"It'll make all the others look cheap," declared Isobel, thrilling at the pretty sight.
Mrs. Westley looked troubled. Certain doubts had been disturbing her ever since that first moment of enthusiasm when she had yielded to Isobel's coaxing. Isobel had said that the other girls were making their own costumes—she knew that the faculty disliked any extravagance or great expenditures of money in any of the school affairs—might it not have been better to have helped Isobel fashion something simple and pretty at home? Then when she watched Isobel's flushed, happy face, radiantly pretty, she smothered her doubt.
"Pride goeth before a fall, daughter mine. Take care that your costume doesn't make you forget your part," she laughed. After all, Isobel was so pretty that she would outshine the others, anyway—let her costume be ever so dowdy!
Gyp, Jerry, Tibby, even Graham, superintended Isobel's preparations for the dress rehearsal. Gyp sat back on her heels and declared that Hermia was "good enough to eat." Jerry thought so, too, though she had not the courage to say so. Graham straddled the footboard of the bed and passed scathing remarks concerning girls' "duds," but his eyes were proudly admiring and in his pocket he treasured a ticket for the first row that he had bought from another fellow at an advanced price. Isobel ready, they all squeezed merrily into the automobile, taking care not to crush the rose-pink finery, and whirled off to Highacres.
Isobel, who loved dramatic situations in real life quite as well as in make-believe, planned to conceal her radiance until her first appearance on the stage, when she would startle them all, and especially Lysander, with her dazzling loveliness. She stood in a shadow of the wings with her coat wrapped about her. Except for Jerry, waiting to do her humble part, she was alone. She listened to the ceaseless chatter in the dressing-room with a happy smile. She heard Mr. Oliver, the coach, giving sharp orders. There was some trouble with the curtain. She took a quick step forward to see what it was; the high heel of her satin slipper caught in a coil of rope from the staging and she fell forward to her knees. With the one thought to save the satin gown, she jerked her body quickly backward.
"Oh, Isobel, are you hurt?" Jerry was at her side in a moment.
"N-no, only——" Isobel managed to get to her feet, but she leaned dizzily against the scene propping. "Whoever left that old rope here! They ought to be reported!" She glared angrily at poor Jerry as though the fault must be hers. "I've—I've ruined my dress," she sobbed.
Jerry examined the satin skirt. "There isn't the tiniest spot, Isobel. But are you sure you are not hurt? Please try to walk."
That was exactly what Isobel did not want to do, for there was a horrible aching pain around her knee. Then she heard Mr. Oliver's voice again. The curtain had been fixed; in a moment——
"Leave me alone! You'd just like it if I couldn't go on——"