She turned toward the avenue, pushing the go-cart with her free hand. The child and her dog accompanied her, the former still gaily talking. The avenue crossing was a whirlpool of flying motors, of trucks and cars passing on the wide crosstown street, and of pedestrians dodging this way and that. There were, too, many homing baby carriages at this hour. The traffic officer had his hands full. He really could not see everything and everywhere at the same moment. The pale lady, seeing what she thought was a clearing in the tangle of traffic, let the little go-cart slip over the edge of the curbing into the gutter. The child suddenly screamed. "Oh, don't! Oh, don't! Princey, don't let her!" The dog uttered a single bark and seized the skirt of the pale lady from behind. Around the corner into the avenue, making a sharp turn, came a great motor-car--all shiny varnish, beautiful upholstering, and polished nickel trimmings--a car which told of wealth and ease, and the occupants of which seemed of a world quite apart from that of the pale lady and her baby. The wheel of the motor-car crushed the go-cart against the curbing only a second following the child's warning cry. The pale lady fell back from the peril, the dog dragging upon her skirt. The baby, crowing and fearless, confronted the man and woman in the tonneau of the car, which was brought to a stop by the chauffeur within its own length. The little girl was breathless with excitement, but she was, too, vastly observant. She noted that the man in the car was of a florid complexion, grey-haired, and exceedingly stern looking. The lady was very fashionably dressed and revealed a cold and selfish nature in her manner and her gaze. Through a shell-mounted lorgnette she stared at the baby held so high and shielding his trembling mother's face. "How could that person be so careless?" demanded this woman sharply. "Suppose the child had been in the carriage? I shudder to think of it!" The pale lady withdrew from the vicinity of the motor-car. She seemed only desirous of effacing herself in the crowd that was loitering and curious. "Dear me!" proceeded the woman in the car, "people like that do not deserve to have children. And it is a pretty child, too." Then she added to her husband: "What will you do, Henry?" The little girl standing sturdily aside with her dog, and with strong disapproval set upon her flowerlike face, had attracted the attention of the man. He looked up. "The woman's gone!" he said. "She's a fool! Run away! Must be something wrong with her. See here, child," he added harshly to Prince's little mistress, "is she your mother, too?" "No, sir," said the little girl gravely. "She's just a friend of mine. And I don't think it was nice at all of you to smash her baby's carriage. You see, it will be no good at all any more." The woman put up her lorgnette again and stared disapprovingly at the little girl. But her husband was much amused.