Minerva was in her element all day long. A crowd was a crowd after all even if it was composed of country people, and she kept herself and James in the thick of it. Once we saw her treating six strange little darkey boys and girls to pink lemonade and once I saw her by a happy fluke throw a left-handed ball at the colored man who was soliciting tries at his hard head and she hit him fair and square and then hit the crowd by her hearty, carefree laughter. There was one little incident connected with Minerva’s day at the fair that might have been serious if Minerva’s star had not been in the ascendant when she herself was. A balloon ascension had been advertised for the afternoon and Ethel had wanted to go over and see it, but I told her that the filling of balloons by gas was always a slow process and that we’d see it when it went up. Now, James was more gallant, and when Minerva asked him to take her to see the balloon go up he took her to the very spot. It so happened that when the balloon was filled and they were ready to cast off the guy ropes and go up to the extent of the long rope Minerva took it into her sportive head to catch hold of the rope and the next minute the balloon went up with the stout Minerva dangling beneath. Three things went up—no, four. The balloon, Minerva, a shriek, and a shout—the latter from the crowd. Ethel and I had been in the main tent looking at the horticultural display, but at the familiar shriek we ran out. They had stopped the ascent of the balloon but they flew Minerva full a hundred feet above the crowd, one foot around the rope, the other frantically kicking. It was not an adventure that could have happened to anyone but Minerva or if it had happened to any other person he would have fallen to earth and cast a gloom over the fair. But somehow the crowd seemed to realize that it was a time for mirth and that the girl would come down all right and they howled advice at her. Some told her to climb into the car, a physical impossibility for her, while others asked her to do tricks, supposing that she was an acrobat in disguise. In fact I think it was the general opinion that she was an acrobat. Poor Minerva an acrobat. Far from it. “Oh, James, come an’ git me. I’ll die up here. Oh, Lawdy, why’d I come up?” Minerva was unconsciously quoting her own utterance of a few weeks before. Why had she come up, indeed. Was it to end her days in the clouds?