mate,
immediate woes. Beyond and around them lay others many others. To be
sure, Bertram and happiness were supposed to be somewhere in the dim
and uncertain future; but between her and them lay all these other woes,
chief of which was the unutterable tragedy of to-morrow night.

It was to be a failure, of course. Billy had calmly made up her mind to
that, now. But then, she was used to failures, she told herself. Was she
not plainly failing every day of her life to bring about even friendship
between Alice Greggory and Arkwright? Did they not emphatically and
systematically refuse to be "thrown together," either naturally, or
unnaturally? And yet--whenever again could she expect such opportunities
to further her Cause as had been hers the past few weeks, through the
operetta and its rehearsals? Certainly, never again! It had been a
failure like all the rest; like the operetta, in particular.

Billy did not mean that any one should know she was crying. She supposed
that all the performers except herself and the two earth-bound fairies
by the piano with Alice Greggory were gone. She knew that John with
Peggy was probably waiting at the door outside, and she hoped that soon
the fairies would decide to go home and go to bed, and let other people
do the same. For her part, she did not see why they were struggling so
hard, anyway. Why needn't they go ahead and sing their duet like two
solos if they wanted to? As if a little thing like that could make a
feather's weight of difference in the grand total of to-morrow night's
wretchedness when the final curtain should have been rung down on their
shame!

"Miss Neilson, you aren't--crying!" exclaimed a low voice; and Billy
turned to find Arkwright standing by her side in the dim light.

"Oh, no--yes--well, maybe I was, a little," stammered Billy, trying to
speak very unconcernedly. "How warm it is in here! Do you think it's
going to rain?--that is, outdoors, of course, I mean."

Arkwright dropped into the seat behind Billy and leaned forward, his
eyes striving to read the girl's half-averted face. If Billy had turned,
she would have seen that Arkwright's own face showed white and a little
drawn-looking in the feeble rays from the light by the piano. But
Billy did not turn. She kept her eyes steadily averted; and she went on
speaking--airy, inconsequential words.

"Dear me, if those girls _would_ only pull together! But then, what's
the difference? I supposed you had gone ho