to learn all Fatima's long part,"
Aldred ventured to object; "she never gets through her recitations in
class without a mistake."

"I'll manage, thank you!" retorted Lorna. "Besides, there's always the
prompter behind the piano."

"The prompter! You ought never to rely on that!"

"I didn't say I was going to."

"Yes, you did! If people undertake a part, they ought at least to know
the words, or let somebody else have it."

"I shan't give up my part at your bidding!"

"You're misunderstanding each other," interposed Mabel. "Aldred never
meant she wanted you to give up your part, Lorna; I'm sure she was only
sympathizing because she knows you find it hard to learn things."

"It's a queer form of sympathy, then!" grumbled Lorna. "I thought she
wanted to be Fatima herself."

"Oh, no! That's most unlike Aldred. I wonder you could imagine for an
instant that she would have such a motive! I think, when we decided to
abide by the lot, it would be a mistake to have any changing; and we'd
better set to work and learn some of our speeches, so that we can
rehearse the first scene, at any rate, to-morrow. We must each borrow
the book in turn, and keep looking at it in any odd moments we can
spare."

"Yes; there won't be too much time, with all the costumes to think about
as well," agreed the others.

Aldred mastered the dozen lines that fell to the Attendant in a few
minutes, and handed the book on to Sister Anne. Feeling sure of her
portion in the play, she could afford to criticize the others, and set
to work to coach them vigorously at the evening rehearsal. Though some
of them were not willing to fall in with her suggestions, she managed to
make herself so prominent that, in spite of themselves, the girls
allowed her to assume the leadership, and to constitute herself a kind
of stage manager.

"Aldred is quite right," said Mabel, backing her up; "we certainly were
not saying our speeches with half enough dramatic emphasis, and we
weren't putting any spirit into them. I feel I was too tame."

"We haven't got as far as 'dramatic emphasis'," said Phoebe. "That
would come afterwards."

"It's better to practise it as we go along, and as Aldred has had so
much experience of private theatricals, we had better take her advice,
and let her show us how it ought to be done."

Aldred's boasted experience was really confined to a few charades with
the Rectory children at home; but she had considerable natural talent
for a