girl, each costumed as
a butterfly. These were tossed up to their stations by the strong arms
of stage-hands. They could not be held by wires as Tess was, for their
wings were made to vibrate slowly all through the scene.

On lower steps others of the brilliantly dressed children--all
butterflies and winged insects--were grouped. From the front the picture
thus formed was a very beautiful one indeed; but the children had to go
over and over the scene to learn to do their part skillfully and to
secure the right effect from the front.

"Aren't you scared up there, little girl?" one of the women playing in
the piece asked Tess.

"No-o," said the Corner House girl, slowly. "I'm not scared. But I shall
be glad each time when the tableau is over. You see, these other little
girls have no belt and wire to hold them, as I have."

"But you are so much higher than the others!"

"No, ma'am. It only looks so. It's what the stage man said was an
optical delusion," Tess replied, meaning "illusion." "I can touch those
other girls on either side of me--yes, ma'am."

And she did touch them. Each time that she went through the scene, and
the butterflies' wings vibrated as they bent forward, Tess' hands, which
were out of sight of the audience, clutched at the other girls' sashes.

Tess was a sturdy girl for her age. Her hands at the waists of the two
butterflies steadied them as they posed on this day for the final
rehearsal of the difficult tableau.

"That's it!" called out the manager. "Now! Hold it! Lights!"

The glare of the spotlight shot down upon the grouped children from
above the proscenium arch.

"Steady!" shouted the stage manager again, for the whole group behind
the gauze drop seemed to be wavering.

"Hold that pose!" repeated the man, commandingly.

But it was not the children who moved. There was the creaking sound of
parting timbers. Somebody from the back shouted a warning--but too late.

"Down! All of you down to the stage!"

Those on the lower steps of the scaffolding jumped. The stage hands ran
in to catch the others; but the higher little girls could not leap
without risking both life and limb!

A pandemonium of warning cries and shrieks of alarm followed. The
scaffolding pulled apart slowly, falling forward through the drop which
retarded it at first, but finally tearing the drop from its fastenings
in the flies.

Swiftwing, the hummingbird, did not add her little voice to the general
uproar. Sh