call the
operator's attention to it."

"You've hit it, sister mine."

"Oh, Alice! There you go again. 'Hit it!'"

"You'd say 'hit it' at a baseball game," Alice retorted.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so. But we're not at one," objected the older girl,
as she finished buttoning her gloves, and took up her parasol, which she
shook out, to make sure that it would open easily when needed.

"There, I think I'm ready," announced Alice, as she slipped on a light
jacket, for, though it was spring, the two rivers of New York sent
rather chilling breezes across the city, and a light waist was rather
conducive to colds.

"Have you the key?" asked the older girl, as she paused for a moment on
the threshold of the private hall of the apartment house. She had tied
her veil rather tightly at the back, knotting it and fastening it with a
little gold pin, and now she pulled it away from her cheeks, to relieve
the tension.

"Yes, I have it, Ruth. Oh, don't make such funny faces! Anyone would
think you were posing."

"Well, I'm not--but this veil--tickles."

"Serves you right for trying to be so stylish."

"It's proper to have a certain amount of style, Alice, dear. I wish I
could induce you to have more of it."

"I have enough, thank you. Let's don't talk dress any more, or we'll
have a tiff before we get to the moving picture studio, and there are
some long and trying scenes ahead of us to-day."

"So there are. I wonder if daddy took his key?"

"Wait, and I'll look on his dresser."

The younger girl went back into the apartment for a moment, while her
sister stepped across the corridor and tapped lightly at an opposite
door.

"Has Russ gone?" she asked the pleasant-faced woman who answered.

"Yes, Ruth. A little while ago. He was going to call for you girls, but
I knew you were dressing, for Alice came in to borrow some pins, so I
told him not to wait."

"That's right. We'll see him at the studio."

"You're coming in to supper to-night, you know."

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Dalwood. Daddy wouldn't miss that for anything!" laughed
Ruth, as she turned to wait for her sister. "Of course he _says_ our
cooking is the best he ever had since poor mamma left us," Ruth went
on, "but I just _know_ he relishes yours a great deal more."

"Oh, you're just saying that, Ruth!" objected the neighbor.

"Indeed I'm not. You should hear him talk, for days afterward, about
your clam chowder." She laughed genially.

"Well, he does seem to relish