't care so much now if I never have a chance again," she said,
over and over again. "I've _shown_ them that I can act."

But Ruth began to be anxious. She said to Mrs. MacCall that evening:
"Suppose, when Agnes gets older, she should determine to be a player?
Wouldn't it be _awful_?"

The old Scotch woman bit off her thread reflectively. "Tut, tut!" she
said, at last. "That's borrowing trouble, my dear. And you're a bit
old-fashioned, Ruthie Kenway. Perhaps being an actress isn't so awful a
thing as we used to think. 'Tis at least a way of earning one's living;
and it seems now that all girls must work."

"Didn't they work in your day, Mrs. MacCall?" asked Ruth, slyly.

"Not to be called so," was the prompt reply. "Those that had to go into
mills and factories were looked down upon a wee bit, I am afraid. Others
of us only learned to scrub and cook and sew and stand a man's tantrums
for our living. It was considered more respectable to marry a bad man
than to work for an honest wage."

Saturday Agnes was not called upon at all. She heard that Trix was at
home again; but there were no rehearsals of the speaking parts of _The
Carnation Countess_. Only the dances and ensembles of the choruses were
tried out in the afternoon.

The girls heard nothing further regarding the re-distribution of the
parts--if there were to be such changes made. They only understood that
the play would be given, in spite of the director's recent despairing
words.

And it was known, too, that the following rehearsals would be given on
the stage of the opera house itself. The scenery was ready, and on
Saturday morning of the next week the first costume rehearsal would be
undertaken.

Dot and her little friends were quite over-wrought about their bee
dresses. They had learned to dance and "drone" in unison; now they were
all to be turned into fat brown bees, with yellow heads and stripes on
their papier-mache bodies, and transparent wings.

Tess, as Swiftwing, the chief hummingbird, was a brilliant sight indeed.
Only one thing marred Tess Kenway's complete happiness. It was Miss
Pepperill's illness.

For the unfortunate teacher was very ill at her boarding house. Her head
had been hurt when the automobile knocked her down. And while her broken
bones might mend well, Dr. Forsyth was much troubled regarding the
patient.

The Corner House girls heard that Miss Pepperill was quite out of her
head. She babbled about things that she never wo