"Do, do, my dears, try to find my girl and Celia when you go to Chicago."

Nan and Bess promised to do so, for neither realized what a great city Chicago is, and that people might live there, almost side by side, for years and never meet.



CHAPTER XII

RAVELL BULSON'S TROUBLE

"What do you think of those two girls, anyway, Nan?" Bess Harley asked.

This was late in the evening, after the porter had made up their berths again in the Pullman. The baskets of food had been welcomed by the snow-bound passengers with acclaim. The two girls were thanked more warmly for their thoughtfulness than Nan and Bess believed they really deserved.

Bess Harley's question, of course, referred to Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins, the girls who had run away from home to become moving picture actresses. Nan replied to her chum's query:

"That Sallie Morton must be a very silly girl indeed to leave such a comfortable home and such a lovely mother. Perhaps Celia Snubbins may not have been so pleasantly situated; but I am sure she had no reason for running away."

Bess sighed. "Well," she murmured, "it must be great fun to work for the movies. Just think of those two country girls appearing in a five-reel film like 'A Rural Beauty.'"

"Well, for goodness' sake, Bess Harley!" cried Nan, astonished, "have you been bitten by that bug?"

"Don't call it 'bug'—that sounds so common," objected Bess. "Call it 'bacilli of the motion picture.' It must be great," she added emphatically, "to see yourself acting on the screen!"

"I guess so," Nan said, with a laugh. "A whole lot those two foolish girls acted in that 'Rural Beauty' picture. They were probably two of the 'merry villagers' who helped to make a background for the real actresses. You know very well, Bess, that girls like us wouldn't be hired by any film company for anything important."

"Why—you know, Nan," her chum said, "that some of the most highly paid film people are young girls."

"Yes. But they are particularly fitted for the work. Do you feel the genius of a movie actress burning in you?" scoffed Nan.

"No-o," admitted Bess. "I think it is that hard boiled egg I ate. And it doesn't exactly burn."

Nan went off in a gale of laughter at this, and stage-struck Bess chimed in. "I don't care," the latter repeated, the last thing before they climbed into their respective berths, "it must be oodles of fun to work for the movies."

While the chums slept there were great doings outside the snow-bound train. The crew turned out with shovels, farmers in the neighborhood helped, and part of a lately arrived section gang joined in to shovel the snow away from the stalled engine and train.

Cordwood had been bought of Peleg Morton and hauled over to the locomotive for fuel. With this the engineer and fireman managed to make sufficient steam to heat the Pullman coach and the smoking car. Nan and Bess had brought little "Buster," as the spaniel had been named, into their section and, having been fed and made warm, he gave the girls hardly any trouble during the night.

Selfish Mr. Bulson, who had shipped the puppy home to his little boy, seemed to have no interest whatsoever in Buster's welfare.

It was not until the great snow-plow and a special locomotive appeared the next morning, and towed the stalled train on to its destination, and Nan Sherwood and her chum arrived at Tillbury, that Nan learned anything more regarding Mr. Ravell Bulson.

Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood had been more than a little worried by Nan's delay in getting home and Mr. Sherwood was at the station to meet the train when it finally steamed into Tillbury.

Owneyville, which the girls knew to be Mr. Bulson's home town, was a station beyond Tillbury, and a much smaller town. The fat man had to change cars, so it was not surprising that he stepped down upon the Tillbury platform just as Nan ran into her father's arms.

"Oh, Papa Sherwood!" Nan almost sobbed.

"My dear Nancy!" he returned, quite as much moved.

And just then Mr. Bulson appeared beside them. "Well, Sherwood!" the fat man growled, "have you come to your senses yet?"

Robert Sherwood's face flushed and he urged Nan away along the snowy platform. "I don't care to talk to you, Bulson," he said shortly.

"Well, you will talk to me!" exclaimed the angry fat man. "I'll get you into court where you'll have to talk."

Mr. Sherwood kept right on with Nan and Bulson was left fuming and muttering on the platform. Bess had already been put into the family sleigh and was being whisked home. Nan and her father tramped briskly through the snowy streets toward "the little dwelling in amity," which Nan had not seen since leaving Tillbury for her Uncle Henry Sherwood's home at Pine Camp, ten months before.

"Oh, dear, Papa Sherwood!" gasped Nan. "What is the matter with that horrid man? He says the most dreadful things about you!"

"What's that?" demanded her father, quickly. "What do you know about Bulson?"

"More than I really want to know about him," said Nan, ruefully. She related briefly what had happened a few days before on Pendragon Hill. "And when he called you a rascal, I—oh! I was very, very angry! What did he mean, Papa Sherwood?"

But her father postponed his explanation until later; and it was really from her mother that Nan heard the story of Mr. Sherwood's trouble with Ravell Bulson. Mrs. Sherwood was very indignant about it, and so, of course, was Nan.

A week or more before, Mr. Sherwood had had business in Chicago, and in returning took the midnight train. The sleeping car was side-tracked at Tillbury and when most of the passengers were gone the man in the berth under Mr. Sherwood's began to rave about having been robbed. His watch and roll of banknotes had disappeared.

The victim of the robbery was Mr. Ravell Bulson. Mr. Bulson had at once accused the person occupying the berth over his as being the guilty person. Nan's father had got up early, and had left the sleeping car long before Mr. Bulson discovered his loss.

The railroad and the sleeping car company, of course, refused to acknowledge responsibility for Mr. Bulson's valuables. Nor on mere suspicion could Mr. Bulson get a justice in Tillbury to issue a warrant for Mr. Sherwood.

But Ravell Bulson had been to the Sherwood cottage on Amity Street, and had talked very harshly. Besides, the fat man had in public loudly accused his victim of being dishonest.

Mr. Sherwood's reputation for probity in Tillbury was well founded; he was liked and respected; those who really knew him would not be influenced by such a scandal.

But as Mr. Sherwood was making plans to open an agency in Tillbury for a certain automobile manufacturing concern, he feared that the report of Mr. Bulson's charge would injure his usefulness to the corporation he was about to represent. To sue Bulson for slander would merely give wider circulation to the story the fat man had originated.

Ravell Bulson was a traveling man and was not often in Tillbury—that was one good thing. He had a reputation in his home town of Owneyville of being a quarrelsome man, and was not well liked by his neighbors.

Nevertheless a venomous tongue can do a great deal of harm, and a spiteful enemy may sometimes bring about a greater catastrophe than a more powerful adversary.



CHAPTER XIII

ADVENTURES IN A GREAT CITY

"Now! what do you know about this?" Bess Harley demanded, with considerable vexation.

"Of course, it's a mistake—or else that big clock's wrong," declared Nan Sherwood.

"No fear of a railroad clock's being wrong," said her chum, grumpily. "That old time table was wrong. They're always wrong. No more sense to a time table than there is to a syncopated song. It said we were to arrive in this station three-quarters of an hour ago—and it turns out that it meant an entirely different station and an entirely different train."

Nan laughed rather ruefully. "I guess it is our own fault and not the time table's. But the fact remains that we are in the wrong place, and at the wrong time. Walter and Grace, of course, met that other train and, not finding us, will have gone home, not expecting us till to-morrow."

"Goodness, what a pickle!" Bess complained. "And how will we find the Mason's house, Nan Sherwood?"

The chums had the number and street of their friends' house, but it occurred to neither of them to go to a telephone booth and call up the house, stating the difficulty they were in. Nor did the girls think of asking at the information bureau, or even questioning one of the uniformed policemen about the huge station.

"Now, of course," Nan said firmly, "some street car must go within walking distance of Grace's house."

"Of course, but which car?" demanded Bess.

"That is the question, isn't it?" laughed Nan.

"One of these taxi-cabs could take us," suggested Bess.

"But they cost so much," objected her friend. "And we can't read those funny clocks they have and the chauffeur could overcharge us all he pleased. Besides," Nan added, "I don't like their looks."

"Looks of what—the taxis?"

"The chauffeurs," responded Nan, promptly.

"We-ell, we've got to go somehow—and trust to somebody," Bess said reflectively. "I wonder should we go to that hotel where we stayed that week with mother? They would take us in I suppose."

"But goodness! why should we be so helpless?" demanded Nan. "I'm sure two boys would start right out and find their way to Grace's."

"Would you dare?" cried Bess.

"Why not? Come on! We don't want to spend all our money in taxi fares. Let's go over there and ask that car man who seems to be bossing the conductors and motormen."

The girls, with their handbags, started across the great square before the station. Almost at once they found themselves in a tangle of vehicular traffic that quite confused Bess, and even troubled the cooler-headed Nan.

"Oh, Nan! I'm scared!" cried her chum, clinging with her free hand to Nan's arm.

"For pity's sake, don't be foolish!" commanded Nan. "You'll get me excited, too—Oh!"

An automobile swept past, so near the two girls that the step brushed their garments. Bess almost swooned. Nan wished with all her heart that they had not so recklessly left the sidewalk.

