ita decisively. "You must take it,
Roberta. Why didn't you tell people that you could act like that?"

"I shall have stage-fright and spoil everything," declared Roberta
forlornly.

"Nonsense," said Nita. "You'd be ashamed to do anything of the kind."

"Yes," agreed Roberta solemnly, "I should." Whereupon everybody laughed,
and Nita hugged Roberta and assured her that there was no way out of it.

"Somebody go and get Janet's costume," she ordered, "and any one who has
a spare minute can be fitting it over. We shall have to have an extra
rehearsal to-morrow of the parts where Ermengarde comes in. Go on now,
Sara. Use Lucile's muff for the monkey."

When at last act three was finished it was ten o'clock and Nita gave a
sigh of utter exhaustion. "If Madeline's rule holds," she said, "this
play ought to go like clockwork to-morrow."

And it did, despite the rather dubious tone of the chairman's prophecy.
The Princess arrived duly just after luncheon, and everybody except the
cast, who would do their share later, helped to entertain her. This was
not difficult. She wasn't a college girl, she explained, and she had
never known many of them. She just wanted to hear them talk, see their
rooms, and if it wasn't too much trouble she should enjoy looking on at
a game of--what was it they played so much at Harding? Basket-ball,
somebody prompted. Yes, that was it. The sophomore teams which had just
been chosen were proud to play a game for her, and they even suggested,
fired by her responsive enthusiasm, that they should teach her to play
too.

"I should love it," she said, "if somebody would lend me one of those
becoming suits. But I mustn't." She sighed. "The newspapers would be
sure to get hold of it. Besides they're giving a tea for me at the
Belden. It begins in five minutes. Doesn't time just fly at Harding?"

The monkey also arrived in good season, whether thanks to or in spite of
Polly's exertions was not clear, since his master spoke no English and
not even Madeline could understand his Italian. The bagdads worked
beautifully. The new Ermengarde was letter-perfect, and nobody but
herself had any fear that she would be stage-struck, even though the
Princess would be sitting in the very middle of the fourth row. Janet's
name was still on the program, for Roberta had sternly insisted that it
shouldn't be crossed out; and as neither of the two Ermengardes was very
well known to the college in general, only a few people