"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.
Dot and her little friends were quite over-wrought about their bee dresses. They had learned to dance and "drone" in unison; now they were all to be turned into fat brown bees, with yellow heads and stripes on their papier-maché bodies, and transparent wings.
Tess, as Swiftwing, the chief hummingbird, was a brilliant sight indeed. Only one thing marred Tess Kenway's complete happiness. It was Miss Pepperill's illness.
For the unfortunate teacher was very ill at her boarding house. Her head had been hurt when the automobile knocked her down. And while her broken bones might mend well, Dr. Forsyth was much troubled regarding the patient.
The Corner House girls heard that Miss Pepperill was quite out of her head. She babbled about things that she never would have spoken of in her right mind. And while she had so vigorously refused to be taken to the Women's and Children's Hospital when she was hurt, she talked about Mrs. Eland, the matron, a good deal of the time.
"I'm going to see my Mrs. Eland and tell her that Miss Pepperill asks for her and if she has found her sister," Tess announced, after a long conference with the teacher's landlady, who was a kindly, if not very wise maiden lady.