Suddenly a shrill voice cried at her elbow: "Hi, greeny! you look out, now, or one of these horses will take a bite out o' you. My! but you're the green goods, for fair."

Nan turned to look, expecting to find a saucy street boy; but the owner of the voice was a girl. She was dirty-faced, undersized, poorly dressed, and ill-nourished. But she was absolutely independent, and stood there in the crowded square with all the assurance of a traffic policeman.

"Come on, greenies," urged this strange little mortal (she could not have been ten years old), "and I'll beau you over the crossing myself. Something'll happen to you if you take root here."

She carried in a basket on her arm a few tiny bunches of stale violets, each bunch wrapped in waxed paper to keep it from the frost. Nan had seen dozens of these little flower-sellers of both sexes on the street when she had passed through Chicago with her Uncle Henry the winter before.

"Oh, let's go with her," cried the quite subdued Bess. "Do, Nan!"

It seemed rather odd for these two well-dressed and well-grown girls to be convoyed by such a "hop-o'-my-thumb" as the flower-seller. But the latter got Nan and Bess to an "isle of safety" in a hurry, and would then have darted away into the crowd without waiting to be thanked, had not Nan seized the handle of her basket.

"Wait!" she cried. "Don't run away."

"Hey!" said the flower-seller, "I ain't got time to stop and chin-chin. I got these posies to sell."

"Sell us two," Nan commanded. "Wait!"

"Aw right. 'F you say so," said the small girl. "Fifteen a bunch," she added quickly, shrewdly increasing by a nickel the regular price of the stale boutonnieres.

Nan opened her purse to pay for both. Bess said, rather timidly: "I should think you would be afraid of getting run over every time you cross the street—you're so little."

"Aw—say!" responded the strange girl, quite offended. "What d'ye think I am—a kid? I live here, I do! I ain't country, and don't know me way 'round."

"Meaning that we are, I suppose?" laughed Nan.

"Well," drawled the girl, "it sticks out all over you. I can tell 'em a block away. An' I bet you're lost and don't know where you're goin'. You two didn't come here to be pitcher actors, did ye?"

"Why—no!" gasped Bess.

Nan was moved to ask. "What put that idea in your head, honey?"

"I guess 'most girls that run away from home nowadays are lookin' to make a hit in the pitchers—ain't they?"

"You ridiculous child, you!" laughed Bess. "We haven't run away."

"No? Well, I thought mebbe youse did," said the flower-seller, grinning impishly. "I see a plenty of 'em comin' off the trains, I do."

"Runaway girls?" cried Nan,

"They don't tell me they have run away. But they are all greenies—just as green as grass," this shrewd child of the street declared.

"Have you seen any girls lately who have come to the city to be picture actresses?" Nan asked with sudden eagerness.

"Yep," was the reply.

"Sure?" cried Bess. "You don't mean it!"

"Yes, I do. Two girls bigger'n you. Le's see—it was last Friday."

"The second day of the big blizzard?" cried Nan.

"That's the very day," agreed Bess. "It's when Sallie and Celia would have got here if they were coming to Chicago."

"Hi!" exclaimed the flower girl. "What's you talkin' about? Who's Sallie and Celia?"

"Girls whom we think came to the city the other day just as you said," Nan explained. "They have run away to be moving picture actresses."

"Hi!" exclaimed the flower-seller again. "What sort o' lookin' girls?"

"Why—I don't know exactly," confessed Nan. "Do we, Bess? Mrs. Morton said Sallie took with her those photographs that were taken while the girls were playing as extras in 'A Rural Beauty.'"

"That's it!" suddenly interrupted the flower-girl. "I bet I seen those two. They didn't call each other 'Sallie' and 'Celia'; but they had some fancy names—I forgot what."

"Oh! are you sure?" cried Bess.

"They had them photographs just like you say. They showed 'em to me. You see," said the little girl, "I showed 'em where they could eat cheap, and they told me how they was going to join a movie company."



CHAPTER XIV

THE FIRST CLUE

Nan and her chum were wildly excited. During their brief stay at Tillbury over Christmas they had been so busy, at home and abroad, that they had not thought much about Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins, the two runaways.

In Nan's case, not having seen her mother for ten months, she did not—at the last moment—even desire to come away from her and visit her school friends in Chicago.

There really was so much to say, so much to learn about Scotland and the beautiful old Emberon Castle and the village about it, and about the queer people Mrs. Sherwood had met, too! Oh! Nan hoped that she would see the place in time—the "Cradle of the Blake Clan," as Mr. Sherwood called it.

There had been presents, of course, and in the giving and accepting of these Nan had found much pleasure and excitement—especially when she found a box of beautiful new clothes for her big doll, all made in Scotland by "Momsey," who knew just how precious Beautiful Beulah was in her daughter's eyes.

With all her work and play at Lakeview Hall, Nan Sherwood had not forgotten Beulah. The other girls of her age and in her grade were inclined to laugh at Nan for playing dolls; but at the last of the term Beautiful Beulah had held the post of honor in Room Seven, Corridor Four.

Nan's love for dolls foreshadowed her love for babies. She never could pass a baby by without trying to make friends with it. The little girls at Lakeview Hall found a staunch friend and champion in Nan Sherwood. It was a great grief to Mrs. Sherwood and Nan that there were no babies in the "little dwelling in amity." Nan could barely remember the brother that had come to stay with them such a little while, and then had gone away forever.

Nan's heart was touched by the apparent needs of this street girl who had come to the rescue of Bess and herself when they arrived in Chicago. All the time she and her chum were trying to learn something about the two girls who had come to the great city to be moving picture actresses, and listening to what the flower-seller had to say about them, Nan was thinking, too, of their unfortunate little informant.

"Is that restaurant where you took those girls to eat near here?" she suddenly asked.

"Aw, say! 'tain't no rest'rant," said the child. "It's just Mother Beasley's hash-house."

"Goodness!" gasped Bess. "Is it a nice place?"

The girl grinned. "'Cordin' ter what you thinks is nice. I 'spect you'd like the Auditorium Annex better. But Mother Beasley's is pretty good when you ain't got much to spend."

Bess looked at Nan curiously. The latter was eager to improve this acquaintanceship so strangely begun, and for more than one reason.

"Could you show us to Mother Beasley's—if it isn't very far away?" Nan asked.

"Aw, say! What d'ye think? I ain't nawthan' ter do but beau greenies around this burg? A swell chaunc't I'd have to git any eats meself. I gotter sell these posies, I have."

"But you can eat with us!" Nan suggested.

"Oh, Nan!" Bess whispered. "Do you s'pose we can find any clue to those girls there?"

"I hope so," returned Nan, in the same low voice.

"Goodness! I'm just as excited as I can be," her chum went on to say. "We'll be regular detectives. This beats being a movie actress, right now."

Nan smiled, but in a moment was grave again. "I'd do a great deal for that lovely Mrs. Morton," she said. "And even funny old Si Snubbins had tears in his eyes at the last when he begged us to find his Celia."

"I know it," Bess agreed sympathetically. "But I can't help being excited just the same. If we should find them at this Mother Beasley's—"

"I don't expect that; but we may hear of them there," said Nan. "Here's our new chum."

The flower-girl had darted away to sell one of her little bouquets. Now she came back and took up the discussion where she had dropped it.

"Now about those eats," she said. "I ain't in the habit of eating at all hours; it don't agree wid my constitootin, me doctor tells me. Fact is, sometimes I don't eat much, if any."

"Oh!" gasped Bess.

"That's when I don't sell out. An' I got five posies left. I b'lieve I'd better take ye up on this offer. Youse pay for me feed for the pleasure of me comp'ny; hey?"

"That's the answer," said Nan, spiritedly. "We're going to be good friends, I can see."

"We are if youse is goin' to pay for me eats," agreed the girl.

"What is your name?" asked Nan, as their young pilot guided the chums across to the opening of a side-street. "Mine is Nan, and my friend's is Bess."

"Well, they calls me some mighty mean names sometimes; but my real, honest-to-goodness name is Inez. Me mudder was a Gypsy Queen and me fadder was boss of a section gang on de railroad somewhere. He went off and me mudder died, and I been livin' with me aunt. She's good enough when she ain't got a bottle by her, and me and her kids have good times. But I gotter rustle for me own grub. We all haster."

Nan and Bess listened to this, and watched the independent little thing in much amazement. Such a creature neither of the chums from Tillbury had ever before heard of or imagined.

"Do you suppose she is telling the truth?" whispered Bess to Nan.

"I don't see why she should tell a wrong story gratuitously," Nan returned.

"Come on, girls," said Inez, turning into another street—narrower and more shabby than the first. "Lift your feet! I ain't got no time to waste."

Nan laughed and hastened her steps; but Bess looked doubtful.

"Hi!" exclaimed the street girl, "are you sure you two ain't wantin' to break into the movies, too?"

"Not yet," proclaimed Nan. "But we would like to find a couple of girls who, I think, came to Chicago for that purpose."

"Hi! them two I was tellin' you about?"

