nce that had
sprung up at her side, ten minutes seemed but one. Lost in tragic
musing, she wandered swiftly on; had you, meeting her suddenly,
asked her where she was going, there is little doubt that she would
have told you she was escaping to her palace. And all at once, as
she halted a moment opposite a clear space in the shrubbery and
thickly planted trees that followed the inside line Of the iron
fence, she beheld the palace, high on a terraced knoll. It was of
clean-cut gray stone, rising into a square tower at one corner, from
which the flag drooped in bright folds of red and blue. The windows
shone like mirrors; trim, striped awnings broke the severe angles of
the long building; brilliant flower-beds gleamed from the smooth
turf and bordered the neat walks of crushed gray stone. It stood
massively above its terraces, a very castle of romance to Caroline,
who had never before seen it so polished and beflagged. Wonderingly
she tried the great wrought-iron gate, but it was securely locked,
and a new sign was attached to it:

PRIVATE PROPERTY!

ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED

FROM THE PREMISES!

VISITORS PLEASE RING AT THE LODGE.

Caroline stared at it vaguely. So delicate are the oscillations of
the imaginative imp, that it is hard to say just where he swings his
slaves into determined self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline
severely and demanded of her in the character of an impatient adult
the name of her castle, she would undoubtedly have informed you that
it was Graystone Tower, a long deserted mansion, too expensive
hitherto for any occupants but the children who roamed every inch of
it for the first spring flowers and coasted down its terraces in
winter. But no one was there to shake her, and so with parted lips
and dreamy eyes she speculated as to whether they would fire the
cannon on her arrival and whether she would scatter coins among her
loyal servants or merely order an ox roasted whole in honor of her
safe return.

Soon she reached the smaller gate, but before she tried the handle
the sign warned her that it would be useless. She frowned: no one
could keep up the spirit of a royal home-coming under these
disadvantages. Suddenly her eyes brightened, she tossed her head,
and following what was apparently a little blind alley of shrubbery,
she plunged into a tangle of undergrowth and disappeared. Only her
bicycle, resting against the fence, showed that some one had