“I am sorry, Miss Thompson,” said Grace, striving to steady her voice.  “I value your good opinion above everything, but I can tell you nothing you wish to know.  Please, please don’t ask me.”

“Very well,” responded the principal in a tone of cold dismissal, turning to her desk.

With a half-stifled sob, Grace hurried from the room.  For the first time, since entering High School, she had incurred the displeasure of her beloved principal, and all for the sake of a girl who was unworthy of the sacrifice.  For Grace had recognized the paper.  It was precisely the same style of paper on which Eleanor Savell had declined her Thanksgiving invitation.

CHAPTER XXI

BREAKERS AHEAD

The dress rehearsal for “As You Like It” was over.  It had been well nigh perfect.  The costumes had for the most part been on hand, as the senior class of five years previous had given the same play and bequeathed their paraphernalia to those who should come after.  Rosalind’s costumes had to be altered to fit Anne, however, on account of her lack of stature.  Also the lines in the text where Rosalind refers to her height underwent some changes.  The final details having been attended to, Miss Tebbs and Miss Kane found time to congratulate each other on the smoothness of the production, which bade fair to surpass anything of the kind ever before given.  There was not a weak spot in the cast.  Anne’s work had seemed to grow finer with every rehearsal.

She had won the repeated applause of the group of teachers who had been invited to witness this trial performance.  Grace, Nora, Eleanor and Miriam had ably supported her and there had been tears of proud joy in Miss Tebbs’s eyes as she had watched the clever and spirited acting of these girls.

“Be sure and put your costumes exactly where they belong,” called Miss Tebbs as the girls filed off the stage into the dressing room after the final curtain.  “Then you will have no trouble to-morrow night.  We want to avoid all eleventh-hour scrambling and exciting costume hunts.”

Laughing merrily, the girls began choosing places to hang their costumes in the big room off the stage where they were to dress.  Anne, careful little soul that she was, piled her paraphernalia neatly in one corner, and taking a slip of paper from her bag wrote “Rosalind” upon it, pinning it to her first-act costume.

“The eternal labeler,” said Nora, with her ever-ready giggle, as she watched Anne.  “Are you afraid it will run away, little Miss Fussbudget!”

“No; of course not,” said Anne, smiling.  “I just marked it because——­”

“You have the marking habit,” finished Jessica.  “Come on, girls.  Don’t tease Anne.  Let her put tags on herself if she wants to.  Then a certain young man who is waiting outside for her will be sure to recognize her.  Has anyone seen that Allison child?  It’s time she put in an appearance.”