No outdoor exercise had been possible that day, and the girls were tired of all their usual indoor occupations.
"I wish somebody'd suggest something new to cheer us up," yawned Nellie Barlow.

"There's a quarter of an hour more 'rec.' It's too short to be worth while getting out any apparatus, but it's long enough to be deadly dull." "Can't someone do some tricks ?" asked Edie Maycock.
"All right, Toby; sit on your hind legs and beg for biscuits," laughed Marjorie Earnshaw.
"I mean real tricks--conjuring and fortune telling; the amateur wizard, you know." "I don't know." "Then you're stupid.

Have you never seen amateur conjuring--coins that vanish, and things that come out of hats ?" "Yes; but I couldn't do it, my good child.

Being in the Sixth doesn't make me a magician." "We tried a little bit at home," pursued Edie.

"We had a book that told us how; only I never could manage it quickly.