"At Christmas--that's another story. Hearts get warmed up at Christmas, that, like old Scrooge's, are cold and careless the rest of the year. But for a fellow like Rich Kendrick to keep it up all the year round--you'll find that's not so commonplace a tale." "I don't know much about rich young men." "You've certainly kept this one at a distance," Louis observed, eying his sister curiously in the twilight. She was sitting in a boyish attitude, racket on lap, elbows on knees, chin on clasped hands, eyes on the shadowy garden. "He's been coming here evening after evening until now that his grandfather has gone home, and never once has anybody seen you so much as standing on the porch with him, to say nothing of strolling into the garden. What's the matter with you, Rob? Any other girl would be following him round and getting into his path. Not that you would need to, judging by the way I've seen him look at you once or twice. Have you drawn an imaginary circle around yourself and pointed out to him the danger of crossing it? I should take him for a fellow who would cross it then anyhow!" "Imaginary circles are sometimes bigger barriers than stone walls," she admitted, smiling to herself, "Besides, Lou, I thought somebody else was the person you wanted to see walking in the garden with me." "Forbes? The person I expected to see, you mean. Well, I don't know about Forbes Westcott. He's a mighty clever chap, but I sometimes think his blood is a little thin--like his body. I can't imagine his bothering about a sick child at a hospital, can you? I've never seen him take a minute's notice of Steve's pair; and they're little trumps, if ever children were. Corporations are more in his line than children." * * * * * One thing leads to another in this interesting world. It was not two days after this talk that Roberta herself had a private view of a little affair which proved more illuminating to her understanding of a certain fellow mortal than might have been all the evidence of other witnesses than her own eyes. Returning from school on one of the last days of the term, weary of walls and longing for the soothing stillness and refreshment of outdoors, Roberta turned aside some distance from her regular course to pass through a large botanical park, originally part of a great estate, and newly thrown open to the public. It was, as yet, less frequented than any other of the city parks. Much of it, according to the decree of its donor, a nature lover of discrimination, had been left in a state not far removed from wildness, and it was toward this portion that Roberta took her way; experiencing, with each step along a winding, secluded path she had recently discovered, that sense of escape into luxurious freedom which comes only after enforced confinement when the world outside is at its most alluring.