"Are you tired? Can you walk half a dozen blocks?" asked Evan of Miss
Lavinia, as we came out.

"No, quite the reverse; I think that I am electrified," she
replied briskly.

"Then we will go to Battery Park," he said, turning south.

"Battery Park, where all the immigrants and roughs congregate! What an
idea! We shall catch smallpox or have our pockets picked!"

"Have you ever _been_ there?" persisted Evan.

"Yes, once, I think, when steamship passengers lathed at the barge
office, and of course I've seen it often in going to Staten Island to
visit Cousin Lucretia."

Evan's only reply was to keep on walking. We did not cross the "bowling
green," but swung to the right toward Pier I, and took the path between
old Castle Garden and the sea wall at the point where one of the fire
patrol boats was resting, steam up and hose nozzles pointed, lance
couchant wise.

Ah, what a picture! No wonder Miss Lavinia adjusted her glasses quickly
(she is blindly nearsighted), caught her breath, and clung to Evan's arm
as the fresh sea breeze coming up from the Narrows wheeled her about.
Before us Staten Island divided the water left and right, while between
it and the Long Island shore, just leaving quarantine and dwarfing the
smaller craft, an ocean liner, glistening with ice, was coming on in