"The oldest," said Agnes. "She is in the play. But she hasn't a very important part. I think she might have been given a better one!"
"But _you_? Who is punishing you? Your teacher?"
"Yes. The basket ball team and some other girls can only look on--we can't act. He said so. And--and we deserve it," stammered Agnes.
"Oh, indeed! But does the poor Carnation Countess deserve it?" demanded Madam Shaw, with asperity. "I wonder what Mr. Marks can be thinking of?"
However, everybody seemed to feel happier and less discouraged about the play when this rehearsal was over; and Agnes went home in a seventh heaven of delight.
"I don't care so much now if I never have a chance again," she said, over and over again. "I've _shown_ them that I can act."
But Ruth began to be anxious. She said to Mrs. MacCall that evening: "Suppose, when Agnes gets older, she should determine to be a player? Wouldn't it be _awful_?"
The old Scotch woman bit off her thread reflectively. "Tut, tut!" she said, at last. "That's borrowing trouble, my dear. And you're a bit old-fashioned, Ruthie Kenway. Perhaps being an actress isn't so awful a thing as we used to think. 'Tis at least a way of earning one's living; and it seems now that all girls must work."
"Didn't they work in your day, Mrs. MacCall?" asked Ruth, slyly.
"Not to be called so," was the prompt reply. "Those that had to go into mills and factories were looked down upon a wee bit, I am afraid. Others of us only learned to scrub and cook and sew and stand a man's tantrums for our living. It was considered more respectable to marry a bad man than to work for an honest wage."
Saturday Agnes was not called upon at all. She heard that Trix was at home again; but there were no rehearsals of the speaking parts of _The Carnation Countess_. Only the dances and ensembles of the choruses were tried out in the afternoon.
The girls heard nothing further regarding the re-distribution of the parts--if there were to be such changes made. They only understood that the play would be given, in spite of the director's recent despairing words.
And it was known, too, that the following rehearsals would be given on the stage of the opera house itself. The scenery was ready, and on Saturday morning of the next week the first costume rehearsal would be undertaken.