osed the door, and Masie was as restless. "Oh, I'm just
as happy as I can be, Uncle Felix. You are always so good. I never had
any one to walk with until you came, except old Aunty Gossberger, and
she never let me look at anything."

Days in June--joyous days with all nature brimful with laughter--days
when the air is a caress, the sky a film of pearl and silver, and the
eager mob of bud, blossom, and leaf, having burst their bonds, are
flaunting their glories, days like these are always to be remembered the
world over. But June days about Gramercy Park are to be marked in big
Red Letters upon the calendar of the year. For in Gramercy Park the
almanac goes to pieces.

Everything is ahead of time. When little counter-panes of snow are still
covering the baby crocuses away off in Central Park, down in Gramercy
their pink and yellow heads are popping up all over the enclosure. When
the big trees in Union Square are stretching their bare arms, making
ready to throw off the winter's sleep, every tiny branch in Gramercy
is wide awake and tingling with new life. When countless dry roots
in Madison Square are still slumbering under their blankets of straw,
dreading the hour when they must get up and go to work, hundreds of
tender green fingers in Gramercy are thrust out to the kindly sun,
pleading for a chance to be up and doing.

And the race keeps up, Gramercy still ahead, until the goal of summer
is won, and every blessed thing that could have burst into bloom has
settled down to enjoy the siesta of the hot season.

Masie was never tired of watching these changes, her wonder and delight
increasing as the season progressed.

In the earlier weeks there had been nothing but flower-beds covered with
unsightly clods, muffled shrubs, and bandaged vines. Then had come a
blaze of tulips, exhausting the palette. And then, but a short time
before--it seemed only yesterday--every stretch of brown grass had lost
its dull tints in a coat of fresh paint, on which the benches, newly
scrubbed, were set, and each foot of gravelled walks had been raked and
made ready for the little tots in new straw hats who were then trundling
their hoops and would soon be chasing their first butterflies.

And now, on this lovely June morning, summer had come--REAL SUMMER--for
a mob of merry roses were swarming up a trellis in a mad climb to reach
its top, the highest blossom waving its petals in triumph.

Felix waited until she had taken it all in, h