“I don’t know,” was the reply. “I supposed, of course, she was here. She said she’d dress at home, as her robe is so frail, and that she’d be here, all ready to go on the stage, at quarter to eight.”
“Dear me,” thought Betty, “Constance is nearly always late, but I thought she’d be on time to-night.”
Of course, at such entertainments, no one is greatly surprised if the performance is a little delayed, but the absence of Constance seemed ominous to Miss Whittier.
“I think we’d better send for her,” she began, when a man came in, in breathless haste. He carried a large white box, and, going straight to Miss Whittier, he said rapidly:
“Miss Constance, ma’am, she sprained her ankle—just now. She slipped coming down-stairs, and she can’t walk nohow.”
“Sprained her ankle!” cried Miss Whittier. “Can’t she be here to-night? Who are you?”
“I’m Mrs. Harper’s coachman, ma’am; and Miss Constance she was all dressed in her angel clothes and all, and jest goin’ to get in the kerridge, when she slipped on the shiny stair, and her high-heeled slipper twisted somehow, and she jest sprained her ankle. So Mrs. Harper, soon’s she could, she got the party clo’es offen her, and she’s sent them to you, ’cause she says somebody else’ll have to do Miss Constance’s piece to-night.”
“Oh!” cried Miss Whittier, clasping her hands. “What can we do? But we must do something quickly. Lena Carey, you’re about Constance’s size; can’t you take the part of Goddess?”
“Oh, I’d love to, Miss Whittier,” said Lena, looking longingly at the spangled white mass in the box, which had just been opened, “but I don’t know a word of her lines. It’s all I can do to remember my own.”
“What shall I do!” cried Miss Whittier, in despair. “Does anybody know the Goddess’s part? Oh, why didn’t I think to have an understudy!”