nundrum?' commented Dave over my shoulder. Just then there was a
sudden blare from the band, and a roar that almost startled my
sophisticated nerves.

I turned my eyes toward the arena, where a splendid white horse now
stood, caparisoned in a sort of armour upon back and neck, and pawing
impatiently, while he waited opposite a sort of portable platform
higher than the horse's back, and gaily cushioned and decorated. A
great tawny male lion was in the act of leaping from the ground to
this high perch. I had seen many exhibitions of animal intelligence
and training, but when this king of lions, uttering a second mighty
roar, leaped to the back of the waiting horse and rode about the ring
like a trained rider, leaped through a hoop held in the mouth of a big
spotted boarhound, and otherwise acquitted himself like an
accomplished rider, I forgot the conundrum of the little black bag,
and my mission at the World's Fair, and looked and applauded, and was
simply one of five hundred sight-seers.

It was useless to contend; the charm was upon us; the first day at the
Fair had us at last in thrall, and we watched the trained lions,
tigers, bears, and pumas, admired the ponies, applauded the dogs, and
wondered at the plucky woman trainer, without a thought beyond the
passing moment.

The fever lasted until night had fallen, until we had trundled from
end to end of Midway in a pair of wheeled chairs, visited the Dahomey
Village, the Ostrich Farm, the Chinese Theatre, and the little
community of quaint, shy, industrious Javanese, leaving it still in
the spirit of adventure, and sauntering, after a dinner in Old Vienna,
here and there through a veritable fairyland, glittering, glistening,
shining, radiant from the splendid dome of the Administration
Building, with its girdles of fire, its great statues shining under
the golden glow, and the lagoons with their lights and shadows, their
gondolas gliding to and fro between flowering banks or illuminated
facades, with fountains playing, music filling the air, and everywhere
laughter, merry voices, and gay throngs of enchanted pleasure seekers.
What wonder that we lingered long, and that it was only when we were
shut between four walls, the lights out, the White City asleep, that I
thought again of J. J. and her lost letters; and now, as I thought,
the fair blond face seemed to rise before me, and I saw again the slim
figure flit past me on Midway.

Brainerd lay sleeping near me, and