"It isn't necessary that I should look like a house afire, is it? I'm not going to have another bit, Sue, and you needn't insist. Uncle Cliff would have a fit if he could see me; and Aunt Lucinda! mercy, she'd think I was disgraced forever. Ugh! I think I look a fright!"
She held the mirror up to her face and frowned into it impatiently.
"But you've _got_ to do it, Blue Bonnet. Why, you'd look ghastly behind the footlights without any color. Come now--please. Wet your lips and put them out--so! There, that's fine. Wee, turn up the lights on the stage and take a look at Blue Bonnet. Go to the back of the room. See if you think she's made up too much."
"Perfectly lovely!" Wee called a moment later. "You're just b-e-a-utiful! Your best friends will never know you." Which very doubtful compliment went unnoticed in the general rush and excitement.
"Now, do be careful," Sue cautioned as Blue Bonnet gave her seat to Helen Renwick, who stood patiently waiting, cold creamed to the proper consistency. "And don't, under _any_ circumstances, use your handkerchief. You'll look like a painted sunset at close range if you do. Grease paint's terribly smeary. Please be careful, won't you?"
Blue Bonnet passed out into the wings where Wee was giving instructions right and left.
"Oh, Wee," she said, "I'm scared to death! I believe I'm threatened with stage fright. Do you know how it comes on? Feel my hands."
She laid an icy lump in Wee's warm palm tremblingly.
"Absurd!" Wee said. "Did you think you caught it--like measles or chicken-pox?"
"I think it's caught _me_, Wee. I feel so sort of choky--and queer."
"You'll get over it. Don't worry. You look too sweet for words. Take a peek at the stage. It's a dream."
It was a pretty setting. Along the light green walls were white curtained windows in whose boxes grew bright, red roses, and swinging from the dimly lighted ceiling was the green and yellow shamrock presented by a former class. The stage represented a simple room in an Irish peasant's cottage, with its brick fireplace and high cupboards. Blue Bonnet was exclaiming over its loveliness when a voice at the centre entrance interrupted her.
"Wee!" it called excitedly. "You're wanted in Clare Peters' dressing-room instantly. They've sent her the wrong wig. It should be grey, and its blond and curly--imagine!--Clare's frantic."