"Perhaps."

"Their folks want 'em back?" asked the street child, abruptly.

"I should say they did!" cried Bess.

"Ain't they the sillies!" exclaimed Inez. "Catch me leavin' a place where they didn't beat me too much and where the eats came reg'lar."

"Oh!" again ejaculated Bess.

Just then a little boy, more ragged even than their guide, approached. At once Inez proceeded to shove him off the sidewalk, and when he objected, she slapped him soundly.

"Why, goodness me, child!" cried the astonished Nan, "what did you do that for? Did he do anything to you?"

"Nope. Never seen him before," admitted Inez. "But I pitch into all the boys I see that I'm sure I can whip. Then they let me alone. They think I'm tough. These boys wouldn't let a girl sell a flower, nor a newspaper, nor nothin', if they could help it. We girls got ter fight 'em."

"The beginning of suffragism," groaned Nan.

"I never heard of such a thing!" Bess cried. "Fighting the boys—how disgraceful!"

Inez stared at her. "Hi!" she finally exclaimed, "you wouldn't make much if you didn't fight, I can tell ye. When I see a boy with a basket of posies, I pull it away from him and tear 'em up. Boys ain't got no business selling posies around here. That's a girl's job, and I'm goin' to show 'em, I am!"

Nan and Bess listened to this with mingled emotions. It was laughable, yet pitiful. Little boys and girls fighting like savages for a bare existence. The chums were silent the rest of the way to the old brick house—just a "slice" out of a three-story-and-basement row of such houses, which Inez announced to be "Mother Beasley's."

"Sometimes she's got her beds all full and you hafter wait for lodgin's. Mebbe she'll let you camp in her room, or in one of the halls up-stairs."

"Oh, but, my dear, we don't wish to stay!" Nan said. "Only to eat here and inquire about those other girls."

"Where' ye goin' to stop?" asked Inez, curiously.

"We have friends out by Washington Park," Bess said. "They'd have met us, only there was some mistake in the arrival of our train."

"Hi! Washington Park?" exclaimed the flower-seller. "Say, you must be big-bugs."

Nan laughed. "I guess they are," she said.

"Youse won't be suited with Mother Beasley's grub," said the girl, hesitating at the basement steps.

"I believe she's right," Bess said faintly, as the odor of cooking suddenly burst forth with the opening of the door under the long flight leading to the front door of the house.

"I've eaten in a lumber camp," said Nan, stoutly. "I'm sure this can't be as hard."



CHAPTER XV

CONTRASTS

A girl not much bigger than Inez, nor dressed much better, came out of the basement door of Mother Beasley's, wiping her lips on the back of her hand.

"Hullo, Ine!" she said to the flower-seller. "Who you got in tow? Some more greenies."

"Never you mind, Polly," returned Inez. "They're just friends of mine—on their way to Washington Park."

"Yes—they—be!" drawled the girl called Polly.

"Hi! that's all right," chuckled Inez. "I t'ought I'd make ye sit up and take notice. But say! wot's good on the menu ter-day?"

"Oh, say! take me tip," said Polly. "Order two platters of Irish stew an' a plate o' ham an' eggs. Youse'll have a bully feed then. Eggs is cheap an' Mother Beasley's givin' t'ree fer fifteen cents, wid the ham throwed in. That'll give youse each an egg an' plenty of stew in the two platters for all t'ree."

This arrangement of a course dinner on so economical a plan made Bess open her eyes, while Nan was greatly amused.

"How strong's the bank?" asked Inez of Nan, whom she considered the leader of the expedition. "Can we stand fifteen cents apiece?"

"I think so," returned the girl from Tillbury, gravely.

"Good as gold, then!" their pilot said. "We'll go to it. By-by, Polly!"

She marched into the basement. Bess would never have dared proceed that far had it not been for Nan's presence.

A woman with straggling gray hair met them at the door of the long dining-room. She had a tired and almost toothless smile; but had it not been for her greasy wrapper, uncombed hair and grimy nails, Mother Beasley might have been rather attractive.

"Good afternoon, dearies," she said. "Dinner's most over; but maybe we can find something for you. You goin' to eat, Inez?"

"Ev'ry chance't I get," declared the flower-seller, promptly.

"Sit right down," said Mrs. Beasley, pointing to the end of a long table, the red-and-white cloth of which was stained with the passage of countless previous meals, and covered with the crumbs from "crusty" bread.

Bess looked more and more doubtful. Nan was more curious than she was hungry. Inez sat down promptly and began scraping the crumbs together in a little pile, which pile when completed, she transferred to the oil-cloth covered floor with a dexterous flip of the knife.

"Come on!" she said. "Shall I order for youse?"

"We are in your hands, Inez," declared Nan, gravely. "Do with us as you see fit."

"Mercy!" murmured Bess, sitting down gingerly enough, after removing her coat in imitation of her chum.

"Hi!" shouted Inez, in her inimitable way. "Hi, Mother Beasley! bring us two orders of the Irish and one ham an' eggs. Like 'em sunny-side up?"

"Like what sunny-side up?" gasped Bess.

"Yer eggs."

"Which is the sunny-side of an egg?" asked Bess faintly, while Nan was convulsed with laughter.

"Hi!" ejaculated Inez again. "Ain't you the greenie? D'ye want yer egg fried on one side, or turned over?"

"Turned over," Bess murmured.

"An' you?" asked the flower-seller of Nan.

"I always like the sunny-side of everything," our Nan admitted.

"Hi, Mother Beasley!" shouted Inez, to the woman in the kitchen. "Two of them eggs sunny-side up, flop the other."

Nan burst out laughing again at this. Bess was too funny for anything—to look at!

There were other girls in the long room, but none near where Nan and Bess and their strange little friend sat. Plainly the strangers were working girls, somewhat older than the chums, and as they finished their late dinners, one by one, they went out. Some wore cheap finery, but most of them showed the shabby hall-mark of poverty in their garments.

By and by the steaming food appeared. Inez had been helping herself liberally to bread and butter and the first thing Mother Beasley did was to remove the latter out of the flower-seller's reach.

"It's gone up two cents a pound," she said plaintively. "But if it was a dollar a pound some o' you girls would never have no pity on neither the bread nor the butter."

The stew really smelled good. Even Bess tried it with less doubt. Inez ate as though she had fasted for a week and never expected to eat again.

"Will you have coffee, dearies?" asked Mother Beasley.

"Three cents apiece extry," said Inez, hoarsely.

"Yes, please," Nan said. "And if there is pie, we will have pie."

"Oh, you pie!" croaked Inez, aghast at such recklessness. "I reckon you do 'blong up to Washington Park."

Nan had to laugh again at this, and even Bess grew less embarrassed. When Mrs. Beasley came back with the coffee and pie, Nan drew her into conversation.

"Inez, here, says she introduced two other girls from the country to your home a few days ago," said Nan. "Two girls who were looking for jobs with the movies."

"Were they?" asked Mrs. Beasley, placidly. "My girls are always looking for jobs. When they get 'em, if they are good jobs, they go to live where the accommodations are better. I do the best I can for 'em; but I only accommodate poor girls."

"And I think you really must do a great deal of good, in your way, Mrs. Beasley," Nan declared. "Did these two we speak of chance to stay with you until now?"

"I was thinkin'," said Mrs. Beasley. "I know, now, the ones you mean. Yes, Inez did bring 'em. But they only stayed one night. They wus used to real milk, and real butter, and strictly fresh eggs, and feather beds. They was real nice about it; but I showed 'em how I couldn't give 'em live-geese feather beds an' only charge 'em a dollar apiece a week for their lodgin's.

"They had money—or 'peared to have. And they heard the movin' picture studios were all on the other side of town. So they went away."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Bess.

"Well, they were all right at that time. I'll write and tell Mrs. Morton," Nan said.

"Did they tell you their names, Mrs. Beasley?" she asked.

"Bless you! if they did, I don't remember. I have twenty-five girls all the time and lots of 'em only stay a few nights. I couldn't begin to keep track of 'em, or remember their names."

This was all the information the chums could get from Mrs. Beasley regarding the girls whom Nan and Bess believed to be the runaways. A little later they went out with Inez, the latter evidently filled to repletion.

"Hi! but that was a feed! You girls must be millionaires' daughters, like the newspapers tell about," said the street girl.

"Oh, no, we're not," Nan cried.

"Well, you better be joggin' along toward Washington Park. I don't want youse should get robbed while I'm with you. Mebbe the police'd think I done it."

"If you will put us on the car that goes near this address," said Nan, seriously, showing Inez Walter Mason's card, "we'll be awfully obliged."

Inez squinted at the address. "I kin do better'n that," she declared. "I'll put youse in a jitney that'll drop ye right at the corner of the street—half a block away."

"Oh! a jitney!" Bess cried. "Of course."

Inez marched them a couple of blocks and there, on a busy corner, hailed the auto-buss. Before this Nan had quietly obtained from the child her home address and the name of her aunt.

