"It would not take me five minutes to help her," I said. "I must be careful, but I need not be a churl." And I rode rapidly back. I came in sight of her just as she was turning into the gateway of a pretty house yard. Doubtless she lived there. I turned again and spun away faster than I had gone that day. For more than a month I journeyed and sojourned in a beautiful river valley and among the low foot-hills of the mountains. The weather was fair, the scenery was pleasing, and at last I came to believe that I had passed the boundaries of Cathay. I took no tablets from my little box. I did not feel that I had need of them. In the course of time I ceased to travel north-ward. My vacation was not very near its end, but I chose to turn my face towards the scene of my coming duties. I made a wide circuit, I rode slowly, and I stopped often. One day I passed through a village, and at the outer edge of it a little girl, about four years old, tried to cross the road. Tripping, she fell down almost in front of me. It was only by a powerful and sudden exertion that I prevented myself from going over her, and as I wheeled across the road my machine came within two feet of her. She lay there yelling in the dust. I dismounted, and, picking her up I carried her to the other side of the road. There I left her to toddle homeward while I went on my way. I could not but sigh as I thought that I was again in Cathay. Two days after this I entered Waterton. There was another road, said to be a very pleasant one, which lay to the westward, and which would have taken me to Walford through a country new to me, but I wished to make no further explorations in Cathay, and if one journeys back upon a road by which he came he will find the scenery very different. I spent the night at the hotel, and after breakfast I very reluctantly went to call upon the Willoughbys. I forced myself to do this, for, considering the cordiality they had shown me, it would have required more incivility than I possessed to pass through the town without paying my respects. But to my great joy none of the ladies was at home. I hastened from the house with a buoyant step, and was soon speeding away, and away, and away. The road was dry and hard, the sun was bright, but there was a fresh breeze in my face, and I rolled along at a swift and steady rate. On, on I went, until, before the sun had reached its highest point, I wheeled out of the main road, rolled up a gravel path, and dismounted in front of the Holly Sprig Inn. I leaned my bicycle against a tree and went in-doors. The place did not seem so quiet as when I first saw it. I had noticed a lady sitting under a tree in front of the house. There was a nurse-maid attending a child who was playing on the grass. Entering the hall, I glanced into the large room which I had called the "office," and saw a man there writing at a table.