When Pearl had revived, being still very sick, the druggist gave her some medicine and then Linda took her home in the cab.  Pearl knew, however, who had saved her from the fire.  Bess Harley saw to it that there was no mistake about that.

“And we both owe our escape, I verily believe, to little Inez,” Nan said, laughing, and stroking the head of the waif fondly.  “The dear little thing came right inside and found us in the smoke.  I was almost out of breath.”

Pearl was quietly grateful to Nan, however, and she kissed Inez.  When she went away in the cab Nan’s hand was the last she touched, and Nan knew that she had made a friend for life of Pearl Graves.  Nan refused to allow the Masons or Bess to talk of the matter.  They all walked home, and by the time they reached the Mason house were all more quiet and able to appear before Mrs. Mason as though nothing extraordinary had happened.

It was not until the next morning at breakfast time, indeed, that Walter’s and Grace’s parents learned of the fire in the new theatre.  Not much damage had been done the house; but several people had been hurt; and the escape of Walter and his party had been really miraculous.

“Goodness me!” sighed Mrs. Mason.  “I shall be afraid to have you young folk out of my sight for the remainder of this vacation.  What scrapes you manage to get into!”

These busy winter holidays were drawing to a close, however.  Grace and Walter Mason and their two visitors, as well as all of their neighborhood friends, who had occupied themselves most enjoyably and in a dozen different ways, were now scattering for the latter half of the school year.

Nan did not see Linda Riggs again while she remained in Chicago.  Immediately following the fire in the picture theatre, the railroad president’s daughter went home.  How she really felt toward Nan, the latter did not know; nor did this uncertainty bother her much.

Now that her father’s trouble with Mr. Ravell Bulson was cleared up, Nan did not worry over anything but the seemingly total disappearance of the runaways, Sallie and Celia or, as they preferred to be known, Lola Montague and Marie Fortesque.

Mr. Sherwood was still in town to settle matters with the automobile company, and would return to Tillbury with Nan and Bess and Inez.  Walter and Grace tried to crowd into the last forty-eight hours of the chums’ stay all the good times possible, and the second night before Nan and Bess were to go home, a masquerade party was arranged at the Mason home.  Of course, Mrs. Mason was the chief “patroness” of the affair and superintended the arrangements herself.  So it was bound to be a success.

Nan needed some ribbons and a new pair of gloves at the last minute, and she ran out to get them herself.  Trying shop after shop, just as the street lights were beginning to glimmer, she wandered some blocks away from the Mason house.

She reached a corner where there was a brilliantly lighted bakery beside a narrow and dark alley.  Nan was looking for a shop where gloves were sold, not for a bakery; but some people coming out of the shop jostled her.  She did not give the little group a second glance as they set off on their several ways from the bakeshop door.