"In you go," said the flower-seller. Then she shouted importantly to the 'bus-driver: "I got your number, mister! You see't these ladies gets off at their street or you'll get deep into trouble. Hear me?"

"Sure, Miss! Thank ye kindly, Miss," said the chauffeur, saluting, with a grin, and the jitney staggered on over the frozen snow and ice of the street.

They came to the Mason house, safe and sound. An important-looking man in a tail coat and an imposing shirt-front let the girls into the great house.

"Yes, Miss," he said, in answer to Nan's inquiry. "There must have been some mistake, Miss. Miss Grace and Mister Walter went to the station to meet you, and returned long ago. I will tell them you have arrived."

He turned away in a stately manner, and Bess whispered: "I feel just as countrified as that little thing said we looked."

Nan was looking about the reception room and contrasting its tasteful richness with Mother Beasley's place.



CHAPTER XVI

A SPIN IN THE PARK

Grace's home was a beautiful, great house, bigger than the Harley's at Tillbury, and Nan Sherwood was impressed by its magnificence and by the spacious rooms. Her term at Lakeview Hall had made Nan much more conversant with luxury than she had been before. At home in the little cottage on the by-street, although love dwelt there, the Sherwoods had never lived extravagantly in any particular. Mrs. Sherwood's long invalidism had eaten up the greater part of Mr. Sherwood's salary when he worked in the Atwater Mills; and now that Mrs. Sherwood's legacy from her great uncle, Hugh Blake of Emberon, was partly tied up in the Scotch courts, the Sherwoods would continue to limit their expenditures.

At Mrs. Sherwood's urgent request, her husband was going into the automobile business. A part of the money they had brought back from Scotland had already been used in fitting up a handsome showroom and garage on the main street of Tillbury; and some other heavy expenses had fallen upon Mr. Sherwood, for which he would, however, be recompensed by the sale of the first few cars.

If Ravell Bulson injured Mr. Sherwood's business reputation by his wild charges, or if the company Mr. Sherwood expected to represent, heard of the trouble, much harm might be done. The automobile manufacturing company might even refuse to allow their cars to be handled by Mr. Sherwood—which was quite within their rights, according to the contract which had been signed between them.

Enough of this, however. Nan and Bess Harley were established with Grace Mason, in Chicago, expecting to have a fine time. Nan tried to put all home troubles off her mind.

The girls occupied a beautiful large suite together on the third floor, with a bath all their own, and a maid to wait upon them. Grace was used to this; but she was a very simple-minded girl, and the presence of a tidy, be-aproned and be-capped maid not much older than herself, did not particularly impress Grace one way or another.

"I feel like a queen," Bess confessed, luxuriously. "I can say: 'Do thus and so,' and 'tis done. I might say: 'Off with his head!' if one of my subjects displeased me, and he would be guillotined before you could wink an eye."

"How horrid!" said Grace, the shy. "I never could feel that way."

"It would never do for Elizabeth to be a grand vizer, or sultan, or satrap," Nan remarked laughingly.

"Who wants to be a 'shawl-strap'? Not I!" cried Bess, gaily. "I am Queen Bess, monarch of all I survey. Katie!"—the neat little maid had just entered the room—"will you hand me the book I was reading in the other room? I'm too weak to rise. Oh, thanks!"

Grace laughed; but Nan looked a little grave as Katie disappeared again.

"Don't, honey," Nan said to her thoughtless chum. "It isn't nice. The poor girl has necessary work enough without your making up thing's for her to do. She is on her feet from morning till night. She tells me that her ankles swell dreadfully sometimes, and that is awful for a young girl like her."

"Why, Nan!" Grace cried, "how did you know?"

"Katie told me," repeated Nan.

"But—but she never told me," expostulated their hostess.

"I don't suppose you ever saw her crying, as I did, while she was setting the dinner table. It was last evening. She had been on her feet more than usual yesterday. The doctor tells her that her arches are breaking down; but she cannot afford to have arch supports made at present, because her mother needs all the money Katie can earn."

"Mercy!" gasped Bess. "Did you ever see such a girl as Nan? She already knows all the private history of that girl."

"No, I do not," said Nan, with some indignation. "I never asked her a thing. She just told me. Lots of girls who have to go out to service are troubled with their arches breaking down. Especially when the floors are polished wood with nothing but rugs laid down. Bare floors may be very sanitary; but they are hard on the feet."

"There you go!" sighed Bess, "with a lot of erudite stuff that we don't understand. I wish you wouldn't."

"I know why Katie, and other people as well, love to tell Nan all their troubles," said Grace, softly. "Because she is sympathetic. I am afraid I ought to have known about poor Katie's feet."

The very next day the little serving maid was sent by Mrs. Mason to the orthopedic shoe shop to be measured for her arch supports and shoes. But it was Nan whom poor Katie caught alone in a dark corner of the hall when she came back, and humbly kissed.

"An' bless yer swate heart, Miss, for 'twas yer kind thought stirred up Miss Grace to tell the mistress. Bless yer swate heart again, I say!"

Nan kept this to herself, of course; but it pleased her very much that the word she had dropped had had such a splendid result. Grace, she knew, was a lovable girl and never exacting with the servants; and Mrs. Mason was good to her people, too. But it was a rather perfunctory sort of goodness, spurred by little real knowledge of their individual needs.

After this, it was quite noticeable that Grace was even more considerate of Katie and the other maids. Nan Sherwood had had little experience with domestic servants; but the appreciation of noblesse oblige was strong within her soul.

The girls' time, both day and evening, was fully occupied. The Masons' was a large household, and there seemed to be always company. It was almost like living in a hotel, only above and over all the freedom and gaiety of the life there, was the impression that it was a real home, and that the Mason family lived a very intimate existence, after all.

Walter and his father were close chums. Grace and her mother were like two very loving sisters. The smaller children were still with their governess and nurse most of the time. But there were times in every day when the whole family was together in private, with the rest of the household shut out.

There was always something going on for the young folk. The day's activities were usually planned at the general breakfast table. One day Nan had two hours of the forenoon on her hands, while her chum and Grace went shopping with Mrs. Mason. Nan did not like shopping—much.

"Not unless I can have lots of money in my pocket-book, and be extravagant," she said, laughing.

"You never were extravagant in your life!" declared Bess, in refutation of this.

However, Nan was left alone and Walter found it out. He had brought his black horse down from Freeling with him. He sent for this and the cutter, and insisted that Nan go with him through the park.

Nan went, and would have had a delightful time had it not been for a single incident. As they turned back, suddenly there met them a very handsome, heavy, family sleigh, the pair of horses jingling their harness-bells proudly, and with tossing plumes and uniformed coachman and footman.

"Goodness!" gasped Nan, as she saw a girl in furs lean far out of the great sleigh and wave her muff to Walter.

It was Linda Riggs. Linda quite ignored Nan's presence behind the black horse.



CHAPTER XVII

"A MOVING SCENE"

Nan did not refuse to go shopping every time her school friends went. The big Chicago stores appealed to her just as much as to any country girl who ever fell under their charm. In the Windy City the department stores—that mammoth of modern commerce—is developed to the highest degree.

It was like wandering through an Alladin's Palace for Nan to walk about Wilson-Meadows, Galsig-Wheelwrights, or any of the other big stores. And it was because she was so much interested in what she saw, that she wandered one day away from her friends and found herself in the jewelry department, where the French novelties loaded the trays and were displayed in the cases.

Nan forgot her friends—and the flight of time. It was not alone the pretty things displayed that interested her, but the wonderfully dressed women who paraded through the aisles of the store.

She found herself beside a beautifully dressed woman, in a loose, full-flowing fur garment, with fur hat to match, who, it seemed to Nan, was quite the most fashionable person she had ever beheld. The woman had a touch of rouge upon her otherwise pale cheeks; her eyebrows were suspiciously penciled; her lips were slightly ruddy. Nevertheless, she was very demure and very much the lady in appearance.

She was idly turning over lavallieres on a tray—holding them up for inspection, and letting the pretty chains run through her fingers to drop into the tray again, like sparkling water.

"I don't think I care for any of these, don't you know?" she drawled, but very pleasantly. "I'm sorry—really."

She turned away from the counter. Nan was close by and had been secretly watching the pretty woman more than she had the lavallieres. The clerk—rather an attractive girl with curly, black hair and very pink cheeks; quite an excitable young thing—suddenly leaned over the counter and whispered:

"Oh, madam! Pray! The special lavalliere I showed you is not here."

"What do you say, child?" demanded the woman, haughtily. "Do you miss anything?"

"The special lavalliere I showed you, madam," gasped the girl. "Forgive me—do! But I am responsible for all I take out of the case!"

"It is a mistake," said the woman, coldly. "I haven't the thing—surely."

"It is not here!" wailed the clerk, still in a low key, but fingering madly among the chains upon the tray. "Oh, ma'am! it will cost me twenty dollars!"

