"Let's stop a minute, and see if we can't tell where we are," proposed Polly, just as if that were not what they had been doing, at brief intervals, ever since they had passed the unfamiliar fountain. They had come to no satisfactory conclusion, and were still peering sharply into their surroundings, when Polly spied a figure in the path ahead. "There's a boy!" she whispered. "We can ask him." As the lad approached, something in his easy swing seemed familiar. "It looks like--" began Polly--"why, it is! Oh, Cornelius!" she cried excitedly, as the light showed the unmistakable features of her friend of the convalescent ward. She sprang forward to greet him. "Holy saints!" ejaculated Cornelius O'Shaughnessy. "However come you kids out here, this time o' night?" They told their story in breathless snatches, omitting only what had brought them hither. "Come f'r a walk, did ye!" sniffed Cornelius. "Wal, ye've had it sure! Now, see here! I've got to go over on North Second Street to git a receipt f'r some cake Cousin Ellen give my mother, or I'll ketch it when the show's out--that's where my mother is now! She says, the last thing, 'Cornelius, mind yer don't forgit to go up after that receipt, f'r I want to make th' cake in th' mornin'!' I says, 'Sure I won't!'--and I never thought of it again till just as I was goin' up to bed! It happened to pop into my head, and if I didn't hustle down those stairs! An' here I be! Now ye just sit down and wait, and I'll go 'long back wid ye." The boy darted into the shadows and was lost. Polly and David felt more alone than before. "Queer, we should meet him 'way out here, at this time!" David had lowered his voice, as if fearful of being overheard. "He came just to find us," purred Polly. "What a nice boy he is!" "Don't talk so loud!" cautioned David. "He can't hear. He's too far away." "Somebody might." "There isn't anybody," she laughed, yet involuntarily she was obeying David's injunction. They sat there on the bench what seemed a very long time, still Cornelius did not appear. "Let's walk along a little way and meet him," proposed Polly. The deserted park seemed vastly more lonely than an empty street. Polly kept up a soft chatter. David wished silently that Cornelius would come. The shrubbery that bordered the way made weird shadows along the path, and more than once David had to grip his courage in a hurry to keep from halting in the face of some grotesque shade. Queer little prickles crept up and down his legs. Why didn't Cornelius come! "You're not afraid?" he whispered, as Polly clutched his arm more tightly in passing a clump of dogwoods. "Oh, no!" she chirped contentedly, the harmless shadows behind them, "not with you!" The boy's retreating courage came back. He felt himself grown suddenly taller and stronger. He walked forward with a firm, steady step.