As Filson Shelby looked about him he saw more than one young couple sitting side by side on the benches or sauntering languidly along the winding walks, and he knew that he was not the only young fellow who felt the stirring of the season. No one of the other girls was as good-looking as Edna, nor as stylish; he saw this at half a glance. With every minute his desire grew to tell her how dear she was to him, and still he put it off and put it off. Once or twice when she spoke to him he left her remark unanswered, and then hastily begged her pardon for his rudeness. He did not quite know what he was saying, and he feared that she must think him a fool. He was restless, too, and it seemed to him quite impossible to ask her to marry him in such an exposed place as the Battery. "Suppose we go up to Trinity Church?" he suggested. "It's always quiet enough in the graveyard there." "Isn't it quiet enough here?" she asked, as they turned their footsteps away from Castle Garden. "It isn't really noisy, I'll admit," he responded; "but I get mighty tired of those elevated trains snorting along over the back of my head, don't you?" She gave him a queer little look out of the corner of her eye, and then she laughed lightly. "Oh, well," she replied, "if you think Trinity Church Yard is a better place, I don't mind." Then her cheeks suddenly flamed crimson, and she turned away her head. They were now crossing the barren space under the elevated railroad, and, as it happened, the young man did not see her swift blush. As they skirted the oval of Bowling Green the girl nodded to a gray-coated policeman on guard over the little park. "Who's that?" asked the young man, acutely jealous, although he saw that the officer was not less than fifty years old. "That's Mr. O'Rourke," she explained. "He's Rose O'Rourke's father. She was graduated from the Normal College only two years ago, and then she went on the stage. She's getting on splendidly, too. She played Queen Elizabeth last year--and didn't she look it? I'm sure she's a great deal handsomer than that old Queen was." "But that old Queen," he returned, "wasn't the daughter of a sparrow-cop--that's what you call them, don't you?" "I don't call them so," she responded, "for I think it's vulgar to talk slang." "But the boys do call a park policeman a sparrow-cop, don't they?" he persisted. "The little boys do," she answered, "but I know Mr. O'Rourke doesn't like it." "I can understand that," he replied. "If I had Queen Elizabeth for a daughter, I think I should want to be a king myself." "Well," the girl went on to explain, "Rose did want him to give up his appointment. She said she was earning enough for her father not to work. But he wouldn't, for all she urged him. She's a kind girl, is Rose, and not a bit stuck-up. She came up to the college last year and recited for us. You should have heard her do 'Curfew shall not ring to-night'; I tell you she was splendid."