The woman turned slowly and her eyes—placid blue before—now shone with an angry light. Her gaze sought the counter—then the excited clerk—lastly, Nan!

"I haven't your lavalliere," she said, and although her voice was stern, it was low. "I haven't your lavalliere. How about this girl, here?" and she indicated Nan, with an air of superb indifference.

"Oh, madam!" gasped the clerk.

"Don't! don't!" begged Nan. "Oh! you know I haven't it!"

At that moment Nan felt a severe grasp upon her arm. She could not have run had she so desired. Her heart grew cold; her face flushed to fiery red. All neighboring eyes were turned on her.

In department stores like this the management finds it very unwise to make any disturbance over a case of loss or robbery. The store detective held on to Nan's arm; but he waited for developments.

"What is this all about, Miss Merwin?" he demanded of the clerk.

"I am charged with stealing a twenty-dollar lavalliere!" exclaimed the customer.

"Oh, impossible, madam!" said the detective, evidently recognizing her.

"Then this girl, who was nearest, may have it," said madam, sharply.

Nan was very much frightened; yet her sense of honesty came to her rescue. She cried:

"Why should I be accused? I am innocent—I assure you, I would not do such a thing. Why! I have more than twenty dollars in my purse right now. I will show you. Why should I steal what I can buy?"

To Nan Sherwood this question seemed unanswerable. But the store detective scarcely noticed. He looked at the lovely woman and asked:

"Madam is sure this girl took the lavalliere?"

"Oh, mercy, no! I would not accuse anybody of such a thing," responded the woman, in her low voice.

"But we know who you are, madam, we do not know this girl," said the detective, doubtfully. "You are a customer whom the store is glad to serve. This girl is quite unknown to us. I have no doubt but she is guilty—as you say."

He shook the troubled Nan by the arm. The girl was trying to control herself—to keep from breaking down and crying. Somehow, she felt that that would not help her in the least.

Without warning, a low voice spoke at Nan's side: "I know this girl. Of what is she accused?"

Only a few beside the detective and Nan heard the words.

"Of stealing something from the counter," said the man.

"I should not be surprised." The girl who had spoken, still whispered to the detective. "I know who she is. Her father is already in trouble on a similar charge. This girl tried to take a hand-bag of mine once. I never did think she was any better than she should be."

It was Linda Riggs. She stood with flushed face, looking at Nan, and although but few customers heard what she said, the latter felt as though she should sink through the floor.

"Ah-ha!" exclaimed the pompous detective, holding Nan's arm with a tighter grip. "You'll come with me to the superintendent's office to be searched."

Nothing but the vindictive expression of Linda's face kept Nan Sherwood from bursting into tears. She was both hurt and frightened by this situation. And to have her father's name mentioned in such an affair—perhaps printed in the papers! This thought terrified her as much as the possibility that she, herself, might be put in jail.

Rather unsophisticated about police proceedings was Nan, and she saw jail yawning for her just beyond the superintendent's office, whether the lost lavalliere was found in her possession or not.

But instantly, before the detective could remove the trembling girl from the spot, or many curious people gather to stare and comment upon the incident, the wonderfully dressed woman said to the detective in her careless drawl:

"Wait! Quite dramatic, I must say. So this other girl steps in and accuses our young heroine—without being asked even? I would doubt such testimony seriously, were I you, sir."

"But, madam!" exclaimed the man.

"What a situation—for the film!" pursued the woman, raising her lorgnette to look first at Nan and then at Linda Riggs. The latter was flushing and paling by turns—fearful at what she had done to her schoolmate, yet glad she had done it, too!

As the customer wheeled slowly in her stately way to view the railroad magnate's daughter, the clerk uttered a stifled cry, and on the heels of it the detective dropped Nan's arm to hop around the woman in great excitement.

"Wait, madam! wait, madam! wait!" he reiterated. "It is here—it is here!"

"What is the matter with you, pray?" asked the woman, curiously. "Have you taken leave of your senses? Why don't you stand still?"

"The lavalliere!" gasped the man and, reaching suddenly, he plucked the dangling chain from an entangling frog on her fur garment. "Here it is, madam!" he cried, with immense satisfaction.

"Now, fancy!" drawled the woman.

Linda slipped out of sight behind some other people. Nan felt faint—just as though she would drop. The clerk and the detective were lavish in their apologies to Nan. As for the woman whose garment had been the cause of all the trouble, she merely laughed.

"Fancy!" she said, in her low, pleasant drawl. "Just fancy! had I not chanced to be known to you, and a customer of the store, I might have been marched up to the superintendent's office myself. It really is a wonderfully good situation for a film—a real moving picture scene made to order."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE RUNAWAYS AGAIN

Nan was ordinarily brave enough. But the disgrace of this scene—in which the fashionably attired woman merely saw the dramatic possibilities—well nigh broke the girl's spirit. If she moved from this place she feared the whispering people would follow her; if she remained, they would remain to gape and wonder.

The troubled girl glanced hurriedly around. Was there no escape? Suppose her chum and Mrs. Mason and Grace should appear, searching for her?

The floodgates of her tears were all but raised when the placid woman who had caused all the trouble turned suddenly to her.

"I do owe an apology to you, my dear," she said. "I see you feel very badly about it. Don't. It really is not worth thinking of. You evidently have a spiteful enemy in that girl who has run away. But, of course, my dear, such unfounded accusations have no weight in the minds of sensible people." She seemed quite to have forgotten that hers was the first accusation.

She glanced about disdainfully upon the group of whispering women and girls. Some of them quite evidently recognized her. How could they help it, when her features were so frequently pictured on the screen? But Nan had not identified this woman with the great actress-director, whose films were being talked of from ocean to ocean.

"Come, my dear," she said. "We can find a quieter place to talk, I know. And I do wish to know you better."

Whether it were unwise or not, Nan Sherwood found it impossible to refuse the request of so beautiful a woman. Nan immediately fell under the charm of her beauty and her voice. She went with her dumbly and forgot the unpleasant people who stood about and stared. The lovely woman's light hand upon her arm, too, took away the memory of the detective's stern grasp.

The actress led her to the nearest elevator where a coin slipped into the palm of the elevator man caused him to shoot them up to another floor without delay. In this way all the curious ones lost trace of Nan and her new friend. In a few moments they were sitting in one of the tea-rooms where a white-aproned maid served them with tea and sweets at Madam's command.

"That is what you need, my dear," said Nan's host. "Our unfailing nerve-reviver and satisfier—tea. What would our sex do without it? And how do we manage to keep our complexions as we do, and still imbibe hogsheads of tea?"

She laughed and pinched Nan's cheek. "You have a splendid complexion yourself, child. And there's quite some film-charm in your features, I can see. Of course, you have never posed?"

"For moving pictures?" gasped Nan, at last waking up to what the woman meant. "Oh, no, indeed!"

"You are not like most other young girls, then?" said the woman. "You haven't the craze to act in the silent drama?"

"I never thought of such a thing," Nan innocently replied. "Film companies do not hire girls of my age, do they?"

"Not unless they are wonderfully well adapted for the work," agreed the actress. "But I am approached every week—I was going to say, every day—by girls no older than you, who think they have genius for the film-stage."

"Oh!" exclaimed Nan, beginning at last to take interest in something besides her recent unpleasant experience. "Do you make moving pictures?"

The actress raised her eyes and clasped her hands, invoking invisible spirits to hear. "At last! a girl who is not tainted by the universal craze for the movies—and who does not know me! There are still worlds for me to conquer," murmured the woman. "Yes, my child," she added, to the rather abashed Nan, "I am a maker of films."

"You—you must excuse me," Nan hastened to say. "I expect I ought to know all about you; but I lived quite a long time in the Michigan woods, and then, lately, I have been at boarding school, and we have no movies there."

"Your excuses are accepted, my dear," the actress-director said demurely. "It is refreshing, I assure you, to meet a girl like you."

"I—I suppose you see so many," Nan said eagerly. "Those looking for positions in your company, I mean. You do not remember them all?"

"Oh, mercy, no, my dear!" drawled the woman. "I see hundreds."

"Two girls I know of have recently come to Chicago looking for positions with moving picture concerns," explained Nan, earnestly. "They are country girls, and their folks want them to come home."

"Runaways?"

"Yes, ma'am. They have run away and their folks are dreadfully worried."

"I assure you," said the moving picture director, smiling, "they have not been engaged at my studio. New people must furnish references—especially if they chance to be under age. Two girls from the country, you say, my dear? How is it they have come to think they can act for the screen?" and she laughed lightly again.

Nan, sipping her tea and becoming more used to her surroundings and more confidential, told her new acquaintance all about Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins.

"Dear, dear," the woman observed at last. "How can girls be so foolish? And the city is no place for them, alone, under any circumstances. If they should come to me I will communicate with their parents. I believe I should know them, my dear—two girls together, and both from the country?"

"Oh! if you only would help them," cried Nan. "I am sure such a kind act would be repaid."

