Ned's accident did not prove to be as serious as had been feared, although
there was no possibility of him being about for several days, at least.
In the excitement and emergency Tavia had marshaled all her individual
forces, and proved herself worthy to be a friend and chum of Dorothy Dale.
With her change of heart--her resolution to "stick to Dorothy"--there
seemed to come to her a new power, or, at least, it was a return of the
power with which she had previously been accredited.
So the final work of preparation was accomplished, and now it seemed to be
merely a matter of raising and lowering the curtain.
The characters which Ned was to have impersonated were divided among the
other young men, it being necessary of course, to "double up" on three or
four parts. Agnes Sinclair openly deplored her loss of a partner, but the
others smiled incredulously when she said she preferred to play with Ned
and "hated that big bear, Tom Scott."
Tom made this his excuse for being particularly "grizzly" with the pretty
Agnes, and at the afternoon rehearsal he nearly went through the big gilt
picture frame, in which the illustrations were posed, when he attempted to
introduce a little impromptu "business" in "The Maiden all Forlorn."
Then when Roland attempted to do "There was a Man in Our Town," another of
Ned's parts, his efforts were so absurd and so utterly unlike what the
tableau was expected to be, that it was decided to make it "I Had a Little
Husband, no Bigger than my Thumb.
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