The great, busy city, with its strange faces and hurry and bustle frightened her, even though she dreamed not in her girlish innocence of its festering sin and underlying wickedness.
Sinking down on a secluded seat in Central Park where she had been walking when she first discovered her loss, she sobbed bitterly in her grief and distress—so bitterly that a well-dressed, benevolent-looking lady who was walking along a path with a pretty poodle frisking before her, went up to her with kind abruptness.
"My dear little girl," she said, laying her hand gently on the showering, golden wealth of hair that escaped from Golden's little sailor hat, "what is the matter? Can I help you?"
Golden lifted her head and the lady who had a kind, middle-aged face, decidedly aristocratic, started and uttered a cry of surprise at the beautiful, girlish face with its tearful eyes like purple-blue pansies drowned in dew.
In a moment the lady's quick eyes had seen from the cut and fashion of Golden's simple garments that she was a stranger in New York. She repeated kindly:
"What ails you, my child? Have you become separated from your friends?"
"No, for I have not a friend in this whole, great city. But I have lost my purse," answered Golden, with childish directness.
The lady sat down beside her and regarded her a moment in thoughtful silence. She saw nothing but the most infantile sweetness, purity and truth in the lovely, troubled young face. She was touched and interested.
"So you have lost your purse?" she said. "Have you had your pocket picked?"