g as enthusiastically as any one.
And then when Mr. Silas Robbins rose to his feet and ushered his wife
and daughter from the building, the crisis was safely past.

What with returning the money of half the audience, and receiving the
quarters of the other half, for the Cherry Creek crowd was making haste
to pay up, Farmer Cole's Joe had his hands full. He reached for his
money box as the Robbins family filed past, but the head of the house
checked him with a genial gesture.

"Never you mind the money, Joe," said Mr. Robbins. "That girl's speech
was wuth it. She's a corker." He chuckled admiringly. "The way she can
get 'round folks and make 'em do as she says beats the Dutch. If she was
a boy now, it's dollars to doughnuts that she'd get to be president." He
went on his way, still chuckling, and at the door encountered the second
delegation from Cherry Creek.

It was doubtless due to the earlier excitements of the evening that
Peggy came so near disaster later. They had reached the second act most
successfully, and the audience had laughed at every suggestion of a
joke, and when the curtain was drawn, had joined in tumultuous applause,
piercing cat-calls blending euphoniously with the clapping of hands, and
the stamping of feet. And then Peggy, who knew the entire comedy from
beginning to end, and could have taken any part at five minutes' notice,
stumbled in her lines, and to her horror, found her mind a blank.

She looked toward Aunt Abigail, but unluckily the prompter had been so
carried away by her enjoyment of the presentation, that she was
listening delightedly, quite unmindful of her professional duties. As
she met Peggy's appealing gaze, she started violently, and an excited
flutter of leaves conveyed to Peggy the unwelcome information that Aunt
Abigail had lost her place.

Oddly enough, it was Elaine who came to the rescue. In playing her part,
practically without rehearsals, Elaine had found it necessary to
familiarize herself with the general dialogue of the little comedy.
While the other girls stood stricken dumb by the realization that Peggy
had forgotten, the opening sentence of the deferred speech flashed into
Elaine's mind. "'But I demand the proof,'" she said in a sharp whisper.

Instantly Peggy was herself again. "But I demand the proof," she cried,
and swept commandingly toward the centre of the stage. The pause, which
had seemed such a long hiatus to the little group on the platform, was
hardly