nez had ever worn.

"She looks as nice now as me own sister," Katie declared, when, after a
deal of fussing and chatting in the girls' suite, the street waif was
dressed from top to toe.

"Now ye may take her down to show the mistress; and I belave she will
be plazed."

This was a true prophecy. Not only was Mrs. Mason delighted with the
changed appearance of Inez, but Mr. Mason approved, too; while Walter
considered the metamorphosis quite marvelous.

"Great!" he said. "Get her filled up, and filled out, and her appearance
alone will pay you girls for your trouble."

While they talked and joked about her, Inez fell fast asleep with her
head pillowed in Nan Sherwood's lap.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE KEY TO A HARD LOCK

The young people had planned to spend that next forenoon at a skating
rink, where the ice was known to be good; but Nan ran away right after
breakfast to meet her father's train, intending to join the crowd at the
rink later.

"I'll take your skates for you, Nan," Walter assured her, as she set
forth for the station.

"That's so kind of you, Walter," she replied gratefully.

"Say! I'd do a whole lot more for you than _that_," blurted out the boy,
his face reddening.

"I think you have already," said Nan, sweetly, waving him good-bye from
the taxi in which Mrs. Mason had insisted she should go to the station.

She settled back in her seat and thought happily for a few minutes. She
had been so busy with all sorts of things here in Chicago--especially
with what Bess Harley called "other people's worries"--that Nan had
scarcely been able to think of her hopes for the future, or her memories
of the past. She had been living very much in the present.

"Why," she thought, with something like a feeling of remorse, "I
haven't even missed Beautiful Beulah. I--I wonder if I am really
growing up? Oh, dear!"

Mr. Sherwood thought her a very much composed and sophisticated
little body, indeed, when he met her on the great concourse of the
railway station.

"Goodness me, Nan!" he declared, when he had greeted her. "How you
_do_ grow. Your mother and I have seen so little of you since we came
back from Scotland, that we haven't begun to realize that you are a
big, big girl."

"Don't make me out _too_ big, Papa Sherwood!" she cried, clinging to his
arm. "I--I don't _want_ to grow up entirely. I want for a long time to be
_your_ little girl.

"I know what we'll do," cried Nan, delightedly. "You hav