The woman laughed. "I see you have faith in all the old fashioned virtues," she said. "Dear me, girl! I am glad I met you. Tell me how I may communicate with the parents of these missing girls?"

Nan did this; but she appreciated deeply the fact that the actress refrained from asking her any personal questions. After what Linda Riggs had said at the jewelry counter, Nan shrank from telling her name or where she lived to anybody who had heard her enemy.

She parted from the moving picture director with great friendliness, however. As the latter kissed Nan she slipped a tiny engraved card into the girl's hand.

"Some time, when you have nothing better to do, my dear, come to see me," she said. It was not until Nan was by herself again that she learned from the card that she had been the guest of a very famous actress of the legitimate stage who had, as well, become notable as a maker of moving pictures.

The girl's heart was too sore at first, when she met her friends as agreed in an entirely different part of the great store, to say anything about her adventure. But that night, when she and Bess were alone, Nan showed her chum the famous actress' card, and told her how the moving picture director was likewise on the lookout for the two runaway girls.

"Splendid!" cried Bess. "Keep on and we'll have half the people in Chicago watching out for Sallie and Celia. But Nan! You do have the most marvelous way of meeting the most interesting people. Think of it! Knowing that very famous actress. How did you do it, Nan?"

"Oh! something happened that caused us to speak," Nan said lightly. But she winced at the thought of the unhappy nature of that incident. She was glad that Bess Harley was too sleepy to probe any deeper into the matter.



CHAPTER XIX

HOW THEY LOOKED ON THE SCREEN

Nan did not forget Inez, the flower-girl, nor the fact that the runaways—Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins—might still be traced through Mother Beasley's cheap lodging house.

Both Walter and Grace Mason had been interested, as well as amused, in the chum's account of their first adventure in Chicago. The brother and sister who lived so far away from the squalor of Mother Beasley's and who knew nothing of the toil and shifts of the flower-seller's existence, were deeply moved by the recital of what Nan and Bess had observed.

"That poor little thing!" Grace said. "On the street in all weathers to sell posies—and for a drunken woman. Isn't it awful? Something should be done about it. I'll tell father."

"And he'd report the case to the Society," said her brother, promptly. "Father believes all charity should be done through organizations. 'Organized effort' is his hobby," added Walter, ruefully. "He says I lack proper appreciation of its value."

"But if he told the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children about Inez, they would take her and put her in some institution," objected Nan.

"And put a uniform on her like a prisoner," cried Bess. "And make her obey rules like—like us boarding school girls. Oh, dear!"

The others laughed at that.

"Oh, you girls!" said Walter. "To hear you talk, one would think you were hounded like slaves at Lakeview Hall. You should have such a strict teacher as my tutor, for instance. He's the fellow for driving one. He says he'll have me ready for college in two years; but if he does, I know I shall feel as stuffed as a Strasburg goose."

"This learning so much that one will be glad to forget when one grows up," sighed Bess, "is an awful waste of time."

"Why, Bess!" cried Grace Mason, "don't you ever expect to read or write or spell or cipher when you grow up?"

"No more than I can help," declared the reckless Elizabeth.

"And yet you've always talked about our going to college together," said Nan, laughing at her chum.

"But college girls never have to use what they learn—except fudge-making and dancing, and—and—well, the things that aren't supposed to be in the curriculum," declared Bess.

"Treason! treason!" said Nan. "How dare you, Elizabeth? Pray what do girls go through college for?"

"To fit themselves for the marriage state," declared Bess. "My mother went to college and she says that every girl in her graduating class was married inside of five years—even the homely ones. You see, the homely ones make such perfectly splendid professors' wives. There's even a chance for Procrastination Boggs, you see."

"You ridiculous girl!" Nan said. "Come on! Who's going down town with me? I can find my way around now, for I have studied a map of Chicago and I can go by the most direct route to Mother Beasley's."

"And find that cunning little Inez, too?" asked Grace.

"Yes. If I want to. But to-day I want to go to see if Sallie and Celia went back to Mrs. Beasley's. I heard from Sallie's mother by this morning's post, and the poor woman is dreadfully worked up about the runaways. Mrs. Morton had a bad dream about Sallie, and the poor woman believes in dreams."

"She does!" exclaimed Grace. "I suppose she looks at a dream book every morning to see what each dream means. How funny!"

"Goodness!" cried Bess. "Come to think of it, I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed that I saw myself in the looking-glass and my reflection stepped right out and began to talk to me. We sat down and talked. It was so funny—just as though I were twins."

"What an imagination!" exclaimed Walter. "You don't lack anything in that particular, for sure."

"Well," declared Bess, "I want to know what it means."

"I can make a pretty close guess," said Nan, shrewdly.

"'Vell, vas ist?' as our good Frau Deuseldorf says when she gets impatient with our slowness in acquiring her beloved German."

"It means," declared Nan, "that a combination of French pancake with peach marmalade, on top of chicken salad and mayonnaise, is not conducive to dreamless slumber. If you dreamt you met yourself on Grand Avenue parading at the head of a procession of Elizabeth Harleys, after such a dinner as you ate last night, I shouldn't be surprised."

"Carping critic!" exclaimed Bess, pouting. "Do let me eat what I like while I'm here. When we get back to Lakeview Hall you know Mrs. Cupp will want to put us all on half rations to counteract our holiday eating. I heard her bemoaning the fact to Dr. Beulah that we would come back with our stomachs so full that we would be unable to study for a fortnight."

"My! she is a Tartar, isn't she?" was Walter's comment.

"Oh, you don't know what we girls have to go through with at the Hall—what trials and privations," said his sister, feelingly.

"I can see it's making you thin, Sis," scoffed the boy. "And how about all those midnight suppers, and candy sprees, and the like?"

"Mercy!" exclaimed Bess. "If it were not for those extras we should all starve to death. There! we've missed that jitney. We'll have to wait for another."

The girls and their escort got safely to the shabby street in which Mother Beasley kept her eating and lodging house; but they obtained no new information regarding the runaway girls who had spent their first night in Chicago with the poor, but good-hearted widow.

Nor did they find Inez in her accustomed haunts near the railroad station; and it was too late that day to hunt the little flower-seller's lodging, for Inez lived in an entirely different part of the town.

"Rather a fruitless chase," Walter said, as they walked from the car on which they had returned. "What are you going to do about those runaway girls, now?"

"I don't know—oh! stop a moment!" Nan suddenly cried. "What's that over there?"

"A picture palace; goodness knows they're common enough," said Bess.

"But see what the sign says. Look, girls! Look, Walter!" and Nan excitedly pointed out the sheet hung above the arched entrance of the playhouse. "'A Rural Beauty'!" she cried. "That's the very picture those two girls took part in. It's been released."

"We must see it," Bess cried. "I'm just crazy to see how Sallie and Celia look on the screen."

"Why! you never saw them. Do you think they will be labeled?" scoffed Walter.

"Oh, we saw a photograph of Sallie; and if Celia looks anything like Mr. Si Snubbins, we can't mistake her," laughed Bess. "Let's run over and go in."

"No," Grace objected. "Mother never lets us go to a picture show without asking her permission first."

"No? Not even when Walter is with you?" asked Bess.

"No. She wishes to know just what kind of picture I am going to see. She belongs to a club that tries to make the picture-play people in this neighborhood show only nice films. She says they're not all to be trusted to do so."

"I guess this 'Rural Beauty' is a good enough picture," Nan said; "but of course we'll ask your mother's permission before we go in."

"There it is," groaned Bess. "Got to ask permission to breathe, I expect, pretty soon."

But she was glad, afterward, that they did ask Mrs. Mason. That careful lady telephoned the committee of her club having the censorship of picture plays in charge, and obtained its report upon "A Rural Beauty." Then she sent Walter to the playhouse to buy a block of seats for that evening, and over the telephone a dozen other boys and girls—friends of Grace and Walter—were invited to join the party.

They had a fine time, although the chums from Tillbury had not an opportunity of meeting all of the invited guests before the show.

"But they are all going home with us for supper—just like a grown-up theatre party," confided Grace to Nan and Bess.

"Pearl Graves telephoned that she would be a little late and would have to bring her cousin with her. Mother told her to come along, cousin and all, of course."

Nan and Bess, with a couple of friends of the Masons' whom they had already met, sat in the front row of the block of seats reserved for the party, and did not see the others when they entered the darkened house.

Several short reels were run off before the first scene of "A Rural Beauty" was shown. It was a very amusing picture, being full of country types and characters, with a sweet little love story that pleased the girls, and some quite adventurous happenings that made a hit with Walter, as he admitted.

Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins were in the picture and the chums easily picked the runaways out on the screen. Sallie was a pretty girl, despite the fault her father had pointed out—that she was long-limbed. Nan and Bess knew Celia Snubbins because she did look like her father.

The two girls had been used in the comedy scene of "A Rural Beauty" as contrasts to the leading lady in the play, who was made up most strikingly as the beautiful milkmaid who captured the honest young farmer in the end.

