“Well, that’s only fair, isn’t it?” said she with a bright smile, as she instantly acted upon his advice by disappearing into the house like a flash of lightning. Bram heard the rattling of tools, and as it went on some time without apparent result, he stepped inside the door to see if he could be of any assistance. Claire had thrown open the door of a cupboard to the left of the wide hearth, and was standing on a Windsor chair turning over the contents of a couple of biscuit tins on the top shelf. Bram, slow step by slow step, came nearer and nearer, fascinated by every rapid movement of this, the first feminine creature who had ever aroused his interest. How small her feet were! Bram looked at them, and then turned away his head, as if he had been guilty of something sacrilegious. And the movement of her arm as she turned over the odds and ends in the boxes, the bend of her dark head as she looked down, filled him afresh with that strange new sense of wonder and delight with which she had inspired him on his first sight of her at the works. Against the light of the candle, which she had placed on the shelf, he saw her profile in a new aspect, in which it looked prettier, more childlike than ever. “Better give me t’ box, miss,” suggested Bram presently. Miss Biron started, not knowing that he was so near. “Very well,” said she. “You can look, but I am afraid you won’t find any proper tools here at all.” She was right. But Bram was clever with his hands as well as with his head, and he could “make things do.” So that in a very few minutes he was at work upon the door, while Miss Biron held the light for him, and watched his nimble movements with interest. And while she watched him it occurred to her, now that she felt quite sure he was no mere idler who had burst his way into the house from curiosity, that she had been by no means as grateful for his timely entrance as he had had a right to expect. And the candle began to shake in her hands as she glanced at him rather shyly, and wondered how, without casting blame upon her father, she could make amends to this methodical, quiet, and rather mysterious young Orson for the part he had taken in the whole affair. “I’m really very much obliged to you,” she said at last, with a very great change in her manner from the rather haughty airs she had previously assumed. “I----” She hesitated, and stopped. Bram had glanced quickly up at her, and then his eyes had flashed rapidly back to his work again. “I seem to know your face,” said she with a manner in which sudden shyness struggled with a sense of the dignity it was necessary for her to maintain in these novel circumstances. “Where have I met you before? And what is your name?” she added quickly, as a fresh suspicion rushed into her mind.