"She is too old to teach, anyway," snapped Jess. "My mother says so. She ought to have been put on the shelf by the Board of Education long ago."
"Oh, oh!" gasped Dora Lockwood. "What bliss if she were!"
"She is not so awfully old," said Laura thoughtfully.
"She acts like a spoiled child," Nellie said. "If she cannot have her own way in everything she gets mad and becomes disagreeable."
This was pretty strong language from the doctor's daughter. At the moment Bobby Hargrew appeared, whistling, and with her hands in her coat pockets. She was evidently practicing her manly stride. But she did not grin when she saw the juniors approaching. Instead, in a most dolorous voice she sang out, quoting the witches' chant:
"'Double, double; toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.'
"Everything's stewing, girls, and it is bound to be some brew. Do you know the latest?"
"Couldn't guess," said Jess Morse. "But it is something bad, I warrant."
"Everything's going wrong, girls!" wailed Nellie.
"I just saw Mr. Mann and Lil. Couldn't help overhearing what she was giving him. What do you suppose she wants to do?"
"Play the lead instead of Laura," snapped Jess.
"That would not be so strange," Dora Lockwood observed. "Would it, Dorothy?"
"Wait a minute," proposed Laura Belding. "Let us hear her crime before we sentence her to death."
"That's right," agreed Bobby. "Oh, she surely has put her foot in it! She told Mr. Mann that Hessie is just the girl to act 'the dark lady' in our play. What do you know about that?"
"Hope to die!" exclaimed Bobby recklessly. "That is exactly the game she is trying to work."
"Hester Grimes! Of all persons!" groaned Nellie.
"Lil hasn't said a word about it to me," Jess Morse declared.
"No, she is going to get Mr. Mann himself to propose Hester--"
"But Hessie isn't a member of the club!" cried Nellie.
"We have set a precedent there," said Laura thoughtfully. "We took Janet Steele into the ice carnival, and she was not a member of the school."
"That was an entirely different thing!" snapped Jess.
"Why, Hester Grimes is no more fit to play that part than I am fit for the professional stage!" Nellie Agnew said. "What can Lil mean?"
"I bet a cooky," Bobby growled, "that Hester put Lil up to it. You know, Hess is crazy to get her finger into every pie; but she would never come straight out and ask to join our club."