"You know," said Kate, smothering a giggle, but not very successfully, "no one can do it as well as you."
"And it's really a very important part, and the very first solo," chuckled Irene. "Else why did Professor Trask take it himself?"
"If it's so important," put in Sissy, grasping at a straw, "you'd better take it yourself. Why must I always take a man's part? And I can't sing, anyway."
"Why, Sissy!" Split's tone was flattery incarnate, but the irony in her eye made her junior dance.
"You know I can't," she sniffled.
"But my voice and Split's go so well together in the Rose and Lily duet," said Kate, putting the book of the cantata upon the piano-rack and opening it persuasively.
"You promise me every time," wailed the downtrodden Recluse, reluctantly moving forward, "that I won't have to be it the next time."
"Well, you won't next time," said Kate, generously. "Will she, Split?"
"Well, I won't sing it this time," declared Sissy, seating herself at the piano, yet making a last stand at the very guns.
But Kate and Irene burst forth in the opening chorhat they were acting. And the twins, still pulling stage properties out of the box, and even Frances, fantastically decorated with a torn Irish lace fichu over the bifurcated, footed white garment she still wore o' nights, joined joyfully in: