Suddenly, she heard a voice say:  “Oh, Sallie! they smell so good.  I am as hungry as I can be.”

Nan fairly jumped.  She wheeled quickly to see two girls—­one quite tall and pretty, after a fashion—­standing with a bag of cakes between them.  The tall girl opened it while the shorter peered in hungrily.

“Goodness!  Can it be—?”

Nan’s unspoken question was not completed, for out of the alley darted a street urchin of about Inez’s age, who snatched the bag of cakes out of the girl’s hand and ran, shrieking, back into the dark alley.

“Oh! the rascal!” gasped the taller of the two girls.

The other burst into tears—­and they were very real tears, too!  She leaned against the bakery wall, with her arm across her eyes, and sobbed.

“Oh, Marie, don’t!” begged the other, with real concern.  “Suppose somebody sees you!”

“I don’t care if they do.  And I hate that name,—­Marie!” choked the crying girl, desperately.  “I won’t answer to it an—­any more—­so now!  I want my own na—­name.”

“Oh, dear, Celia! don’t be a baby.”

“I—­I don’t care if I am a baby.  I’m hun—­hun—­hungry.”

“Well, we’ll buy some more cakes.”

“You can’t—­you shouldn’t,” sobbed the other, weakly.  “I haven’t any more money at all, and you have less than a dollar.”

Nan had heard enough.  She did not care what these girls thought of her; they should not escape.  She planted herself right before the two startled strangers and cried: 

“You foolish, foolish things!  You are starving for greasy baker’s cakes, when your fathers and mothers at home are just sitting down to lovely sliced ham and brown bread and biscuit and homemade preserves and cake—­and plenty of it all!  Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins, I think you are two of the most foolish girls I ever heard of!”

The crying girl stopped in surprise.  The other tried to assume a very scornful air.

“Haven’t you made a mistake, Miss?” she said.  “My name is Lola Montague and my friend is Miss Marie Fortesque.”

“Sure they are,” said the excited Nan.  “I know they are your names, for you chose them yourselves.  But I was at your house, Sallie Morton, the day of the big blizzard—­the very day after you and Celia ran away.  And if you’d seen how your mother cried, and how badly your father felt—­

“And your mother is worried to death about you, Celia Snubbins; and your father, Si, who is a dear old man, said he’d give everything he owned to get you back—­”

“Oh, oh!” gasped Celia, and burst into tears again.

“Listen to this, Sallie Morton!” added Nan, rummaging in her shopping bag and bringing forth Mrs. Morton’s letter.  She read some of the letter aloud to the girls.

“Now, Sallie, how dare you stay away from a mother like that?  You’ve both just got to come with me.  I should think you’d have found out by this time that neither of you will ever be famous as motion picture actresses.”