ool, who could not reconcile
himself to the silent drama.

"Why, Daddy, what is the matter?" asked Alice. "I think it will be
perfectly fine to have a little trip out to sea, especially now that
Summer is coming on."

"But not if the damp salty air is going to irritate his throat,"
declared Ruth.

"Oh, it isn't so much that," Mr. DeVere said, "but you girls evidently
don't know that the big scene in this drama is a shipwreck, and what
follows. I am to be 'cast' in that, and so are you."

"Well, what of it?" asked Alice. "It won't be a _real_ shipwreck; will
it?"

"Real? Of course not!" exclaimed Ruth. "The idea!"

"I certainly hope it won't be real," Mr. DeVere said, "But--Oh, well, I
suppose I may as well admit the truth. You'll probably call me fussy and
all that, and laugh at the superstition of an old actor. But you know we
have our traditions, though I am free to confess that I have lost many
of them since entering on this moving picture work. But I had a dream
about this same shipwreck, and that was before I knew we were to be in
it, for I might mention that Mr. Pertell has included you girls in the
drama, and has prominent parts selected for you."

"Oh, I'm glad!" cried Alice enthusiastically.

"I'm not," her father said, and he did not smile. "As I said I had a
dream about this drama before I knew we were to have parts in it. And in
that dream I saw----"

"Oh, Daddy! Now don't tell a depressing dream before tea!" begged Alice,
slipping her arms about his neck, and imprinting a kiss on a spot,
which, if it were not already bald, was fast becoming so. "Wait until
after supper--the rarebit will spoil if we don't eat it at once. Wait,
Daddy dear!"

"All right, I will," he assented with a sigh. "Perhaps I may have a less
gloomy view of it after a cup of tea."

And while the little family party is gathered about the table, I shall
take just a moment to tell my new readers something about the previous
books of this series.

Ruth and Alice DeVere were moving picture girls, which you have probably
guessed already. That is, they were actresses for the silent film dramas
that make so much for enjoyment nowadays. Mr. DeVere was also an actor
in the same company. He had been a semi-tragedian of the "old school,"
but his voice had failed, because of a throat ailment, and he could no
longer declaim his lines over the footlights. He was in distress until
it was suggested to him that he take up moving picture wor