"Did we come back to our Park?" she asked in surprise. "Oh, no," answered Alice who had run on a little ahead, "look at the big greenhouse and look back there! Now don't you see the swans?" No, it wasn't their own neighborhood park, Mary Jane soon realized that, because there were many new things to be seen. The wonderful tropical greenhouse where palms and bananas and wonderful ferns such as the girls had seen in Florida were growing. And then there were beautiful out of door gardens--Mary Jane liked those even better than the greenhouse gardens, wonderful as those were. She seemed to feel, someway, as though the flowers must like the out of doors better. Right in the middle of the many lovely flower beds in the out of doors gardens, there was a lily pool in which grew water lilies of all colors and sorts. Mary Jane had never seen water lilies before and she thought them very lovely--and rather queer too, if the truth must be told. She decided she would stay right there a while and let Alice and her father explore the rest of the gardens--they wanted to know names of flowers and names didn't seem a bit interesting to the little girl. Just after she had decided to stay there and play, she spied a boy of about her age who was watching the lilies too. "Can you walk all the way around the edge?" he asked her. "Edge of what?" asked Mary Jane. "The edge of the pool," he replied, "see," and he put his foot up on the stone rim of the pool, "all the way around on this." "Can you?" asked Mary Jane. She wanted to see what he would say before she answered his question. "Sure!" he replied, "it's just as easy! Only girls are 'fraidies." "I guess I'm not," declared Mary Jane firmly, "watch!" She stepped up on the stone rim--it was about eight inches wide--and walked boldly along toward the middle of the long side of the pool. "You can, can't you," said the boy admiringly. "Just as easy," replied Mary Jane, for when she found she could do what he had asked she was anxious to have it appear to be as easy for her as for him. "Come on," the boy suggested, "let's race!" "Race?" asked Mary Jane, "how?" "'Round the pool. You start this way, and I'll start that way and the one that gets around home first beats." "All right," agreed Mary Jane, "let's."