"It is good to be here again; but I am afraid you are alone to-night."
"Yes, the young folks are down to the Fair, as usual." Miss Berry's keen eyes saw the disappointment in the earnest face. "I s'pose like as not you wouldn't feel like goin' down any way, wore out as you must be with all that heat."
"I would go gladly, if there were any chance of meeting them; but the people you want to meet are the ones you do not happen upon at the Fair."
Miss Lovina looked at him with a shrewd smile. "Then I guess you'll give me a good mark for once; for it happened to come over me that you might get home to-night, and I said as much to Miss Mildred. I asked her where they'd be, and she agreed to stay by one o' the big horses till the illumination was over."
"What time is it?" asked Page with sudden haste, wringing Miss Lovina's hand cordially.
"Oh, you've got time, I guess," observed Aunt Love, with a comfortable chuckle. "Now haven't I got a head for somethin' more 'n cookies, Mr. Gorham?"
"If I should stop to compliment you as you deserve, I should miss the appointment," was the hearty response, as the young man lifted his hat and hurried down the steps.
The boy in the driver's seat of the Beach wagon just passing did not bear even a faint resemblance to any conventional idea of Cupid; yet surely no power less than that of the little god could have sent that conveyance exactly at the moment it was needed. Page felicitated himself on the occurrence; and in the whole history of the Fair it is doubtful whether better time was made by a pedestrian than his record to-night between the Sixtieth Street entrance and the Court of Honor.
But for all his haste, when he reached the giant horses his friends were not there. He rushed from one to the other with frantic energy, but in vain. No familiar face and form rewarded his search.
The Grand Court was lighted. The first playing of the electric fountains was over; perhaps had been over for some time. Page was too dispirited to look at his watch. For him the surroundings were stale, flat, and unprofitable,—another proof that the Kingdom of Heaven is a condition rather than a place. He was just about moving away with a sense of disappointment which he condemned as unreasonably keen, when there loomed up before him a vision more beautiful to his eyes than the most lovely sculptured angel in the neighborhood.