Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/276

 did not break in upon it, a little ashamed of having gone about to spy on her secret.

  the forenoon of the following Sunday—a fresh September morning that came cool at the end of a hot week—Don and she rode to Central Park together, on top of a Fifth Avenue stage. The street was busy with its "church parade," with its holiday traffic, with its throngs of sightseers and visitors to town; the bus was as crowded as an excursion boat; and the wind that blew down the clean pavement—newly washed with rain—floated the lashes of the cabbies' whips, fluttered laces and feathers and the extravagant veils of "Fall millinery," tossed black coat-tails, caught at top hats, and moulded over feminine small knees the flowing draperies of clinging skirts. Under the glinting sunlight, it gave movement and animation to the solemnity of Sunday finery and curiosity's slow stare. It sparkled like a breeze on water. It rocked the church bells in a continuous chime.

She leaned back against the back of their seat, looking down on the bravery of fashion inscrutably, her face made more beautiful by the softening blur of her brown veil. Don clung to his perch, bending forward, in all ungraceful angles, his head continually turning, and clutching at his hat. The hollow rumble of the bus axles, jolting in their hubs, thrilled him with the return 