ad the required sum she had
triumphantly purchased the long yellow curls she had craved always.
And now, prouder than any queen, she was attending the Lincoln School.
It was the sort of story that a city editor likes for it brings shoals
of letters with offers of help, to the newspaper office, and proves in
a most practical way that it has been read.

Usually Mary Rose was home from school by four o'clock for at half-past
three her room was dismissed and it never took her more than half an
hour to say good-by to her numerous new friends and dawdle home.

But the afternoon after the story of the yellow-curls appeared in the
_Gazette_, Mary Rose was not at home at four o'clock. She was not at
home at half-past four. Mrs. Donovan looked uneasily at the clock. It
was not like Mary Rose to be so dilatory. At a quarter to five Mrs.
Donovan put on her hat and walked up the street. She would go and meet
Mary Rose. Perhaps the child had been kept after school, perhaps she
had stopped to play in spite of the fact that she had been told she
must come straight home from school always.

Mrs. Donovan walked the six blocks to the Lincoln School without seeing
as much as the hem of Mary Rose's gingham skirt. The big school
building loomed up in front of her silent and forlorn. She stared at
it before she went up the steps and tried to open the door. It was
locked. Then Mary Rose had not been kept after school. Where could
she be? She might have gone home a different way so as to walk with
one of her new friends. Of course, she was safe at home by now. Mrs.
Donovan retraced her steps very hurriedly but she found no Mary Rose in
the basement flat. It was so strange that she was worried. Where
could the child be?

Suddenly she laughed unsteadily. What a fool she was. To be sure,
Mary Rose had stopped to see Mrs. Schuneman or to exchange experiences
with Harriet White who was now attending the Lincoln School, too. She
ran up to the first floor to knock at Mrs. Schuneman's door and say
breathlessly that she wanted to speak to Mary Rose at once. Mrs.
Schuneman heard her and followed Mina.

"Mary Rose isn't here, Mrs. Donovan," she said. "Hasn't the little
minx come home yet?"

"No, she hasn't!" Mrs. Donovan was most unpleasantly disappointed. "I
don't understand it. I've told her again and again that she was to
come straight home as soon as school was out. Then she could go out to
play. But she was to come ho