"Do go home and lie down, all of you--no, it's really too much to expect--no, don't think of staying, we can do all the rest--no, you are too good, and we are awfully grateful, but--there!" She slammed the door upon the bewildered objects of her gratitude, and then, falling back against it, exchanged looks of despair with her companions. "Who would ever have thought they'd get at it so early!" wailed Peggy, on her knees beside a particularly hopeless-looking heap of articles; "will some one help me to rescue my poor Clytie? Shirley, lend a hand with these steps." Shirley Nairn, a slender girl with a big, soft, dust-brown pompadour, brown eyes, and a firm little chin which half contradicted their gentleness, began cautiously to lift away the boards. She had a fluttering grace in all her movements like that of a bird just lighting. "Rescue is the word," she said; "there is still hope for most of the things, but unless we do a lot before lunch, those Vandals will be back again, and next time there will be nothing left but chips." In spite of the discouraging outlook, an hour or two of hard work did wonders. Curtains and costumes went to the property-room, the faded forest hid its head in a corner, the borrowed chairs and rugs and rubber-plants found themselves grouped in something like order, and the rescue party sank at last upon a mattress in the alcove to wipe its heated brow, and survey results. "There is less damage done than you would think," observed Katharine Holland; she was a girl of that ineffectual type that must always appeal to some one, and she now turned her long brown face and mournful eyes towards Shirley. "Except for Peggy's Clytie, and a few smashed pots, and that long tear in Miss Meredith's leopard-skin, most things seem to have been miraculously spared. There is a special Providence that watches over idiots." Still inspecting her very grimy hands, Shirley said, "They aren't really idiots, but you can't leave them to themselves. We should have had a committee." "It's all my fault; I neglected it," began Peggy meekly. "We are all just as bad," Pauline interrupted in a decided tone; "Louise is stage manager, and I am business manager, and look at our behaviour: we have both been wasting valuable time on our essay appointments when we should have been attending to business." As self-accusation seemed the order of the day, each of the small party came forward to blame herself, and did it thoroughly and at some length. When a soothing pause came at last, Shirley said meditatively, "I heard Miss Meredith say the other day that women couldn't work together effectively, because woman isn't a political animal."