he 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