ided Ruth to Alice.

"Silly! You needn't be!" was the response. "You're just perfect in
your part. I only wish I was as sure of myself."

"Why, you're great, Alice!" said her sister. "Only you do such funny
things--it makes me laugh, and I'm afraid I'll smile in the wrong
place--when I'm being made love to, for instance."

"Well, it's a funny part, and I have to act funny," insisted the
younger girl. "But I wish it was all over, and on the films. It's
been a little harder than I thought it would be."

"Indeed it has. But papa was so good to rehearse us. Now we must be a
credit to him."

"Oh, of course. Come on, the others are ready."

It was not without a feeling of nervousness that Ruth and Alice
prepared to take their places in the actual depiction of the new
play. The rehearsals had not been so trying; but now, when the
photographs were to be made, there was a strain on all.

For in making moving pictures mistakes are worse than on the real
stage. There, when one is speaking, one can correct a false line, or
turn it so that the audience does not notice the "break."

But in the movies a false move, a wrong gesture, is at once indelibly
registered on the film, to reappear greatly magnified. And though
sometimes the incorrect part of the film can be cut out, mistakes are
generally costly.

"Are you all ready?" asked Mr. Pertell again, as he stood with watch
in hand beside Russ at the camera, while the actors and actresses
took their places in the first scene.

"All ready," answered Mr. Harrison, who was one of the principal
characters.

"Then--go!" cried the manager, and Russ was about to turn the
operating handle.

"Vait! Vait a minute. Holt on!" cried the voice of Mr. Switzer.
"Don't shoot yet alretty!" and he held up a restraining hand.

"Oh, what's the matter now?" demanded Mr. Pertell, with a gesture of
annoyance.

"Vun of mine shoes--he iss unloose, und der lacing is
dingle-dangling. It might trip me!" explained the good-natured German
actor, in all seriousness.

"Well, fix it, and hurry up!" cried the manager, unable to repress a
smile.

"Yah! I tie her goot und strong," he said, and soon this was done.

"Now then--all ready?" asked Mr. Pertell once more.

This time there was no delay, and the clicking of the camera was
heard as Russ turned the handle. Mr. DeVere and his two daughters
were not in this first scene, so it gave the girls a chance to lose
some of their nervousness--or "stage