Her escort, who was distinguished by a mottled complexion, a soiled white waistcoat, and a billy-cock hat tipped knowingly over one red eye, helped himself to a block of dubious taffy, as he inquired with trenchant brevity: "Who's hur?"
"An' bad 'cess to hur English imperance, if she ain't wid him!" went on the lady excitedly; "sure an' it's Mary MacGrotty as'll tell the missus what I seen wid me own two eyes come to-morry mornin'. An' whin I'm t'rough wid hur ye'll not be able to find the lavin's an' lashin's av hur on Staten Island! Aw, the young divil!"
Happily, the unconscious object of these ambiguous remarks moved on without turning her head, and was presently lost to view amid the shifting crowd.
There was much to be seen at every turn of the winding paths, and Jane's girlish laugh rang out more than once at the solemn antics of the brown bears, obviously greedy and expectant despite the official warnings against feeding the animals, which were posted everywhere; at the bellowings and contortions of the mild-eyed seals, as they dashed from side to side of their tank, or "galumphed" about on the rocks. It was Jane who supplied the missing word out of "Alice in Wonderland," and John declared that it was the only word to describe the actions of a seal on dry ground, and hence deserved an honorable place in the dictionary.
Neither of them noticed the lengthening shadows, nor the gradually thinning crowd, till Jane observed a pair of huge eagles settling themselves deliberately upon a branch in their cage. "They look," she said innocently, "as if they were going to roost."
Not till then did the infatuated John Everett bethink himself to glance at his watch.
"They are going to roost, Jane," he said soberly, "and we've a long trip before us."
Jane could never afterwards recall the memory of that homeward journey without a poignant throb of the dismay which overwhelmed her when she spied Mary MacGrotty's leering face in the crowd that waited in the ferryhouse. Miss MacGrotty's countenance was suggestively empurpled, and her gait was swaying and uncertain as she approached Jane.
"I seen yez wid him to th' Paark," she whispered, "ye desaitful young baggage!" Then she stepped back into the crowd and disappeared before the girl could collect her wits to reply.