“The mill men see the wisdom of that.  I would not have been engaged as a welfare worker if I had not been a scout lieutenant.  Well, I must run along.  We have a meeting in Flosston tonight, and I am going to take Rose with me.”

“I would.  The girls of the troop have never met her to know her, and, at any rate, their training will check any possible criticism.  Good-bye, girl.  Better take your umbrella.  We will have rain before sunset,” and with this word mother and daughter separated for their respective afternoon tasks.

Meanwhile Rose had called at the post-office.  Her anxiety concerning the wayward Tessie constituted the one flaw in her otherwise happy new days.  That she could not at once be with her parents was clear and reasonable to the girl, reared in hardship, and accustomed to many personal sacrifices, but that an incriminating letter would surely one day come from Tessie kept her nervously anxious.

Rose had contrived to visit the post-office daily, hoping when the dreaded, yet longed-for, letter would come, she might receive it personally and thus avert possible complications with the Cosgrove family, who had official reasons for wishing to locate the runaway girl.

With that keenness peculiar to foreigners when a matter vitally concerns them, the Brodix people had readily adopted the more useful name Dixon for their daughter, and today, when Rose inquired for mail, a much-soiled letter addressed to “Rose Dixon, care of Mrs. James Cosgrove,” was handed out.

Not risking the publicity of opening the envelope until she was well out of sight of observers, Rose hurried along, and turned an unnecessary corner to seclude herself in a particularly quiet street, there to open and read the letter.  Somehow she felt it would contain news of Tessie, and her premonition was correct.

“From mother!” she breathed affectionately, as the much handled little sheet of note paper, with its queer foreign script, lay in her hand.  Then she noticed an inclosure.  Yes!  There was the note from Tessie!

So anxious was Rose to know where Tessie was, she glimpsed through the little note without actually reading one word of it.  She was just looking for a clue as to the girl’s whereabouts, but to her disappointment none was given!  Not one word showed the capital letter at its face, that would have marked the name of any place!  Tessie wrote English well enough to make herself understood, and the brief note was almost explosive in its choice of strong phrases.  The “quarter whistle” blew, announcing to Rose the fact that fifteen minutes of the precious noon hour still remained, and as ten would be ample time for her to reach the mill, in the five extra minutes she might read her letters.

Stopping at a little stone wall, which surrounded one of the oldest houses in Franklin, Rose read first the note from Tessie.  As she expected, the “news” was more a compilation of strong slang than an attempt to impart any real information, and although but a short time removed from the acute influence of “chewing-gum English,” Rose had already developed a dislike for the more vulgar of such forms of utterance.  She read: