“All right, Ruth, I surrender,” smiled Betty Wyndham, “but only because you wish it.”
“Three against four,” remarked Sarah reflectively, fixing a significant eye on Jane.
“Three lonely rebels, looking rather blue,
One changed her stubborn mind, and then there were two,”
chanted Frances.
“Frances has poetically given up the ghost,” laughed Anne.
“I am nothing if not charitable,” grinned Frances. “I would that I could say the same of others.”
“That’s us,” snickered Sarah, playfully prodding Jane with her elbow. “Good-bye, Jane. I am going to leave you. I’ve decided to enlist in the great Shirly reform movement.”
“Good-bye,” returned belligerent Jane unemotionally. “I intend to stay where I am for the present. I never make up my mind in a hurry. Besides Frances’ rhyme is away off. She didn’t count Marian.” Still inclined to regard Blanche as an unnecessary affliction, Jane was bent on being provoking.
“Humph!” ejaculated Frances. “You are laboring under a delusion, Plain Jane. The first line of my—er—poem distinctly says ‘rebels.’ How do we know that Marian is a rebel?”