"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, hoa.r.s.ely. "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!"