"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 pa.s.s 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 const.i.tootin, 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."