The figure was that of a girl, rather than a woman, apparently about eighteen years of age. She was lying partly upon her side upon the greensward, and evidently had fallen from one of the park seats upon which she had been resting, and upon which her straw shade hat was still lying. She was neatly clad in a suit of dark blue, and her girlish face indicated some culture and refinement.
Near her, upon the grass, lay a piece of brown wrapping paper, and a yard of two of string, evidently removed from a small, square box, which she had dropped and partly fallen upon when stricken with sudden death.
A mere glance gave Nick these superficial features, and he quickly knelt beside the girl, and felt her hand and wrist.
"Dead as a doornail," he murmured to Chick, who also had approached. "I find her hand still warm, however. She can have been dead only a few minutes."
"Heart failure, perhaps," suggested Chick.
"I don't think so."
"Why?"
"She doesn't look it. Her form is plump, her cheeks full, and she appears to have been in perfect health."
"Yet she is dead."
"No doubt of it."