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 reel