"And ladies' clothes!" cried Sissy, dragging forth a long black cape. "'Here would I rest,'" she chanted, draping it about her and lugubriously mimicking Professor Trask as the Recluse in "The Cantata of the Flowers."
"Let's do it! Let's sing 'The Flowers,'" cried Irene, shaking herself into some Irish boy's jacket.
"Not much!" Sissy planted herself against the door, as though physical compulsion had been threatened.
"Oh, yes, Sissy," begged Fom. "Bep and I can sing the Heliotrope and Mignonette. Frank can be a Poppy, and we can double up and—"
"I'll be the Rose," put in Kate, quickly. She had a much-feathered hat on her head and a crocheted lace shawl about her shoulders.
"'Here would I rest,' she chanted"
"I'll be the Rose." Split, corrupted by her body's boyish environment, stretched her legs apart defiantly. "You can't sing it; you know you can't, Kate. You never could get up to G. If I'm not the Rose—"
"Oh, well," said Kate, drawing on a pair of soiled, long light gloves she had pulled out of the box, "I'll be the Lily, then. Come on, Sis."
"I won't," said Sissy, almost weeping. She knew she would. "I won't be the Recluse! I won't be the Recluse every time, just because you two are so greedy and—"