ssed from hand to hand
as it took its way to its various nine o'clock classes.

"I thought he wasn't coming until to-morrow," said Teddie Wilson, who
followed every move of the play committee with mournful interest.

"He wasn't," explained Barbara Gordon, "but he found he could get off
better to-day. It's only for the Shylocks and Portias, you know. We
can't do much until they're definitely decided, so we can tell who is
left for the other parts."

"Gratiano and the Gobbos will come in the next lot," sighed Teddie.
"Seems as if I should die to be out of it all!"

Jean Eastman was just ahead of them in the crowd. "Poor Teddie!" Barbara
began, "I only wish---" She broke off abruptly. She didn't want Jean
for Shylock, but it would have been the height of impropriety to let
even Teddie, whose misfortunes made her a privileged person, know it.
"It's a perfect shame," she went on hastily. "You don't feel half so bad
about it as we do."

Ted stared incredulously. "Don't I? I say, Barbara, did you know there
was a girl in last year's cast who had had a condition at midyears? She
kept still and somehow it wasn't reported to Miss Stuart until very
late, and by that time it would have made a lot of trouble to take her
out. So they hushed it up and she kept her part. A last year's girl
wrote me about it."

"I don't believe she had much fun out of it, do you, Ted?" asked
Barbara. "Anyhow I'm sure you--"

"Oh, of course not," interrupted Ted with emphasis.

"What in the world are you two talking about?" demanded Jean Eastman
curiously, dropping back to join them.

"Talking play of course!" laughed Barbara, trying to be extra cordial
because she had so nearly said a disagreeable thing a minute before.

Meanwhile Ted, who felt that she should break the tenth commandment to
atoms if she stayed in Jean's neighborhood another minute, slipped off
down a side hall and joined a group of her classmates who were bound
like herself for Miss Raymond's English novelists. They were talking
play too, of course,--it was in the air this morning,--and they welcomed
Ted joyously and deferred to her opinion as that of an expert.

"Who'll be Shylock, Teddie?" demanded Bob Parker. "That's the only thing
I'm curious about."

"Jean," returned Ted calmly, "or at least the committee think so. I can
tell by the way Barbara looks at her."

"Beastly shame," muttered Bob. "Why couldn't Emily and Christy have
braced up and got it themselves?"

"N