“Oh, yes, the welfare work of all the big mills is co-related,” replied the daughter, while the mother put her feet on the little velvet hassock, and seemed glad of the chance to draw her breath after the long speech.

Dagmar was sitting in one of the narrow arm chairs of the old-fashioned parlor suite.  Her long, rather shapely hands traced the lines and cross-bars in her plaid skirt, and the sudden shifting of her gaze, from one speaker to the other, betrayed the nervousness she was laboring under.

“All right then, that’s one more thing settled.  And do you think the girl—­say, girl, I don’t like that name you have, what else can we call you?” she broke off suddenly with this question to Dagmar.

“My name is Dagmar Bosika, and I like Bosika best,” replied the little stranger.

“All right, that’s number three settled.  You will be Bose.  I can say that, but I never could think of the other queer foreign name.”

“And we will have to change your last name, too, I guess,” put in Molly, “as some one from Flosston might recognize it.  We can just leave off the first syllable and have it Rose Dix or Dixon.  I think Dixon would sound best.”

“We are settling quite a few points,” laughed Mrs. Cosgrove, “if some one doesn’t upset them.  I have no fears from Pop—­”

“Oh, Pop is putty in our hands,” went on the resourceful Molly, “no danger from his end.  But how about your folks, Rose?”

Dagmar smiled before she replied.  The new name struck on her ear a little oddly, but it pleased her, she had never liked Dagmar, and utterly despised the mill girls’ nickname “Daggie.”

“Mother and father have always said they would let me do what I thought would be best for me,” she said at length.  “I never did anything they told me I should not, and we often talked of my getting in a store or something like that.  Mother works in the mill in another room, and she was always worried about me being away from her.”

“A store would be no good for you,” objected Mrs. Cosgrove, again including the girl’s beauty in her scrutiny.  “You would be best off within the reach of a welfare worker like Molly.  But look at the time!  Martin will be in from the club, and even Dad will be comin’ around for his midnight coffee, before we call this meetin’ to a halt.  I say, Molly, we are runnin’ an opposition scout meetin’ it seems to me,” and she got up with that finality, which plainly puts the period to all conversation.

A few moments later Rose had washed face and hands, brushed her hair, as Molly kindly hinted she should, and taking her shabby, washed, but unironed, night dress from the famous “telescope,” she said her prayers and was ready for bed.  How comfortable the room seemed!  How strange she should be in it?  And where was the unfortunate, headstrong Tessie?

A prayer for the safety of the wandering one sprung from the heart of this other girl, now away from home the very first night in her young life.  That her mother would believe her at a girl’s home, according to the little note left stuck in her looking glass, Rose was quite certain, so there was no need to worry concerning distress from the home circle, at least not yet, and tomorrow morning young Miss Cosgrove would go to the mill and very quietly arrange everything with her mother.