Mr. Marks for
withdrawing the order against her playing in _The Carnation Countess_.

Eva got the part of Cheerful Grigg; some of the other members of the
basket ball team obtained good parts, too. They studied hard and were
able to act creditably at the final and dress rehearsal.

The play was to be given on three nights and one afternoon of Christmas
week. School was closed for the holidays, and little was talked of or
thought about among the Corner House girls and their mates, but the
play.

"I hope I won't spoil the play," said Tess, with a worried air. "And I
hope we will make--oh! lots and lots of money for the hospital, so that
Mrs. Eland can stay there. For now, you know, with her sister sick,
she'll need her salary more than ever."

CHAPTER XXV

A GREAT SUCCESS

Miss Pepperill was not going to die. Dr. Forsyth made that good prophecy
soon after Mrs. Eland had taken on herself the nursing of her strangely
met sister.

The school teacher--so grim and secretive by nature--had been in a fever
of worry and uncertainty long before the accident that had stretched her
on this bed of illness. The relief her mind secured when her sister,
Marion, and she were reunited did much to aid her recovery.

Nobody would have suspected that the calm, demure, little gray woman and
the assertive, sharp-tongued school teacher were sisters; but the
evidence of their own childish remembrances was conclusive. And that
little Mrs. Eland should be the older of the two was likewise
astounding.

There was still a sad secret on Mrs. Eland's heart. Mr. and Mrs. Buckham
knew it. The smallest Corner House girl had prodded the doubt of her
father's honesty to the surface of the hospital matron's mind.

"There ain't no fool like an old fool, it's my bounden duty to say," Mr.
Bob Buckham remarked on the Monday of Christmas week, as he warmed his
hands before the open fire on the hearth of the old Corner House sitting
room.

He had come to town ostensibly to bring the Corner House girls'
Christmas goose--a noble bird which Ruth had picked out of his flock
herself on a recent visit to Strawberry Farm. But he confessed to
another errand in Milton.

"I'd no business to talk out like I done about Abe and Lem Aden that
first day you children was at our house. But I've allus hugged that
injury to my breast. Marm says I ain't no business to, and I know she's
right. But it hurt me dreadfully when I was a boy to lose my marm.

"The