"Oh! Mrs. Eland's hospital!" gasped Tess.

"Yep. But she wouldn't go there. They say she made 'em take her to her boarding house. And she's hurt bad. And, oh, goody! there won't be any school Monday!" cried the young savage, beginning to dance again.

"Don't you fool yourself!" exclaimed Agnes, for Tess was crying frankly, and Dot had a finger in her mouth. "Don't you fool yourself, Sammy Pinkney! They'll have plenty of time to find a subst.i.tute teacher before school opens on Monday."

"Oh, they _won't_!" wailed the boy.

"Yes they will. And I hope it will be somebody a good deal worse than Miss Pepperill. So there!"

"Oh, but there _ain't_ n.o.body worse," said Sammy, with conviction, while Tess looked at her older sister with tearful surprise.

"Why, Aggie!" she said sorrowfully. "I hope you don't mean that. 'Cause I've got to go to school Monday as well as Sammy."

Tess was really much disturbed over the news of Miss Pepperill's injury.

She would not wait for luncheon but went straight over to the house where her teacher boarded, and inquired for her.

The red-haired, sharp-tongued lady was really quite badly hurt. There was a compound fracture of the leg, and Dr. Forsyth feared some injury to the brain, for Miss Pepperill's head was seriously cut. Tess learned that they had been obliged to shave off all the teacher's red, red hair!

"And that's awful!" she told Dot, on her return. "For goodness only knows what color it will be when it grows out again. Miss Lippit (she's the landlady where Miss Pepperill boards) showed it to me. And it's beautiful, long, long hair."

"Mebbe it will come out like Mrs. MacCall's--pepper-and-salt color,"

said Dot, reflectively. "We haven't got a pepper-and-salt teacher in school, have we?"

Such light reflections as this did not please Tess. She really forgot to repeat the part of Swiftwing, the hummingbird, in her anxiety about the injured Miss Pepperill.

At two o'clock the big rehearsal was called.

"I don't believe I will go back with you," Agnes said, to Ruth. "I can't sit there and hear Trix murder that part. Oh, dear!"

"I bet you won't ever eat any more strawberries," chuckled Neale, who had come over the back fence of the Corner House premises, that being his nearest way to school.

"Don't speak to me of them!" cried Agnes. "A piece of Mrs. MacCall's strawberry shortcake would give me the colic, I know--_just to look at it_!"

"Oh, you'll get all over that before the strawberry season comes around again," her older sister said placidly. "You'd better come, Aggie."

"No."

"Oh, yes, Aggie, do come!" urged Neale. "Be a sport. Come and see and hear us slaughter _The Carnation Countess_. It'll be more fun than moping here alone."

"Well, I'll just cover my eyes and ears when Innocent Delight comes on,"

Agnes declared.

But Trix was not at the rehearsal. Information from the Severn house revealed the fact that the family was still at Pleasant Cove. It was evident that Trix's interest in _The Carnation Countess_ had flagged.

Professor Ware gathered the princ.i.p.al professionals around him. His speech was serious. They had given the performance in several cities and large towns, and had whipped into shape some very unpromising material; but the director admitted that he was discouraged with the outlook here.

"I am inclined to say right here and now: Give it up. Not that the children as a whole do not average as high in quality as those of other schools; but the talent is lacking to take the amateur parts which have always been a.s.signed to the girls and boys. The girls' parts are especially weak.

"One or two bad parts might be ignored--overlooked by a friendly audience. But here is this Innocent Delight girl, not here at all at the most important rehearsal we have had. And she is _awful_ in her part, anyway; I admit it.

"I was misinformed regarding her. I received a note before the parts were given out, stating that she had had much experience in amateur theatricals. I do not believe that she ever even acted in parlor charades," added the professor, in disgust. "She must have a friendly letter-writer who is a professional booster.

"Well, it is too late to change such a part, I am afraid. But to read her lines this afternoon, all through the play, will cripple us terribly. Even if she is a stick, she can look the part, and walk through it."

Somebody tugged at the professor's sleeve. When he looked around he saw a flaxen-haired boy with a very eager face.

"I say, Professor! there's a girl here that knows Trix Severn's part better than she does herself."

"What's this? Another booster?" demanded the director, sorrowfully.

"Just try her! She knows it all by heart. And she's a blonde."

"Why haven't I seen her before, if she's so good? Is she in the chorus?"

demanded the doubtful professor.

"She hasn't had any part in the play at all--yet," declared Neale O'Neil, banking all upon this chance for Agnes. "But you just try her out!"

"She knows the lines?"

"Perfectly," declared the boy, earnestly.

He dared say no more, but he watched the professor's face sharply.

"I don't suppose she can do any more harm than the other," muttered the desperate director. "Send her up here, boy. Odd I should not have known there was an understudy for Innocent Delight."

Neale went down to the row of seats in which Agnes and a few of the "penitent sisterhood" sat. "Say!" he said, grinning at Agnes and whispering into her pretty ear, "Now's your chance to show us what you can do."

"What do you mean, Neale O'Neil?" she gasped.

"The professor is looking for somebody to walk through Trix's part--just for this rehearsal, of course."

"Oh, Neale!" exclaimed the Corner House girl, clasping her hands.

"They'd never let me do it."

"I don't believe you can," laughed Neale. "But you can try if you want to. He told me to send you up to him. There he stands on the stage now."

Agnes rose up giddily. At first she felt that she could not stand.

Everything seemed whirling about her. Neale, with his past experience of the circus in his mind, had an uncanny appreciation of her feelings.

"Buck up!" he whispered. "Don't have stage-fright. You don't have to say half the words if you don't want to."

She flashed him a wonderful look. Her vision cleared and she smiled.

Right there and then Agnes, by some subtle power that had been given her when she was born into this world, became changed into the character of Innocent Delight--the part which she had already learned so well.

She had sat here throughout each rehearsal and listened to Professor Ware's comments and the stage manager's instructions. She knew the cues perfectly. There was not an inflection or pose in the part that she had not perfected her voice and body in. The other girls watched her move toward the stage curiously--Neale with a feeling that he had never really known his little friend before.

"h.e.l.lo, who's this?" asked one of the male professionals when Agnes came to the group upon the stage.

"The very type!" breathed Madam Shaw, who had just come upon the platform in her street costume. "Professor! why did you not get _this_ girl for Innocent Delight?"