You may see from this that one did not look for the commonplace in Aunt Edith's house. Moreover, the stranger was not unlike some of her aunt's friends; though he was handsome and assured and noticeably at his ease, Caroline felt that his manner was subtly different from that of the friends of her own family. But even the most unconventional guest had never collected the sideboard silver, and a little feeling was growing in the air ... doubt and a bit of what might have begun to be fear ... when suddenly the man began to laugh. It was abrupt and it rang harshly at first, but grew with every moment warmer and more infectious, so that Caroline, though she felt that she was in some way the cause of it, joined in it finally, in spite of herself. "If you knew what a sight you were!" he exclaimed, wiping his eyes with the napkin, "with your hair all cobwebs and all that dirt on your knees and those finger-marks on your apron, and being so small and all"--he began to chuckle again. "Small?" she repeated portentously. "Oh, I didn't mean small compared with--with anybody else the same size," he assured her quickly. Catching her mollified glance, he went on more soberly. "And how did you get in, now? No doors, I'll bet." "Under the kitchen porch, through the little cellar window and up the back stairs," she explained. "You mean to say you were out in that little back hall and I never heard you?" She nodded. "I took pains to be still," she added, "so as to surprise the--so if there had been--" "I understand," he said gravely, "so as to get them if they had been there. Well, you'd have done it. You're all right. Now, I suppose you're wondering what all this means, aren't you? You haven't got any idea who I am, have you? You don't know one single thing about me, and you may be thinking--" "I know one thing about you," she interrupted, "I know you went to Yale." The man's jaw dropped, his hands gripped the arm of the chair. "And how in--how did you know that?" he cried roughly, with blazing eyes. Caroline shrank a little but faced him. "Your pin," she said, pointing to his vest, "I saw it when you held your arm up." The man sank back in his chair and fingered the little jeweled badge unconsciously. "Well, of all the cute ones ... so you've seen this before?" he suggested. "Of course I have--my brother has one, and my Uncle Joe and Uncle Lindsay and Cousin Lindsay and Cousin Joe." "All went to Yale?" he inquired. "Lindsay and Joe are there now--they're seniors," she informed him. "The General's going when he grows up. All the Holts go there. Grandfather Holt went." "You don't say," said the man, bending forward in genuine interest, "I guess it's a pretty good college, eh?" "The best of them all," she assured him.