"Oh, Daddy! We wouldn't go if it harmed you!" Alice cried.

"Oh, I dare say I can manage," her father replied. "The new treatment I
am taking seems to agree with me. Who knows? Perhaps, when it comes time
to sail, my throat may not trouble me at all."

"Let us hope so," Alice broke in. "I do so love the water, and the
Southern sea will be a dream!"

Perhaps if Alice could have looked ahead, and seen what lay before her,
she would not have been so enthusiastic in anticipating the future.

Mr. Pertell saw that the other plays under way in the studio were
running smoothly, and then prepared to take Mr. DeVere, his daughters,
and the old sailor over to Erie Basin, to inspect the _Mary Ellen_, as
she lay in her slip, being refitted for another voyage--her last--for
she was to rest beneath the waves when she had played her part in the
moving picture play.

"I wish I were going with you," said Russ Dalwood, as Ruth passed him
where he was having a moment's respite from grinding away at the crank
of a camera.

"I wish so, too," she answered, in a low voice.

"But I've got to stay here, and grind away at this film," he said
hopelessly.

"We'll see you to-night," she called to him, as she went out.