er, past lakes where water-fowl floated or stretched
brilliant wings in the late afternoon sunlight. At times the summer wind
blew her hair, and she lifted her lips to it, caressing it with every
fiber of her; at times she walked pensively, wondering why she had been
forbidden the Park unless accompanied.

"More danger, I suppose," she thought impatiently.... "Well, what is
this danger that seems to travel like one's shadow, dogging a girl
through the world? It seems to me that if all the pleasant things of
life are so full of danger I'd better find out what it is.... I might as
well look for it so that I'll recognize it when I encounter it.... And
learn to keep away."

She scanned the flowery thickets attentively, looked behind her, then
walked on.

"If it's robbers they mean," she reflected, "I'm a good wrestler, and I
can make any one of my four brothers-in-law look foolish.... Besides,
the Park is full of fat policemen.... And if they mean I'm likely to get
lost, or run over, or arrested, or poisoned with soda-water and
bonbons--" She laughed to herself, swinging on in her free-limbed,
wholesome beauty, scarcely noticing a man ahead, occupying a bench half
hidden under the maple's foliage.

"So I'll just look about for this danger they are all afraid of, and
when I see it, I'll know what to do," she concluded, paying not the
slightest heed to the man on the bench until he rose, as she passed him,
and took off his hat.

"You!" she exclaimed.

She had stopped short, confronting him with the fearless and charming
directness natural to her. "What an amusing accident," she said frankly.

"The truth is," he began, "it is not exactly an accident."

"Isn't it?"

"N--no.... Are you offended?"

"Offended? No. Should I be? Why?... Besides, I suppose when we have
finished this conversation you are going the _other_ way."

"I--no, I wasn't."

"Oh! Then you are going to sit here?"

"Y--yes--I suppose so.... But I don't want to."

"Then why do you?"

"Well, if I'm not going the _other_ way, and if I'm not going to remain
here--" He looked at her, half laughing. She laughed, too, not exactly
knowing why.

"Don't you really mind my walking a little way with you?" he asked.

"No, I don't. Why should I? Is there any reason? Am I not old enough to
know why we should not walk together? Is it because the sun is going
down? Is there what people call 'danger'?"

He was so plainly taken aback that her fair young face