"Yes, you did! If people undertake a part, they ought at least to know the words, or let somebody else have it."
"I shan't give up my part at your bidding!"
"You're misunderstanding each other," interposed Mabel. "Aldred never meant she wanted you to give up your part, Lorna; I'm sure she was only sympathizing because she knows you find it hard to learn things."
"It's a queer form of sympathy, then!" grumbled Lorna. "I thought she wanted to be Fatima herself."
"Oh, no! That's most unlike Aldred. I wonder you could imagine for an instant that she would have such a motive! I think, when we decided to abide by the lot, it would be a mistake to have any changing; and we'd better set to work and learn some of our speeches, so that we can rehearse the first scene, at any rate, to-morrow. We must each borrow the book in turn, and keep looking at it in any odd moments we can spare."
"Yes; there won't be too much time, with all the costumes to think about as well," agreed the others.
Aldred mastered the dozen lines that fell to the Attendant in a few minutes, and handed the book on to Sister Anne. Feeling sure of her portion in the play, she could afford to criticize the others, and set to work to coach them vigorously at the evening rehearsal. Though some of them were not willing to fall in with her suggestions, she managed to make herself so prominent that, in spite of themselves, the girls allowed her to assume the leadership, and to constitute herself a kind of stage manager.
"Aldred is quite right," said Mabel, backing her up; "we certainly were not saying our speeches with half enough dramatic emphasis, and we weren't putting any spirit into them. I feel I was too tame."
"We haven't got as far as 'dramatic emphasis'," said Phœbe. "That would come afterwards."
"It's better to practise it as we go along, and as Aldred has had so much experience of private theatricals, we had better take her advice, and let her show us how it ought to be done."