I am approached every week--I was going to say, every
day--by girls no older than you, who think they have genius for the
film-stage."

"Oh!" exclaimed Nan, beginning at last to take interest in something
besides her recent unpleasant experience. "Do _you_ make moving
pictures?"

The actress raised her eyes and clasped her hands, invoking invisible
spirits to hear. "At last! a girl who is not tainted by the universal
craze for the movies--and who does not know _me_! There are still worlds
for me to conquer," murmured the woman. "Yes, my child," she added, to
the rather abashed Nan, "I am a maker of films."

"You--you must excuse me," Nan hastened to say. "I expect I ought to
know all about you; but I lived quite a long time in the Michigan
woods, and then, lately, I have been at boarding school, and we have no
movies there."

"Your excuses are accepted, my dear," the actress-director said demurely.
"It is refreshing, I assure you, to meet a girl like you."

"I--I suppose you see so many," Nan said eagerly. "Those looking for
positions in your company, I mean. You do not remember them all?"

"Oh, mercy, no, my dear!" drawled the woman. "I see hundreds."

"Two girls I know of have recently come to Chicago looking for positions
with moving picture concerns," explained Nan, earnestly. "They are
country girls, and their folks want them to come home."

"Runaways?"

"Yes, ma'am. They have run away and their folks are dreadfully worried."

"I assure you," said the moving picture director, smiling, "they
have not been engaged at my studio. New people must furnish
references--especially if they chance to be under age. Two girls from the
country, you say, my dear? How is it they have come to think they can act
for the screen?" and she laughed lightly again.

Nan, sipping her tea and becoming more used to her surroundings and more
confidential, told her new acquaintance all about Sallie Morton and
Celia Snubbins.

"Dear, dear," the woman observed at last. "How can girls be so
foolish? And the city is no place for them, alone, under any
circumstances. If they should come to me I will communicate with their
parents. I believe I should know them, my dear--two girls together,
and both from the country?"

"Oh! if you only would help them," cried Nan. "I am sure such a kind act
would be repaid."

The woman laughed. "I see you have faith in all the old fashioned
virtues," she said. "Dear me, girl! I am glad I met you. T