“Tavia, dear,” whispered Dorothy.

Tavia’s arm stole about Dorothy’s neck.  She touched the flushed cheek with her dry lips.  Then she straightened up in an attitude of defiance.

“I’ll stay!” she exclaimed.  “I don’t care what they think of me.”

CHAPTER XX

THE ENTERTAINMENT

How the following day passed Dorothy did not want to remember.  From the early morning, when she sent the telegram to Mr. Travers, stating that Tavia could not possibly leave, and that a letter to follow would explain, until the hour set for the charity performance, the girl was in one continuous whirl of excitement.

Ned’s accident did not prove to be as serious as had been feared, although there was no possibility of him being about for several days, at least.

In the excitement and emergency Tavia had marshaled all her individual forces, and proved herself worthy to be a friend and chum of Dorothy Dale.  With her change of heart—­her resolution to “stick to Dorothy”—­there seemed to come to her a new power, or, at least, it was a return of the power with which she had previously been accredited.

So the final work of preparation was accomplished, and now it seemed to be merely a matter of raising and lowering the curtain.

The characters which Ned was to have impersonated were divided among the other young men, it being necessary of course, to “double up” on three or four parts.  Agnes Sinclair openly deplored her loss of a partner, but the others smiled incredulously when she said she preferred to play with Ned and “hated that big bear, Tom Scott.”

Tom made this his excuse for being particularly “grizzly” with the pretty Agnes, and at the afternoon rehearsal he nearly went through the big gilt picture frame, in which the illustrations were posed, when he attempted to introduce a little impromptu “business” in “The Maiden all Forlorn.”

Then when Roland attempted to do “There was a Man in Our Town,” another of Ned’s parts, his efforts were so absurd and so utterly unlike what the tableau was expected to be, that it was decided to make it “I Had a Little Husband, no Bigger than my Thumb.”  Roland certainly looked diminutive enough to fit into a pint pot, and also seemed qualified to do as he might be told with the drum.

Finally all was arranged, or rearranged, and the hour for the play was almost at hand.

No more delightful weather could have been wished for.  It was clear and cold, while outside a big silvery moon threw a fairy-like illumination over the scene, and filtered in through the big windows of the drawing-room of the home of Mrs. Justin Brownlie.

Dorothy laughed her light, happy laugh.  After all, perhaps everything would come out right—­it was such a relief to feel that Ned would soon be better.  The worry about him was the very worst part of her troubles.  Then, suddenly, like the recurrence of an unpleasant dream, the thought of Tom’s midnight visit flashed before her mind.