"Yes. I call this park my country estate. It costs me nothing to keep it in perfect order. The city pays for it all. But I own it. Every tree and shrub and flower and blade of grass, every statue and bird and animal in it is mine. I couldn't get more joy out of them if I had them inclosed behind an iron fence, and the deed to the land in my pocket--not half as much, for I'd be lonely and miserable without someone to see and enjoy it all with me."

"Gee, that's so, ain't it? I never looked at it like that before."

He gazed at her a long time in silent admiration, and then spoke briskly.

"Now tell me about this North Carolina and all those miles and square miles of mountains."

"You've a piece of paper and pencil?"

He lifted his hand school-boy fashion:

"Johnny on the spot, teacher!"

A blank-book and pencil he threw in her lap and leaned close.

"Tear the leaves out, if you like."

"No, I'll just draw the maps on the pages and leave them for you to study."

With deft touch she outlined in rough on the first page, the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina, tracing his possible route by Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Dover, Norfolk and Raleigh, or by Washington, Richmond, and Danville to Greensboro.

"Either route you see," she said softly, "leads to Salisbury, where you strike the foothills of the mountains. It's about two hundred miles from there to Asheville and 'The Land of the Sky.'"

For two hours she answered his eager, boyish questions about the country and its people, his eyes wide with admiration at her knowledge.

The sun was sinking in a sea of scarlet and purple clouds behind the tall buildings beside the Park before she realized that they had been talking for more than two hours.

She sprang to her feet, blushing and confused.

"Mercy, I had no idea it was so late."

"Why--is it late?" he asked incredulously.

"We must hurry----"

She brushed the stray ringlets of hair from her forehead, laughed and hurried down the pathway.

They crossed the Park and took the Madison Avenue line to Twenty-third Street. They were silent in the car. The roar of the traffic was deafening after the quiet of the summer house among the trees.

"I can see you home?" he inquired appealingly.

"We get off at Twenty-third Street."

They stood on the steps at her door beside the Square and there was a moment's awkward silence.

He lifted his hat with a little chivalrous bow.

"Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock in my car?"

She smiled and hesitated.

"You'll have a bully time!"

"It's Sunday," she stammered.

"Sure, that's why I asked you."

"I don't like to miss my church."

"You go to church every Sunday?" he asked in amazement.

"Yes."

"Well, just this once then. It'll do you good. And I'll drive as careful as a farmer."

"All right," she said in low tones, and extended her hand:

"Good night----"

"Good night, teacher!" he responded with a boyish wave of his slender hand and quickly disappeared in the crowd.

She rushed up the stairs, her cheeks aflame, her heart beating a tattoo of foolish joy.

She snatched the kitten from sleep and whispered in his tiny ear:

"Oh, Kitty dear, I've had such an adventure! I've spent the happiest, silliest afternoon of my life! I'm going to have a more wonderful day tomorrow. I just feel it. In a big racing automobile if you please, Mr.

Thomascat! Sorry I can't take you but the dust would blind you, Kitty dear. I'm sorry to tell you that you'll have to stay at home all day alone and keep house. It's too bad. But I'll fix your milk and bread before I go and you must promise me on your sacred Persian cat's honor not to look at my birds!"

She hugged him violently and he purred his soft answer in song.

"Oh, Kitty, I'm so happy--so foolishly happy!"

CHAPTER IV. DOUBTS AND FEARS

Mary attempted no analysis of her emotions. It was all too sudden, too stunning. She was content to feel and enjoy the first overwhelming experience of life. Hour after hour she lay among the pillows of her couch in the dim light of the street lamps and lazily watched the passing Saturday evening crowds. The world was beautiful.

She undressed at last and went to bed, only to toss wide-eyed for hours.

A hundred times she reenacted the scene in the Library and recalled her first impression of Jim's personality. What could such an utterly unforeseen and extraordinary meeting mean except that it was her Fate?

Certainly he could not have planned it. Certainly she had not foreseen such an event. It had never occurred to her in the wildest flights of fancy that she could meet and speak to a man under such conditions, to say nothing of the walk in the Park and the hours she spent in the little summer house.

And the strangest part of it all was that she could see nothing wrong in it from beginning to end. It had happened in the simplest and most natural way imaginable. By the standards of conventional propriety her act was the maddest folly; and yet she was still happy over it.

There was one disquieting trait about him that made her a little uneasy.

He used the catch-words of the street gamins of New York without any consciousness of incongruity. She thought at first that he did this as the Southern boy of culture and refinement unconsciously drops into the tones and dialect of the negro, by daily association. His constant use of the expressive and characteristic "Gee" was startling, to say the least. And yet it came from his lips in such a boyish way she felt sure that it was due to his embarrassment in the unusual position in which he had found himself with her.