Beatty himself was a slim, white-handed youth whose abundant blond hair and smooth "way" had made the world, for him, a kind of garden of the Hesperides--the fault with this simile being that he was no Hercules, except in his vanity. In this, his strength was as the strength of ten, though not because his heart was pure. If you had taxed him with that characteristic in which Beatty was eminently taxable--his attitude toward girls--he would have regarded you indulgently a moment, and would then have explained that it was not his fault if "Janes fell for him" and "fooled with the band-wagon" to their own undoing. Surely it was a "free country." In spite, however, of the fact that the country was a free one, the special thing which had sent Beatty out of the city "for his health" was the quest after him by a two-hundred-pound brother of a sister some ninety pounds lighter. The brother, who carried a professional "haymaker in either mitt" for even those of his own gender who could use their fists with fair ability, was as sincere in his desire to interview Beatty as Beatty was considerate in his desire to save the brother the embarrassment of such an interview. A recently-received picture postcard from a friend of Beatty's had, however, intimated that the family of which the brother and sister in question were members had since "gone to the coast," and that Beatty's home city had therefore become again for Beatty a consistent metropolis of a free country, if he wished to return to it. Beatty did wish to return to it; and, returning with round and pretty Daisy Nixon as a travelling companion--made, Beatty felt assured, wholly and dependently his by the manner of her home-leaving--he felt that the several months of his exile had not been wasted. "The boys", so Beatty reflected complacently, as he leaned back on the car-cushion, "will cert'n'ee set up an 'take notice w'en they see this w'at I got here. They cert'n'ee will." CHAPTER II. THE CITY SWALLOWS DAISY. The summer dawn came with a warm melting of the dark and a running out over the sky-floor of spilled light from under the edge of the world. Daisy, her nerves thrilling like the nerves of one drunken with wine, leaned untired on the varnished window-sill; looking, with all her young vitality gathered into shine of eyes and beat of heart, for her first view of the city. The shadow of the express, as the early sun came up, coursed like a hound along the barrow-pits of the right-of-way, and quivered, as it were, in noiseless impact against the stolid cedar fence-posts that stood still and were whipped by in the guise of staring bumpkins as the smart, swift train hummed on its way.