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.”

179Kitty 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.

180“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.”

“Well, what is it?” asked his sister indifferently, “is it anything very important?”

“Important enough to be in the newspaper and for me to go right down town to see about it,” rejoined her brother.

“Tell me, what it is, Harry, won’t you please?” said Kitty, in the pleading way which she knew he could not resist, and in reply Harry produced a copy of the New York Herald, which he had been hiding behind his back, carefully folded it, and then, holding it in front of the young girls’ faces, permitted them 181to read a single sentence before he snatched the paper away again. What they read was: “The name of the injured fireman is Bruce Decker. He was removed to the New York hospital, where he now lies in a precarious condition.”

Kitty turned toward Laura, whose face was white and whose teeth were tightly clinched. “Isn’t it dreadful?” she cried, as she threw her arm about her friend’s waist.

“Let me see the rest of it, Harry!” cried Laura, imperiously, trying to take the paper from her brother’s hand.

“No, you don’t!” cried the boy, resolutely, as he held the Herald out of her reach, “not until you find that ball of mine you said you lost yesterday.”

“Harry!&r............