There was a buzz of excitement among the Masons and those of their friends who had heard about the runaways over the appearance of Sallie and Celia when they came on the screen. As the party reached the lobby after the end of the last reel, Walter expressed his opinion emphatically regarding the runaway girls.

"I declare! I think those two girls awfully foolish to run away from home if they couldn't do anything more in a picture than they did in that one."

Nan was about to make some rejoinder, for Walter was walking beside her, when somebody said, back of them:

"Why, you must know those girls ahead. They go to Lakeview Hall with Gracie Mason."

"Goodness! they are not staying with Grace and Walter, are they?" demanded a shrill and well remembered voice. "Why, I saw Nan Sherwood in trouble in one of the big stores the other day, for taking something from one of the counters."

Nan turned, horrified. The speaker was Linda Riggs.



CHAPTER XX

NAN ON THE HEIGHTS

Mrs. Mason had not chaperoned the party of girls and boys to the motion picture show; but Miss Hagford, the English governess, was with them. Including the young hosts and Nan and Bess, there was almost a score in the party, and they made quite a bustling crowd in the lobby as they came out, adjusting their outer garments against the night air.

Walter and Nan were in the lead and when Linda Riggs' venomous tongue spat out the unkind words last repeated, few of the party heard her. Pearl Graves, her cousin, was beside the purse-proud girl who had been Nan's bitter enemy since the day they had first met. Pearl was a different kind of girl entirely from Linda; in fact, she did not know her cousin very well, for Linda did not reside in Chicago. At her cousin's harsh exclamation Pearl cried:

"Hush, Linda! how can you say such things? That can not possibly be true."

"'Tis, too! And Nan won't dare deny it," whispered Linda. "She knows what her father is, too! Mr. and Mrs. Mason can't have heard about Nan's father being in trouble for taking a man's watch and money in a sleeping car. Oh! I know all about it."

Walter Mason's ears were sharp enough; but Linda spoke so hurriedly, and the boy was so amazed, that the cruel girl got thus far in her wicked speech before he turned and vehemently stopped her.

"What do you mean by telling such a story as that about Nan?" demanded the boy, hoarsely. "And about her father, too? You are just the meanest girl I ever saw, Linda Riggs, and I'm sorry you're in this party. I wish you were a boy—I'd teach you one good lesson—I would!"

They stood just at the entrance to the theatre, where the electric lights were brightest. A few flakes of snow were falling, like glistening particles of tinsel. There were not many patrons entering the moving picture house at this late hour, but the remainder of the Masons' guests crowded forward to hear and see what was going on.

Nan was white-faced, but dry-eyed. Walter stood partly in front of her as though he were physically defending her, and held one of her hands while his other hand was tightly clenched, and his face ablaze with indignation.

"Oh, Nan! What is the matter?" cried Bess Harley, running to Nan's side and taking her other hand.

"What has happened?" asked Grace Mason. "What is it, Walter?"

"My goodness!" broke in Bess, before there could be any other explanation. "Here's that horrid Linda Riggs. What brought her here, I'd like to know?"

"I've as much right here as you have, Harley," cried Linda. "I don't have to worm myself into society that is above me, as you and your precious friend do. My father is as rich as any girl's father here, I'd have you know."

"Oh, hush, Linda!" murmured Pearl Graves, very much ashamed of her cousin.

"Walter! Grace! What does this mean?" demanded the governess, hurrying forward. "Don't make a scene here, I beg. Have no quarreling."

But Walter was too greatly enraged to be easily amenable to the mild lady's advice.

"What do you think of this, Miss Hagford?" he cried excitedly. "Nan Sherwood has been at our house since the first day she and Bess arrived in Chicago; yet Linda Riggs says she saw Nan taking something in a store here."

"Hush, Walter, hush!" begged Miss Hagford. "People will hear you."

"Well, people heard her!" declared the angry youth.

"We know Linda Riggs for what she is," Bess put in. "But these other boys and girls don't. Grace will tell you that Linda is the very meanest girl at Lakeview Hall."

"Oh! I couldn't say that, Bess," gasped timid Grace. "She is my guest for the evening!"

"Well, I'll say it for you," burst out her brother. "Somebody should tell the truth about her."

"So they should," chimed in Bess. "She's a mean, spiteful thing!"

"Stop! stop, all of you!" commanded the governess, sternly. "Why, this is disgraceful."

"I guess it is—I guess it is," said Linda, bitterly. "But this is the sort of treatment I might expect from anybody so much under the influence of Sherwood and Harley, as Grace and Walter are. I tell you I saw Nan Sherwood being held by a detective in Wilson-Meadows store, because they said she had taken some jewelry from the counter. And she cannot deny it!"

She said this with such positiveness, and was so much in earnest, that most of her hearers could not fail to be impressed. They stared at white-faced Nan to see if she had not something to say in her own defense. It seemed preposterous for Linda to repeat her charge so emphatically without some foundation for it.

"It isn't so!" cried Bess, first to gain her breath. "You know, Grace, Nan hasn't been shopping unless you and I were both with her. That's made up out of whole cloth!"

"You were not with her that day, Miss Smartie," cried the revengeful Linda. "And you see—she doesn't deny it."

"Of course she denies it!" Bess responded. "Do say something, Nan! Don't let that girl talk about you in this way."

Then Nan did open her lips—and what she said certainly amazed most of her hearers. "I was charged with taking a lavalliere from the counter. But it was found hanging from a lady's coat—"

"Where you hung it, when you saw you were caught!" interposed Linda.

"It was dreadful," Nan went on, brokenly. "I was so frightened and ashamed that I did not tell anybody about it."

"Nan!" cried Bess. "It's never true? You weren't arrested?"

"I—I should have been had the lavalliere not been found," her chum confessed. "Linda saw me and she told the man I was dishonest. I—I was so troubled by it all that I didn't tell anybody. It was the day I met that lady whose card I showed you, Bess. She was the lady whose coat caught up the chain. She was very kind to me."

"And Linda Riggs tried to make it worse for you, did she?" put in the indignant Walter.

"Hush, Walter!" commanded Miss Hagford. "We must have no more of this here. It is disgraceful. We will go directly home and your mother must know all the particulars. I don't know what she will say—I really do not," the troubled governess added.

"Oh, you can all go," snarled Linda. "You're welcome to the company of that Nan Sherwood. Pearl and I can find our way to her house. We'll leave you right now."

"Pearl is not going home, Linda," said her cousin. "You're not going to spoil all my fun for your own pleasure, I can tell you!"

"Stop, my dear," Miss Hagford said sternly. "Don't wrangle any more. Come! March! Walter, lead the way with your sister. Let us delay no longer."

Walter felt inclined to be obstinate and stick to Nan; but the latter slipped back with Bess, and they two walked arm in arm. Bess was frankly sobbing. They were tears of rage.

"Oh, dear! I wish I hadn't been brought up so respectably!" she gasped. "I wish I were like Inez. I'd slap that Linda Riggs' face and tear her hair out in big handfuls!"

Nan could not even smile at her chum's tearful emphasis. She felt very miserable indeed. She thought the English governess looked at her suspiciously. Some of the girls and boys must surely be impressed by what Linda had said. Had it been practical, Nan would have slipped out of the crowd and run away.

It was a rather silent party that passed through the snowy streets to the Mason house. Some of the girls and their escorts whispered together but this only added to the embarrassment of all concerned.

They reached the house at last. It was brightly lighted, for Mrs. Mason had promised to entertain royally. Her appearance at the door when it was opened, was quite in the nature of a surprise, however. She ran forward, her lovely gown trailing behind her and both hands outstretched.

"Where is our Nan?" she cried gaily. "Nan Sherwood! come here to me at once. You delightfully brave girl! And never to have talked about it!"

By this time she had the embarrassed Nan within the circle of her arms, and was smiling charmingly upon the others who trooped into the big entrance hall.

"What do you suppose she has done?" pursued Mrs. Mason, happily. "You must have known about it, Bess, for you were with Nan when she went to Lakeview Hall last September. Why, girls! this Nan of ours, when the train stopped at a station, went alone to the rescue of a child threatened by a rattlesnake, killed the snake, and rescued the child. What do you think of that?

"And now some of the passengers on that train, who saw the brave deed, have applied for and obtained a medal for bravery which has been brought here by a committee, and is to be presented to our Nan. You dear girl!" cried Mrs. Mason, kissing her heartily. "What are you crying for?"



CHAPTER XXI

LONG TO BE REMEMBERED

There were lights and music and flowers all about the big reception rooms, and a number of ladies and gentlemen were present besides the committee that had brought the medal for Nan. This was no time to retail such gossip as Linda Riggs had brought to her ears, and Miss Hagford, the governess, did not take her employer into her confidence at that time.

Besides, Nan was suddenly made the heroine of the hour.

If she had felt like running away as the party of young people returned to the Mason house from the moving picture show, Nan was more than desirous of escape now. The situation was doubly embarrassing after Linda Riggs' cruel accusation; for Nan had the feeling that some, at least, of these strange girls and boys must believe Linda's words true.

