"We are," answered Alice. "I've washed Ruth's face, and I'm going to wash yours in a minute."
"Just as you like," he laughed. And then he sighed, for he recalled a time when his girlish wife had once challenged him the same way, when they were on their honeymoon. For Mrs. DeVere had been vivacious like Alice, and the younger daughter was a constant reminder to her father of his dead wife—a happy and yet a sad reminder.
Alice came rushing in with more snow, and there was a merry little scene before breakfast. Then Mr. DeVere hurried to the film studio, for he was to take part in several dramas that day.
"I know I'll be late," he said, "for the travel will be slow this morning, on account of the snow. And I have to go part way by surface car, as I have an errand on the way down town."
"We're coming down, also," Ruth informed him.
"Why, you're not in anything to-day," he remarked, pausing in the act of putting on his overcoat. "You're not cast for anything until 'The Price of Honor,' to-morrow."
"But we're going down, just the same," Alice laughed. "We want to see some of the funny films."
"Come ahead then," invited Mr. DeVere. "Better use the subway all you can. Even the elevated will have trouble with all this sleet. Good-bye," and he kissed them as he hurried out.
The girls made short shrift of the housework, and then left for the place where the moving pictures were made.
As I have described in the first book of this series how moving pictures are taken, I will not repeat it here, except to say that in a special camera, made for the purpose, there is a long narrow strip of celluloid film, of the same nature as in the ordinary camera. The pictures are taken on this strip, at the rate of sixteen a second. Later this film is developed, and from that "negative" a "positive" is made. This "positive" is then run through a specially made projecting lantern which magnifies the pictures for the screen.