d then I can't act. When I am at
home I can say my lines just as I ought, but the minute he begins to
tell me what to do, everything goes wrong. Then he finds fault and
almost makes me cry. I wish I hadn't tried for a part. If it weren't so
late I'd resign from the cast."

"And let Mignon sing the Princess!" came from Muriel in deep disgust.

"Don't you do it," advised Susan. "That's precisely what she'd like you
to do."

"It's a plot between Mignon and Mr. Snapwell--I mean Atwell," declared
Jerry. "She's crazy to be the Princess and he is trying to help her
along. A blind man could see that."

"I think so, too," said Irma Linton slowly. "You must try not to mind
him, Connie, then you won't be nervous."

"Why don't you ask Laurie to interfere?" proposed Jerry. "He looked
crosser than I look when I'm mad when that Atwell man was worrying you
about your lines this afternoon. I'll ask him myself, if you say so."

"No." Constance shook her head. "I wouldn't for the world complain to
Laurie. He has enough to think of now, without bothering his head over
my troubles. I suppose I am too easily hurt. I must learn not to mind
such things, if ever I expect to become a real artist."

"That's the way you ought to feel, Connie," put in Marjorie's soft
voice. She had been thinking seriously, while the others talked, as to
what she might say to cheer up her disconsolate schoolmate. "You were
chosen to sing the part of the Princess, and I am sure no one else can
sing it half so well. Try to think that, all the time you are
rehearsing. Remember, Laurie believes in you, and so do we. When the
great night comes you won't have to listen to that horrid Mr. Atwell's
nagging, or say your lines over and over again. You will truly be the
Princess, and that will make you forget everything else. If you believe
in yourself, nothing can make you fail. For your own sake, don't think
for a minute of giving up the part."

CHAPTER XXVI

MAKING RESTITUTION

Greatly to Mr. Ronald Atwell's chagrin, Constance Stevens began suddenly
to show a marked improvement in her work that did not in the least
coincide with his plans. Influenced by Mignon's tale of her wrongs, laid
principally at Constance's door, albeit Marjorie, too, came in for her
share of blame, he had taken a dislike to the gentle girl and lost no
opportunity to humiliate her. Privately, he regarded the entire cast,
Mignon included, as a set of silly children, and his only reg