Nan knew that, all the way from the picture show, Linda had been eagerly giving her version of the difficulties that had risen between them since she and Nan had first met on the train going to Lakeview Hall. These incidents are fully detailed in the previous volume of this series, "Nan Sherwood at Lakeview Hall," as likewise is the incident which resulted in the presentation to Nan of the medal for bravery.

The ladies and gentlemen who had made it their business to obtain this recognition of a very courageous act, had traced the modest schoolgirl by the aid of Mr. Carter, the conductor of the train on which Nan and Bess had been so recently snow-bound.

The committee were very thoughtful. They saw that the girl was greatly embarrassed, and the presentation speech was made very brief. But Mrs. Mason, with overflowing kindness, had arranged for a gala occasion. A long table was set in the big dining room, and the grown folk as well as the young people gathered around the board.

The ill-breeding of Linda Riggs, and her attempt to hurt Nan's reputation in the eyes of the Masons' friends, were both smothered under the general jollity and good feeling. Afterward Bess Harley declared that Linda must have fairly "stewed in her own venom." Nobody paid any attention to Linda, her own cousin scarcely speaking to her. Only once did the railroad magnate's daughter have an opportunity of showing her ill-nature verbally.

This was when the beautiful gold medal was being passed around the table for the inspection of the company individually. It came in the course of events, to Linda. She took the medal carelessly and turned it over on her palm.

"Oh, indeed—very pretty, I am sure. And, of course, useful," she murmured. "I have been told that most of these medals finally find their way to the pawnshops."

This speech made Mrs. Mason, who heard it, look curiously at Linda; the girls about her were silent—indeed, nobody made any rejoinder. It caused Mrs. Mason, however, to make some inquiries of Miss Hagford, and later of Grace and Bess.

The young folk danced for an hour to the music of a big disc machine. The committee of presentation had bidden Nan good-bye, and thanked Mrs. Mason for her hospitality. The party was breaking up.

Mrs. Mason called the young people together when the wraps of those who were leaving were already on.

"One last word, boys and girls, before we separate," the lady said softly, her arm around Nan, by whom she seemed to stand quite by chance. "I hope you have all had a pleasant time. If we cultivate a happy spirit we will always find pleasure wherever we go. Remember that.

"Criticism and back-biting in any social gathering breed unhappiness and discontent. And we should all be particularly careful how we speak of or to one another. I understand that there was one incident to mar this otherwise perfect evening. One girl was unkind enough to try to hurt the feelings of another by a statement of unmistakable falsehood."

Mrs. Mason's voice suddenly became stern. She was careful to avert her gaze from Linda Riggs' direction; but they all knew to whom she referred.

"I speak of this, boys and girls, for a single reason," the lady pursued. "For fear some of you may go home with any idea in your minds that the accusation against the girl vilified or against her father is in any particular true, I want you to tell your parents that I stand sponsor for both our dear Nan and her father. Neither could be guilty of taking that which was not his.

"Now, good-night all! I hope you have had a lovely time. I am sure this night will long be remembered by our Nan!"

The boys, led by Walter, broke into a hearty cheer for Nan Sherwood. Every girl save Linda came to kiss her good-night. Her triumph seemed unalloyed.

Yet the first mail in the morning brought a letter which dealt a staggering blow to Nan's Castle of Delight. Her mother wrote in haste to say that Mr. Ravell Bulson had been to the automobile manufacturers with whom Mr. Sherwood had a tentative contract, and had threatened to sue Mr. Sherwood if he did not return to him, Bulson, his lost watch and chain and roll of bankbills, amounting to several hundred dollars.

The automobile manufacturers had served notice on Mr. Sherwood that they would delay the signing of any final contract until Bulson's accusation was refuted. Almost all of Mrs. Sherwood's ready money, received through the Scotch courts, had been invested in the new automobile showroom and garage.



CHAPTER XXII

WHAT HAS BECOME OF INEZ?

Nan could not bring herself to speak of the sudden turn her father's difficulties had taken. She had long-since learned that family affairs were not to be discussed out of the family circle.

It was bad enough, so she thought, to have Tillbury and Owneyville people discussing the accusation of Ravell Bulson, without telling all the trouble to her friends here in Chicago. Enough had been said on the previous evening, Nan thought, about the matter. She hid this new phase of it even from her chum.

It was Bess who suggested their activities for this day. She wanted to do something for Inez, the flower-girl, in whom usually thoughtless Bess had taken a great interest. She had written to her mother at once about the poor little street arab, and Mrs. Harley had sent by express a great bundle of cast-off dresses outgrown by Bess' younger sisters, that easily could be made to fit Inez.

Mrs. Mason had shoes and stockings and hats that might help in the fitting out of the flower-seller; and she suggested that the child be brought to the house that her own sewing maid might make such changes in the garments as would be necessary to make them of use for Inez.

"Not that the poor little thing is at all particular, I suppose, about her clothes," Bess remarked. "I don't imagine she ever wore a garment that really fitted her, or was made for her. Her shoes weren't mates—I saw that the other day, didn't you, Nan?"

"I saw that they were broken," Nan agreed, with a sigh. "Poor little thing!"

"And although fashion allows all kinds of hats this season, I am very sure that straw of hers had seen hard service for twelve months or more," Bess added.

Walter, hearing the number and street of Inez's lodging, insisted upon accompanying the chums on their errand. Grace did not go. She frankly admitted that such squalid places as Mother Beasley's were insufferable; and where Inez lived might be worse.

"I'm just as sorry for such people as I can be and I'd like to help them all," Grace said. "But it makes me actually ill to go near them. How mother can delve as she does in the very slums—well, I can't do it! Walter is like mother; he doesn't mind."

"I guess you're like your father," said Bess. "He believes in putting poor people into jails, otherwise institutions, instead of giving them a chance to make good where they are. And there aren't enough institutions for them all. I never supposed there were so many poor people in this whole world as we have seen in Chicago.

"I used to just detest the word 'poor'—Nan'll tell you," confessed Bess. "I guess being with Nan has kind of awakened me to 'our duties,' as Mrs. Cupp would say," and she laughed.

"Oh!" cried Grace. "I'd do for them, if I could. But I don't even know how to talk to them. Sick babies make me feel so sorry I want to cry, and old women who smell of gin and want to sell iron-holders really scare me. Oh, dear! I guess I'm an awful coward!"

Nan laughed. "What are you going to do with that crisp dollar bill I saw your father tuck into your hand at breakfast, Gracie?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know. I hadn't thought. Papa is always so thoughtful. He knows I just can't make ends meet on my fortnightly allowance."

"But you don't absolutely need the dollar?"

"No-o."

"Then give it to us. We'll spend it for something nice with which to treat those kid cousins that Inez told us about."

"Good idea," announced Walter. "It won't hurt you to give it to charity, Sis."

"All right," sighed Grace. "If you really all say so. But there is such a pretty tie down the street at Libby's."

"And you've a million ties, more or less," declared Bess. "Of course we'll take it from her, Walter. Come on, now! I'm ready."

Under Walter's piloting the chums reached the street and number Inez had given Nan. It was a cheap and dirty tenement house. A woman told them to go up one flight and knock on the first door at the rear on that landing.

They did this, Walter insisting upon keeping near the girls. A red-faced, bare-armed woman, blowsy and smelling strongly of soapsuds, came to the door and jerked it open.

"Well?" she demanded, in a loud voice.

Bess was immediately tongue-tied; so Nan asked:

"Is Inez at home?"

"And who be you that wants Inez—the little bothersome tyke that she is?"

"We are two of her friends," Nan explained briefly. It was plain that the woman was not in a good temper, and Nan was quite sure she had been drinking.

"And plenty of fine friends she has," broke out the woman, complainingly. "While I'm that poor and overrun with children, that I kin scarce get bite nor sup for 'em. And she'll go and spend her money on cakes and ice-cream because it's my Mamie's birthday, instead of bringing it all home, as I told her she should! The little tyke! I'll l'arn her!"

"I am sorry if Inez has disobeyed you," said Nan, breaking in on what seemed to promise to be an unending complaint. "Isn't she here—or can you tell us where to find her?"

"I'll say 'no' to them two questions immediate!" exclaimed the woman, crossly. "I beat her as she deserved, and took away the money she had saved back to buy more flowers with; and I put her basket in the stove."

"Oh!" gasped Bess.

"And what is it to you, Miss?" demanded the woman, threateningly.

"It was cruel to beat her," declared Bess, bravely, but unwisely.

"Is that so? is that so?" cried the virago, advancing on Bess with the evident purpose of using her broad, parboiled palm on the visitor, just as she would use it on one of her own children. "I'll l'arn ye not to come here with your impudence!"

But Walter stepped in her way, covering Bess' frightened retreat. Walter was a good-sized boy.

"Hold on," he said, good-naturedly. "We won't quarrel about it. Just tell us where the child is to be found."