephine Morse. "I promise not to bite you."
"If Hester plays that part, what are they going to do with her hands and feet?" asked the unkind Bobby.
"Oh, hush!" exclaimed Laura.
"Well, when she's supposed to pick the rose and hold it up to the light, and kiss it, her hand is going to look like a full-grown lobster--and just as red."
"Girls, we must not!" begged Laura. "Somebody will surely tell Hester what we say, and then--"
"She'll refuse to play," said Jess.
"Oh, fine, fine!" murmured one of the Lockwood twins.
"If we get her mad it will do no good," Nellie Agnew said. "Maybe then she will insist on being 'the dark lady.'"
The boys were on the corner of Nugent Street waiting for the girls to come along.