pass between early Egyptian and late State Street, I know I'll get
hysterics and have to be carried shrieking, up the aisle. Let's walk
down Main Street and look in the store windows, and up as far as the
park and back."

"Great!" assented he. "Is there a park?

"I don't know," replied Emma McChesney, "but there is. And for your
own good I'm going to tell you a few things. There's more to this
traveling game than just knocking down on expenses, talking to every
pretty woman you meet, and learning to ask for fresh white-bread heels
at the Palmer House in Chicago. I'll meet you in the lobby at eight."

Emma McChesney talked steadily, and evenly, and generously, from eight
until eight-thirty. She talked from the great storehouse of practical
knowledge which she had accumulated in her ten years on the road. She
told the handsome young cub many things for which he should have been
undyingly thankful. But when they reached the park--the cool, dim,
moon-silvered park, its benches dotted with glimpses of white showing
close beside a blur of black, Emma McChesney stopped talking. Not only
did she stop talking, but she ceased to think of the boy seated beside
her on the bench.

In the band-stand, under the arc-light, in the center of the pretty
little square, some neighborhood children were playing a noisy game,
with many shrill cries, and much shouting and laughter. Suddenly, from
one of the houses across the way, a woman's voice was heard, even
above the clamor of the children.

"Fred-dee!" called the voice. "Maybelle! Come, now."