while Beth let her bread burn as she watched the fun with interest.
"It's no use! Do the best you can when the time comes, and if
the audience laughs, don't blame me. Come on, Meg."

Then things went smoothly, for Don Pedro defied the world in
a speech of two pages without a single break. Hagar, the witch,
chanted an awful incantation over her kettleful of simmering toads,
with weird effect. Roderigo rent his chains asunder manfully, and
Hugo died in agonies of remorse and arsenic, with a wild, "Ha! Ha!"

"It's the best we've had yet," said Meg, as the dead villain
sat up and rubbed his elbows.

"I don't see how you can write and act such splendid things,
Jo. You're a regular Shakespeare!" exclaimed Beth, who firmly
believed that her sisters were gifted with wonderful genius in all
things.

"Not quite," replied Jo modestly. "I do think _The Witches Curse,
an Operatic Tragedy_ is rather a nice thing, but I'd like to try
_Macbeth_, if we only had a trapdoor for Banquo. I always wanted to
do the killing part. 'Is that a dagger that I see before me?"
muttered Jo, rolling her eyes and clutching at the air, as she had
seen a famous tragedian do.

"No, it's the toasting fork, with Mother's shoe on it instead
of the bread. Beth's stage-struck!" cried Meg, and the rehearsal
ended in a general burst of laughter.

"Glad to find you so merry, my girls," said a cheery voice at