't talk in here--I'm afraid. Would it be asking too much of
you to come out in the park, sit down on a bench and tell me about it?
I'll never know how to thank you, if you will?"

It was absurd, of course, such a request, and yet his interest was so
keen, his deference to her superior knowledge so humble and appealing,
to refuse seemed ungracious. She hesitated and rose abruptly.

"Just a moment--I'll return my books and then we'll go. You can replace
this volume on the shelf where we got it."

"Thank yoo, miss," he responded gratefully. "You're awfully kind."

"Don't mention it," she laughed.

In a moment she was walking by his side down the smooth marble stairs
and out through the grand entrance into Fifth Avenue. The strange
part about it was, she was not in the least excited over a very
unconventional situation. She had allowed a handsomely groomed, young,
red-haired adventurer to pick her up without the formality of an
introduction, in the Public Library. She hadn't the remotest idea of his
name--nor had he of hers--yet there was something about him that seemed
oddly familiar. They must have known one another somewhere in childhood
and forgotten each other's faces.

The sun was shining in clear, steady brilliancy in a cloudless sky. The
snow had quickly melted and it was unusually warm for early December.
They turned into the throng of Fifth Avenue and at the corner of
Forty-second Street he paused and hesitated and looked at her timidly:

"Say," he began haltingly, "there's an awful crowd of bums on those
seats in the Square behind the building--you know Central Park, don't
you?"

Mary smiled.

"Quite well--I've spent many happy hours in its quiet walks."

"You know that place the other side of the Mall--that ragged hill
covered with rocks and trees and mountain laurel?"

"I've been there often."

"Would you mind going there where it's quiet--I've such a lot o' things
I want to ask you--you won't mind the walk, will you?"

"Certainly not--we'll go there," Mary responded in even, business-like
tones.

"Because, if you don't want to walk I'll call a cab, if you'll let
me----"

"Not at all," was the quick answer. "I love to walk."

It was impossible for the girl to repress a smile at her ridiculous
situation! If any human being had told her yesterday that she, Mary
Adams, an old-fashioned girl with old-fashioned ideas of the proprieties
of life, would have allowed herself to be picked up by an utt