Bruce had had very little experience with girls, and for that reason he felt chilled and hurt at the manifest change in Laura’s voice and manner. If he had known a little more of the sex he would have been very much flattered to think that this clever, brilliant and fascinating young beauty—for such Laura really was—should have taken the trouble to play upon his feelings at all. And if, moreover, Bruce had dreamt of the amount of interest that he had awakened in her, he would have been that afternoon the most jubilant young man in the whole city. She had been thinking of hardly anything but the romantic history of the good-looking, modest, young fire laddie, and she was at this very moment fairly burning to know if he had found out anything more about the mystery which enveloped his origin and in which it seemed to her that somehow her own friends were associated. If she could only find out why her father had quarreled with Mr. Dexter, she might be able to help him and perhaps to make him comprehend why the old doorway had looked so familiar. For a few minutes the two conversed, stiffly, about matters in which neither had any real interest, for all the world as if they had been full grown people, instead of a mere boy and girl. Then Laura saw that her guest was too shy to broach the topic which was uppermost in the minds of both, and so she relented a little, smiled quite pleasantly, but not too pleasantly, and asked him with assumed carelessness if he had found out anything more about his mysterious origin. “No,” replied Bruce, but with a note of hesitation in his voice, which served to whet Laura’s curiosity to such a degree that she exclaimed, bluntly, “Do tell me if you went to see old Ann, and what she said to you; I am just dying to know.” Her enthusiasm cheered Bruce enormously and restored a good deal of the self-confidence which had disappeared when he believed that he had somehow offended her. “I went to see her,” he said, “but I really could not get anything out of her, for she’s very old and deaf, and seems to be actuated by but one motive, which is to keep to herself whatever matters of family history she may have learned while she was in your father’s employ. I think she knows something about that Mr. Dexter and the reason of the family quarrel, and she might possibly talk to you about it, but she looked upon me as an impertinent stranger, and I could get nothing out of her. But there was something that happened the other day that might or might not lead to some further developments. But I suppose if I were to tell you, you would repeat it to your father or to Harry——” “Go on this minute, and tell me! You know perfectly well we’re not either one of us to talk to anybody about our secret. Just let me once catch you telling, that’s all. Now go on.”