Now it so happened that at the very moment when Bruce was lying on his back in a ward of the New York hospital, a very pretty young girl, whose name might have been on his lips at that painful point of his career, was walking along a shady garden path, with her arms about the waist of a young girl of her own age and equally pretty. One of these young girls, as the least intelligent of my readers may guess, was Laura Van Kuren; the other was her particular friend, Kitty Harriott. As they walked they turned their heads toward one another and seemed engrossed in an eager conversation. “Hush!” exclaimed Kitty, as she laid a warning hand on her friend’s arm. “Harry might be around somewhere, and I wouldn’t have him hear us for the world.” “Harry’s upstairs finishing his lessons, so you’ll have to put up with me until Mr. Reed lets him loose. He got kept in to-day as usual, but I dare say if he knew you were here he’d climb out of the window and come down into the garden as he did last week.” Kitty colored slightly at Laura’s words, and then observed with a show of carelessness, “I’m sure it’s a matter of perfect indifference to me whether I see him or not. Boys are nuisances anyway, and besides I wouldn’t have him hear what we’re saying for all the money in the world.” What Laura and Kitty were talking about will probably never be known, at any rate it does not materially concern the readers of this book. They were discussing some affairs of their own, and there are no secrets or mysteries in the world which are invested with the solemn importance that young girls of fourteen or fifteen bestow upon those which they whisper about as they walk through a garden arm and arm, and with heads bent close together. They were so absorbed in their talk that they were startled to hear a familiar voice calling to them from one of the upper windows of the house, and they looked up to see Harry climb over the sill and then descend like a young monkey to the ground, by means of the wisteria vine, to the great terror of Kitty, who had no brothers of her own and who fairly screamed with fright when Harry pretended to miss his hold of the vine, dropped two or three feet and then caught himself cleverly and slid down the rest of the way, with ease and rapidity. “Mercy!” cried Kitty to Laura who had watched her brother with apparent indifference, “I don’t see how you can stand there like that and look at him. Suppose he should fall and break his head, how would you feel then?” “Pshaw!” exclaimed Laura carelessly, “he only does that to show off because you’re here. I knew he’d be out here the minute he caught sight of us. Got your lessons yet, Harry?” she continued, addressing herself to her brother as he joined them. “Bother the lessons!” was the boy’s reply, “I’ve got something a great deal more interesting, that I might tell you about if I wanted to. It’s something that you, particularly, Miss Laura, would be glad to know.”