"Perhaps!" Alice admitted, as she took off her hat, jabbed the pins in it and tossed it to one chair, while she sank into another. "Oh, Alice! You--aren't going to be one of those--manicures; are you?" "I hope not, though there are lots worse things. A manicure can be just as much a lady as a typist. But, Ruth, I have such news for you! I have found an engagement for dad!" "An engagement for daddy?" "Yes. In the movies! Listen. Oh, it was so exciting!" Then, with many digressions, and in rather piece-meal manner, interrupting herself often to go back and emphasize some point she had forgotten, Alice told of her morning trip with Russ. She enlarged on the manner in which the moving pictures were made, until Ruth grew quite excited. "Oh, I wish I could see how it is done!" she cried. "You may--when dad takes this engagement," said Alice. "He never will," declared her sister. "You know what he thinks of the movies." "But he thinks wrong!" exclaimed Alice. "It's so different from what I thought." "He'll never consent," repeated Ruth. "Hark! Here he comes now. Perhaps he has found something to do." Footsteps were heard coming along the hallway. Alice glanced at the table before which her sister was sitting. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Looking over our bills, and trying to make five dollars do the work of fifteen," answered Ruth, with a wry smile. "Money doesn't stretch well," she added. Mr. DeVere came in. It needed but a look at his face to show that he had been unsuccessful, but Ruth could not forbear asking: "Well, Daddy?" "No good news," he answered, hoarsely. "I could hardly make myself understood, and there seem few places where one can labor without using one's voice. I never appreciated that before." "But I have found a place!" cried Alice, with girlish enthusiasm. "I have a place for you Daddy, where you won't have to speak a word." "Where--where is it?" he whispered, and they both noted his pitiful eagerness. "In the movies!" Alice went on. "Oh, it's the nicest place! I've been there, and the manager----" "Not another word!" exclaimed Mr. DeVere. "I never would consent to acting in the moving pictures. I would not so debase my profession--a profession honored by Shakespeare. I never would consent to it. The movies! Never!" There was a knock at the door. "I'll see who it is," offered Ruth, with a sympathetic glance at Alice, who seemed distressed. Then, as Ruth saw who it was, she drew back. "Oh!" she exclaimed, helplessly. "Who is it?" asked Mr. DeVere, rising. "I've come for the rent!" exclaimed a rasping voice. "This is about the tenth time, I guess. Have you got it?" and a burly man thrust himself into the room from the hall. "The rent--Oh!" murmured Mr. DeVere, helplessly. "Let me see; have we the rent ready, Ruth?" "No," she answered, with a quick glance at the table where she had been going over the accounts, and where a little pile of bills lay. "No, we haven't the rent--to-day."