led little heap behind the screen. She hadn't a moment, but she
took one, nevertheless, to stop and pat the back of Judith's neck--her
face she couldn't see--and say affectionately, "Never mind, Judy,
dear--we all forget sometimes--you're O.K. really."

Just a moment--but it brought Judith up out of her gloom.

"Dear old Cathy," she said to herself as she scrambled up to watch the
heroine make her entrance, "she's a brick, a real brick--I'll NEVER do
anything I'd be ashamed to tell her about."

"Hullo!" whispered Nancy; "come on over here and you can see
better--what's the matter?"

"Why?"

"Well, you look--as if you'd had a small fortune left you."

"I--think--I have," said Judith soberly but happily.

"Sh--sh--sh," commanded Nancy, "they're beginning. Here, you watch from
this crack, and I'll take this one." And they were soon lost to all
sense of surroundings as they followed Jane Austen's delightful story.

Sally May was a delicious Mrs. Bennet--her archness, her querulousness,
and above all her talkativeness. Was it Sally May or Mrs. Bennet? Molly
Seaton, as Mr. Bennet, proved an excellent foil--reserved, quiet, full
of a delightful sarcastic humour.

Miss Marlowe sat in the shadow of the green curtain holding the
typewritten manuscript, ready to prompt any one who stumbled--the first
scene was always the difficult one; but it went without a hitch and
Judith was soon busily helping to transform the parlour into a
ball-room, and listening with great excitement to the applause on the
other side of the green curtains.

Then the stage was filled with dainty, slim, ringletted ladies in
high-waisted flowered frocks and gentlemen in tight breeches,
long-tailed coats, and high stocks, and the curtains rolled back to
disclose a prettier and statelier dance than a modern audience often
sees.

As the story progressed, Catherine as Elizabeth, and Eleanor as Mr.
Collins, divided the honours pretty equally. No one who had not seen
Catherine as Viola could have guessed what a charming Elizabeth she
would make, and Eleanor--well, Eleanor _was_ Mr. Collins, a very triumph
of imagination! Eleanor had not Catherine's gift, and to picture
Elizabeth's delicate subtleties and humours would have been quite beyond
her, but she had walked, and talked, and eaten with Mr. Collins until
she was that worthy gentleman's double.

Who could ever forget the courtship scene, with Mr. Collins's ponderous
declaration and dexterous with