The girls plowed home through the deep snow, most of them in no mood for
amusement. Even Laura Belding had a long face when she entered the house.

"How was the funeral?" asked Chet, who was buried in one of the deep
library chairs with a book.

"What?" she asked before she caught his meaning.

"You must have buried somebody by the way you look," declared her brother.

"Don't nag, Chettie," sighed his sister. "We are having terrible times."

"I judged so," Chet said dryly. "Don't you always have sich when you girls
go in for acting?"

"Now--"

"I am sympathetic, Laura--I swear I am!" her brother cried, putting up his
hands for pardon. "Don't shoot. But of course things always will go wrong.
Who is it--Bobby? Or Jess? Or Lil?"

"It is Hester Grimes."

"Wow!" exclaimed Chet. "I didn't know she was in it at all."

Laura told him of the emergency that had arisen and how Hester Grimes
seemed certain to be drawn into the affair.

"Why, that big chunk can't act," said Chet quite impolitely. "She looks
enough like her father to put on his apron and stand behind one of his