were--well, very glad," laughed her mother. "But here
we are at our house. Now come in, Lucile and Mart, and make yourselves
at home."

"And after you get warm, and have had something to eat, maybe you'll
tell us about how to get up a show in a theater--not one in a tent like
a circus," suggested Bunny.

"Yes, we'll help you all we can," promised Lucile.

Mrs. Newton, coming to the Brown house ahead of the others, had got a
nice lunch ready, and from the way Mart and his sister sat down to it
and ate it was evident that they were very hungry. It was nice and warm
in the Brown house, too, and the children from the vaudeville troupe
seemed to like to be near the fire.

"Now if you have had enough to eat, perhaps you will tell me a little
bit more about yourselves," suggested Mrs. Brown, when the two visitors
were ready to leave the table. "I want to help you," she went on, "and I
can best do that if I know more about you. My husband is in the boat
and fish business here in Bellemere," she said, "and though he is not as
busy in winter as he is in summer, he may find work for you," she added
to Mart.

"I hope he can!" said the boy. "Well, I'll tell you about myself and my
sister. You see we come of a theatrical family. Our father and mother
were in the show business up to the time they died."

"Oh, then your father and mother are dead?" asked Mrs. Brown kindly.

"Yes," went on Lucile. "We hardly remember them as they died when we
were little. We were brought up by our uncle Simon and Aunt Sallie. They
were in the show business, too, and they traveled under several
different names.

"Sometimes we traveled with them, and again we'd be off on the road by
ourselves. But whenever we went alone that way Uncle Simon would always
get some one, like Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, to look after us and take
charge of us. So we didn't have it so hard until Uncle Simon and Aunt
Sallie went away."

"Went away!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown. "Where did they go?"

"That's what we can't find out," answered Mart "They left their address
for us with Mr. Jackson, but he lost it, and now we don't know where our
uncle and aunt are."

"But surely some one knows!" said Mrs. Newton.

"Well, yes, I guess Uncle Bill knows, but we can't find him," said Mart.

"You seem to belong to a lost family!" exclaimed Mrs. Brown, with a
smile. "Who is Uncle Bill, and where is he?"

"We don't know where he is, but he's blind," put in Lucile. "The last we
heard o