t past Central Park, sniffing wistfully at the damp
grass, pale green amid old gray; marveling how a bare patch of brown
earth, without a single blade of grass, could smell so stirringly of
coming spring. A girl on Broadway was selling wild violets, white and
purple, and in front of wretched old houses down a side-street, in the
negro district, a darky in a tan derby and a scarlet tie was caroling:

"Mandy, in de spring
De mocking-birds do sing,
An' de flowers am so sweet along de ol' bayou----"

Above the darky's head, elevated trains roared on the Fifty-third
Street trestle, and up Broadway streaked a stripped motor-car, all
steel chassis and grease-mottled board seat and lurid odor of
gasoline. But sparrows splashed in the pools of sunshine; in a lull
the darky's voice came again, chanting passionately, "In de spring,
spring, _spring_!" and Carl clamored: "I've _got_ to get out to-day.
Terrible glad it's a half-holiday. Wonder if I dare telephone to
Ruth?"

At a quarter to three they were rollicking down the "smart side" of
Fifth Avenue. One could see that they were playmates, by her dancing
steps and his absorption in her. He bent a little toward her, quick to
laugh with her.

Ruth was in a frock of flowered taffeta. "I won't wait till Easter to
show off my spring clothes. It isn't done any more," she said. "It's
as stupid as Bobby's not daring to wear a straw hat one single day
after September fifteenth. Is an aviator brave enough to wear his
after the fifteenth?... Think! I didn't know you then--last September.
I can't understand it."

"But I knew you, blessed, because I was sure spring was coming again,
and that distinctly implied Ruth."

"Of course it did. You've guessed my secret. I'm the Spirit of Spring.
Last Wednesday, when I lost my marquise ring, I was the spirit of
vitriol, but now----I'm a poet. I've thought it all out and decided
that I shall be the American Sappho. At any moment I am quite likely
to rush madly across the pavement and sit down on the curb and indite
several stanzas on the back of a calling-card, while the crowd galumps
around me in an awed ring.... I feel like kidnapping you and making
you take me aeroplaning, but I'll compromise. You're to buy me a book
and take me down to the Maison Epinay for tea, and read me poetry
while I yearn over the window-boxes and try to look like Nicollette.
Buy me a book with spring in it, and a princess, and a sky like
this--cornflower