Mona was away some little time. She returned looking decidedly blank. "They say they're ready and waiting, all those who are coming." "But the room's only a quarter full! Where are the others?" "The day girls have nearly all gone home." "Gone home! Didn't they understand we'd invited them?" "Oh, yes, but they said they'd rather not stay." Adah's face was a study. "Do you mean to say they don't care about seeing our play?" "So it seems." "The slackers! They've just done it on purpose, out of spite. Well, if this isn't the meanest thing I've ever heard of! How perfectly sickening!" The injured performers received the bad news with much disgust, but their grousing was cut short by the arrival of a fourth-form girl with a message. "Miss Thompson says, will you please begin at once, because it's getting very late?" There was nothing for it but to go through the piece with the best grace they could, before an audience of mistresses, boarders, and about ten of the old Silverside day girls. It is poor work playing to an empty house, and they felt that half the spirit had gone out of the performance. Adah's manner was not nearly so gracious and impressive as at rehearsals, Lord Darcy got confused and mixed up his speeches, and Marigold giggled palpably when she ought to have been looking love-lorn. As for the wicked earl, his black moustache dropped off just when he was in the very midst of his villainy, and spoiled his best point. The Principal and the mistresses clapped their hardest, and so did the rest of the scanty audience, but everybody felt that the whole affair had been a fiasco. "It was very nice, my dears!" said Miss Thompson, congratulating the disconsolate actresses as they came in to tea afterwards. "Quite one of the best plays we've ever had here." "She means kindly, but she knows it was a failure," whispered Adah gloomily to Consie. "I'll never forgive those day girls!" CHAPTER XIII Reports Avelyn was looking forward with wildest joy to the Christmas holidays. There were so many things she intended to do at home. She and Daphne and the boys were all going to set to work to construct chicken coops in preparation for the hatching of clutches of eggs that would be put down in January. Then, if the weather kept open, there were wonderful improvements to be made in the garden, stones to be brought for a rockery, and ferns to be fetched from the stream to plant upon it, to say nothing of the vegetable culture which in these days of food shortage was the main feature of their outdoor activities. Avelyn's whole heart was at Walden. She had grown to love every corner of it with an intense clinging attachment. No place in the world was so precious as those few acres of land she called home. The prospect of an entire glorious month there filled her with bliss.