f in the village of Woodford?

CHAPTER X

THE RECOGNITION

Esther was not waiting in the accustomed place where Polly had
previously found her when she came off the stage. On her way to the
dressing room she shivered a little, missing the coat that her friend
was in the habit of wrapping about her shoulders. The night was
extremely cold and the back of a theater is nearly always breezy.

Polly hurried faster than usual to her room--a small dark one at the
end of a passage-way. But even here there was no sign of Esther. What
could have become of her? She was not apt to be talking with any of
the members of the company; for both girls had decided that it was
wiser to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

Well, she must do her best to get out of her fairy costume and back
into sensible garments by her own efforts. Esther would be coming
along in a few moments. She could not stand idle with her teeth fairly
chattering and those ridiculous little chills chasing themselves all
over her. Wouldn't it be too absurd to take cold at this particular
time and so make a failure of her adventure? For she would thus heap
all the family disapproval and punishment upon her own head and incur
the righteous indignation of everybody in the company by having to
resign her part.

Would any one ever have imagined that a garment could be so difficult
to unfasten as this one she was now incased in? For of course the
stiffness and shakiness of Polly's fingers came from the zero
temperature in her dressing room and not in the least from the
momentary fright she had received from her supposed recognition of a
face in the audience. Undoubtedly she had been mistaken. Yet why
should she have chosen to believe that she saw about the most unlikely
person of her acquaintance? A guilty conscience should have conjured
up some ghost who had more right to be present.

Polly finally did succeed in getting into her street clothes without
assistance; and though five, ten minutes passed, Esther did not appear
in the dressing room. Nor was she anywhere in the hall, since Polly
had several times thrust her head out the door to look for her.

Polly was a little uneasy, though assuredly nothing serious could have
happened to Esther. Esther had been very good to her during these past
days, so staunch and loyal, never reproaching her or arguing once she
had become convinced that Polly's mind was made up, and taking such
wonderfu