Eunice promised, radiantly, and flew off to Cricket with the coveted permission.
The rehearsals went on swimmingly for a time. Then, after the novelty was over, the little actors began to realise that the extra time required of them interfered, now and then, with their own plans for amusement. There began to be absences from rehearsals. The rehearsals themselves began to be a bore, for any one who has ever trained children for any exhibition knows the tiresome repetition of scenes and sentences that is necessary to ensure success in the simplest performance.
Eunice and Cricket felt it, with the others. They wanted to go skating, to go down-town with mamma, or made plans with their schoolmates, only to remember, at the last minute, that there was a rehearsal that afternoon.
Eunice was very faithful, however, for her mother would not permit anything to interfere with these rehearsals. Cricket, of course, was free, but, as her father said, she would “never desert Mr. Micawber.”
“No; you agreed to take a part in the play, dear,” said mamma firmly, when the children begged to “cut just once, for the other girls did sometimes,” since something unusual had come up; “what you agreed to do, you must do, at any cost of inconvenience or disappointment to yourself. No amusements, of any kind, must prevent your being punctual at every rehearsal.”
“Just sometimes, mamma,” begged Eunice.
“Not even once. Your teachers are taking all this trouble for your benefit, and the least you can do is to be depended upon for your punctual presence. You know how provoking you say it is when any one is absent, and how badly the rehearsal goes on then.”
“That’s so: like a chicken on one leg,” said Cricket, thoughtfully. “Everything hitches. But I do wish I were in the play. I know all Isabel Fleming’s part much better than she does. Miss Raymond scolds her all the time.”
“How did she get in if she is stupid?” asked Marjorie.
“She isn’t stupid. I believe she’s lazy. She just stumbles along, and it makes me so mad when she gets all mixed up in her best speeches. There’s one part, with Eunice, that she spoils entirely, every time. That about the bonnet, Eunice, when you come in and find her trying it on. She’s all alone before the glass first, and she has some awfully funny things to say, and she just forgets half of them, every time.”