"Little--snip!" murmured Estelle. "I'm so glad I didn't have to see him. He's a pest--all the while wanting to take me out and buy ice-cream sodas. He's just starting in at the movies, and he thinks he's a star already. Oh! but don't you just love the guns and horses?" she asked impulsively. "Well, I can't say that I do," answered Ruth. "I like quieter plays." "I don't!" cried Alice. "The more excitement the better I like it. I can do my best then." "So can I," said Estelle. Then they fell to talking of the work, and of many other topics. "Did Estelle Brown strike you as being peculiar?" asked Ruth of her sister when they were back in their rooms, getting ready for bed. "Peculiar? What do you mean?" "I mean she didn't seem to know whether or not her people were in the profession." "Yes, she did side-step that a bit." "Side-step, Alice?" "Well, avoid answering, if you like that better. But my way is shorter. Say, maybe she has gone into this without her people knowing it, and she wants to keep them from bringing her back." "Maybe, though it didn't strike me as being that way. It was as though she wasn't quite sure of herself." "Sure of herself--what do you mean?" "Well, I can't explain it any better." "I'll think it over," said Alice, sleepily. "We've got lots to do to-morrow," and she tumbled into bed with a drowsy "good-night." Miss Laura Dixon and Miss Pearl Pennington most decidedly turned up their noses at the breakfast table when they saw Estelle sitting between Ruth and Alice. And their murmurs of disdain could be plainly heard. "She here? Then I'm going to leave!" "The idea of amateurs butting in like this! It's a shame!" Fortunately Estelle was exchanging some gay banter with Paul and did not hear. But Ruth and Alice did, and the latter could not avoid a thrust at the scornful ones. To Ruth, in an unnecessarily loud voice, Alice remarked: "Do you remember that funny vaudeville stunt we used to laugh over when we were children--'The Lady Bookseller?'" "Yes, I remember it very well," answered Ruth. "What about it, Alice?" for she did not catch her sister's drift. "Why, I was just wondering how many years ago it was--ten, at least, since it was popular, isn't it?" "I believe so!" "It's no such a thing!" came the indignant remonstrance from Miss Pennington. It was in this sketch that she had made her "hit," and as she now claimed several years less than the number to which she was entitled, this sly reference to her age was not relished. "It was only _six_ years ago that I starred in that," she went on. "It seems much longer," said Alice, calmly. "We were quite little when we saw you in that. You were so funny with your big feet----" "Big feet! I had to wear shoes several sizes too large for me! It was in the act. I--I----" "They're stringing you--keep still!" whispered her chum, and with red cheeks Miss Pennington subsided.