do you do, Miss Page, awfully good of you to make it.

The girls dressed in a square room upstairs, lined with hooks and
mirrors. Julia was not self-conscious, because, while different from the
crisp snowy whiteness of the other girls' linen, it did not occur to her
that her well-worn pink silk underwear, her ornate corset cover, and her
shabby ruffled green silk skirt were anything but adequate.

Carter Hazzard was not in evidence to-day, to Julia's relief. The
rehearsal dragged on and on, everybody thrown out because Miss Dorothy
Chase, the girl who was to play Wilhelmina, failed to appear. Julia took
the part, when it was finally decided to go on without Dorothy, but by
that time it was late, and the weary manager assured them that there
must be another rehearsal that evening. Hilariously the young people
accepted this decree, and Julia was carried home with the Tolands to
dinner.

Good-hearted Mrs. Toland could be nothing less than kind to any young
girl, and Julia's place at table was next to the kindly old doctor, who
only saw an extremely pretty girl, and joked with her, and looked out
for her comfort in true fatherly fashion. Julia carried herself with
great dignity, said very little, being in truth quite overawed and
nervously anxious not to betray herself, and after the first frightened
half-hour she enjoyed the adventure thoroughly.

The evening rehearsal went much better, a final rehearsal was set for
Sunday, and Julia was driven to the ten o'clock boat in the station
omnibus, which smelled of leather and wet straw. She sat yawning in the
empty ferry building, smiling over her recollection of dinner at the
Tolands': the laughter, the quarrels, the joyous confusion of voices.

Suddenly struck by the deserted silence of the waiting-room, Julia
jumped up and went to the ticket office.

"Isn't there a train at 10:03?"

The station agent yawned, eyed her with pleasant indifference.

"No train now until 12:20, lady," said he.

For a moment Julia was staggered. Then she thought of the telephone.

A few minutes later she climbed out of the station omnibus again, this
time to be warmly welcomed into the Tolands' lamp-lighted drawing-room.
Barbara and her mother were still at the yacht club, but the old doctor
himself was eagerly apologetic. Doctor Studdiford, Ned, and Richie added
their cheerful questions and regrets to the hospitable hubbub, and
Sally, who had been at the piano, singing Scotch ballads to h