"Oh, girls!" implored Amy, in an agony of bashfulness, "I don't like Conway Benton one bit more than any of the rest of you, and you know it. I think it is mean for you to tease."
"Oh, Amy, dear, it is only fun," cried Betty, throwing an arm about her friend. "We don't really think that you have been smitten with a stranger's charms. Still stranger things have happened."
"I don't agree with you," said Amy, and they wisely forbore to pursue the subject.
"Oh, but didn't that fish taste good last night?" said Mollie, coming down to every-day matters. "I never ate anything like it in all my life."
"That's because we caught it ourselves," said Grace, unconsciously voicing a common trait in human nature.
"Let's take fish out of the conversation for a little while," Betty suggested, "and talk about something romantic."
"For instance?" Grace inquired, with uplifted eyebrows.
"The gypsies," Betty answered. "Ever since the other night I've been wondering if there was anything in what that old store-keeper said."
"I hope not," said Amy, with a shudder. "I am more afraid of them than anything else in the world, I think."
"I don't see why," Mollie reflected. "Probably they are a great deal more afraid of us."