Miss Weeks had brought three dresses for Helen to wear, one for each act in the play. They were dainty, colorful frocks that went well with Helen’s blondness.
The stage was set with all of the properties for the prologue and Helen hastened into the girl’s dressing room to put on her colonial costume. When she returned to the stage, Miss Weeks was addressing the cast.
“Remember,” she warned them, “that this is the last rehearsal. Everything is just as it will be tomorrow night. Imagine the audience is here tonight. Play up to them.”
The main curtain was dropped, the house lights went off and the battery of brilliant electrics in the footlights blazed.
The curtain moved slightly; then went up smoothly and disappeared in the darkness above the stage. The play was on.
The prologue went smoothly and without a mistake and when the curtain dropped the stage became a scene of feverish activity.
“Five minutes to change,” Miss Weeks warned them as they went to their dressing rooms.
For the first act Helen was to wear a white sport dress with a blazing red scarf knotted loosely around her neck. She wiggled into her outfit, brushed her hair with deft hands, dabbed fresh powder on her cheeks, touched up her lips with scarlet and was ready for her cue. She said her lines with an ease and clearness that surprised even herself and was back in the wings and on her way to the dressing room almost before she knew it.
In the second act Helen had her big part and Miss Weeks had provided a black, velvet semiformal afternoon gown. It was fashioned in plain, clinging lines, caught around the waist with a single belt of braided cloth of gold and with the neckline trimmed in the same material. Golden slippers and hose and one bracelet, a heavy, imitation gold band, completed the accessories.
Between acts Miss Weeks came into see how the costume fitted.