ou staying?" said Mrs. Horton. "What do you do? Can't
I or Mr. Horton help you, Joe? A boy alone in a great city like this
might need a friend, you know."

Joe Brown scuffled his feet uneasily.

"I'm all right," he insisted.

"Well, at least come and have some lunch with Sunny and me," invited
Mrs. Horton. "Perhaps you can tell us some place to go? And then come
up to the hotel with us this afternoon and we'll see if Mr. Horton
can't find out something about your aunt."

Joe knew of a place where lunch could be had, and he and Mrs. Horton
and Sunny Boy were soon seated at a white-topped little table eating
sandwiches and milk. Joe ate as though he were half-starved, and Mrs.
Horton pretended to be hungrier than she was so that he would not be
afraid to eat all the sandwiches he wanted.

"Has Sunny seen the carrousel?" Joe demanded, when the ice-cream had
been brought and Sunny was deep in the blissful employment of
scooping spoonfuls out of the white mound before him.

"No, I haven't," answered Sunny quickly.

"Well you'll like it--it's like a big playground," explained Joe.
"Swings, merry-go-rounds, all that kind of stuff, you know. And it's
pretty around there, too. I'll take you if you want to see it."

After they had finished lunch he did take them, and he was very good
and patient, too, about swinging Sunny Boy and giving him rides on all
the contrivances that make small people happy.

"Let the old cat die," called Sunny Boy, as he was being swung for the
third time.

Slower and slower went the swing, and finally it stopped. Sunny Boy
sat still, expecting Joe to come and lift him out, but no Joe came.
Mrs. Horton was quietly reading on one of the benches. Sunny Boy
turned his head. Where was Joe?

"Looking for the boy that was swinging you?" demanded a girl in the
next swing. "He ran off. I saw him going across the park after he gave
you that one good push. Was he your brother? Did he get mad at you?"

Sunny Boy shook his head. He got out of the swing with some difficulty
and trotted over to his mother.

"Joe Brown's gone," he announced mournfully. "Maybe he was mad 'cause
I didn't swing him."

Mrs. Horton closed her magazine.

"Joe gone?" she echoed. "Oh, I'm so sorry! No, precious, I don't think
he was hurt because you didn't swing him. I'm afraid he didn't want to
go up to the hotel with us and see Daddy. I hate to think of a boy his
age all alone in New York."

However, Joe had gone, and th