l doing an extra turn
in the pictures."

"Nor I!" snapped Miss Dixon.

"All right--all right!" said Mr. Pertell quickly. "I know it's contrary
to my promise, and I won't insist on it. Only it would have made it
easier----"

"Let Miss Brown come," quickly whispered Alice in the director's ear.
"They won't leave. They're too comfortable here, and they get too good
salaries. Let Miss Brown come!"

"Will you stand by me if I do?"

"Yes," said Alice.

"So will I," added Ruth.

Then the supper bell rang and the discussion ended for the time being.
Later Mr. Pertell explained privately to Ruth and her sister that Miss
Brown was a quiet and refined young lady about whom he knew little save
that she had answered his advertisement for an amateur who could ride.
She had made good and he had engaged her for the war scenes.

"But she tells me that among the young men in the same boarding bungalow
is one who seems quite smitten with her. He is impudent and exceedingly
persistent, and she does not desire his attentions. She said she thought
she would have to leave unless she could get a quiet place where he
could not follow. It is all right during the day, as he can not come
near her, but after hours----"

"Do bring her!" urged Alice. "We'll try to make her comfortable. And
don't fear what they will do," and she nodded toward the two other
actresses, who had been in vaudeville before going into motion pictures.

So it was that, later in the evening, Miss Brown brought her trunk to
the Apgar farmhouse and was installed in a room near Alice and Ruth.

"Oh, it is _so_ much nicer here!" sighed Estelle Brown, as she admitted
Ruth and Alice, who knocked on her door. "I could not have stood the
other place much longer. Though every one--except that one man--was very
nice to me."

"Let us be your friends!" urged Alice.

"You are very kind," murmured Estelle, and the more the two girls looked
at her, the prettier they thought her. She had wonderful hair, a
marvelous complexion, and white, even teeth that made her smile a
delight.

"Have you been in this business long?" asked Ruth.

"No, not very--in fact, this is my first big play. I have done little
ones, but I did not get on very well. I love the work, though."

"Were your people in the profession?" asked Alice.

"I don't know--that is, I'm not sure. I believe some of them were,
generations back. Oh, did you hear that?" and she interrupted her reply
with the question.