Nan and Bess likewise looked at the girl with some trepidation; but they held their ground.

“What do you want?  Who are you?” asked Jennie Albert, hoarsely.

“We—­we have come to see you,” explained Nan, hesitatingly.  “We’re friends of little Inez.”

“You’d better keep away from here!” cried the older girl, fiercely.  “This is no place for the likes of you.”

“Aw, say!  Now, don’t get flighty again, Jen,” urged little Inez, much worried.  “I tell youse these girls is all right.  Why, they’re pertic’lar friends of mine.”

“Your—­your friends?” muttered the wild looking girl.  “This—­this is a poor place to bring your friends, Ina.  But—­do sit down!  Do take a chair!”

She waved her hand toward the only chair there was—­a broken-armed parlor chair, the upholstery of which was in rags.  She laughed as she did so—­a sudden, high, cackling laugh.  Then she broke out coughing and—­as Inez had said—­she seemed in peril of shaking herself to pieces!

“Oh, the poor thing!” murmured Bess to Nan.

“She is dreadfully ill,” the latter whispered.  “She ought really to have a doctor right now.”

“Oh, girls!” gasped Grace, in terror.  “Let’s come away.  Perhaps she has some contagious disease.  She looks just awful!”

The sick girl heard this, low as the three visitors spoke.  “And I feel ‘just awful!’” she gasped, when she got her breath after coughing.  “You’d better not stay to visit Ina.  This is no place for you.”

“Why, we must do something to help you,” Nan declared, recovering some of her assurance.  “Surely you should have a doctor.”

“He gimme some medicine for her yisterday,” broke in Inez.  “But we ain’t got no more money for medicine.  Has we, Jen?”

“Not much for anything else, either,” muttered the bigger girl, turning her face away.

She was evidently ashamed of her poverty.  Nan saw that it irked Jennie Albert to have strangers see her need and she hastened, as usual, to relieve the girl of that embarrassment.

“My dear,” she said, running to her as Jennie sat on the couch, and putting an arm about the poor, thin, shaking shoulders.  “My dear! we would not disturb you only that you may be able to help us find two lost girls.  And you are so sick.  Do let us stay a while and help you, now that we have come, in return for the information you can give us about Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins.”

“Gracious! who are they?” returned Jennie Albert.  “I never heard of them, I’m sure,” and she seemed to speak quite naturally for a moment.

“Oh, my dear!” murmured Nan.  “Haven’t you seen them at all?  Why, they told me at the studio—­”

“I know!  I know!” exclaimed Bess, suddenly.  “Jennie doesn’t know their right names.  Nan means Lola Montague and Marie Fortesque.”

Jennie Albert stared wonderingly at them.  “Why—­those girls?  I remember them, of course,” she said.  “I supposed those names were assumed, but I had no idea they really owned such ugly ones.”