The Van Kuren mansion and grounds constituted one of the finest places in the upper part of New York, and to Bruce, accustomed to plain ways of living, it seemed almost like some enchanted palace in fairyland. For fully an hour he strolled about the grounds under the guidance of Miss Laura Van Kuren, who talked to him as freely and frankly as if she had known him all her life. Harry was in disgrace, she said, for going off without consulting his tutor, and he would probably be kept in the house until he had learned and recited the lesson which had been given him that morning. Meantime she would entertain his guest herself, and as she was very pretty, very bright, and altogether very friendly and charming, Bruce did not feel the absence of her brother to any great extent. In fact, he was mean enough to hope in his secret heart that Mr. Reed would keep him in the house all the rest of the afternoon so that he and Laura might continue their confidential talk as they walked about together.

69And as they talked, Bruce, who was naturally a diffident boy, became emboldened to such a degree that he made up his mind to ask the young girl if she knew anything about Mr. Dexter and the big, old fashioned house, which had seemed familiar ground to her. The opportunity for putting the question soon came. They were sitting together in a small summer house, eating some strawberries which they had picked in the garden, taking advantage of a moment when the gardener was off in another part of the grounds.

“Did you ever know a Mr. Dexter, who lives near here?” inquired Bruce, during a pause in the conversation.

The girl looked up quickly as she said, “You don’t mean that old gentleman who lives over there about half a mile along the road, do you?”

“Yes, he lives in a big square stone house,” said the boy.

Laura cast a hasty and apprehensive glance around her, and then said in lowered tones, as if she feared that some one were listening, “I know who he is, but papa won’t let us go near his house. Papa says that he’s a bad man and he won’t have anything to do with him, but I think he’s real nice, and one day, about a year 70ago, I was out walking near there, and he saw me and called me in and gave me some big bunches of splendid grapes, and then he asked me my name, and when I told him he seemed surprised, and somehow he wasn’t nice any more, and in a minute or two he told me that I had better run home or my people would be anxious about me. When I got home I told papa about it, and he was awfully angry, and said that I must never go into that yard again, and that if I saw Mr. Dexter coming I must run away. I asked him why, and he wouldn’t tell me. But where did you ever hear of him?”

Bruce hesitated a few minutes before replying, and then made answer, “The chief of our battalion, Mr. Trask, sent me up there the other day on an errand.”

“And did you go inside the grounds and into the house?” demanded Laura, excitedly. “Do tell me all about it, for it is such a romantic looking place that I always feel as if there were some mysterious story connected with it. And then that old Mr. Dexter never goes out anywhere, and nobody seems to know anything about him. My nurse, the one who lived with us for twenty-five years, told me once that Mr. Dexter and papa used to be great friends, but they had some kind of a quarrel. I asked her 71what they quarreled about and she wouldn’t tell me, although I am sure she knows all about it.”

The young girl’s words of course made a deep impression on Bruce, who was now more curious than ever to learn the history of the kindly old gentleman who lived all by himself in the big, square stone house behind the thick hedge.

“Go on and tell me all about what you saw there,” said Laura eagerly. “I am sure there’s some mystery about the place like the ones we read about in the story books. When I was a little bit of a girl, I used to imagine there was a sleeping beauty hidden away behind those dark trees and I expected that some day a prince would come and wake her up and that then there’d be a grand party for everybody around here to go to.”

“Well, there is a mystery about it, and it’s one I’d like very much to solve,” said Bruce quietly.

“A mystery!” exclaimed Laura, “Now you must tell me everything about it before you leave this summer-house,” and she spoke in the tones of a young girl who expected to have her own way.

72“I don’t know whether I ought to say anything to you about it or not,” began the boy in a doubtful voice, “and besides you might not be interested in the mystery because after all it only concerns myself.”

“Go right on and tell me this very minute!” cried the girl imperiously.

“You’ll promise never to tell as long as you live and breathe?”

“Hope to die, if I do,” rejoined Laura fervently, “Now, go on.”

Thus adjured, Bruce told her the story of his visit to Mr. Dexter’s house and the strangely familiar look that the place had worn; and he told her, too, of the conversation that he had had with Charley Weyman and of the advice that the latter had given him. Laura listened to his words with the deepest attention, and when he had finished, she drew a long breath and said, “that’s the most interesting, romantic thing I ever heard about in all my life. And you don’t really know who your folks are? Why you might be almost anybody in the world, and maybe you’re the prince who will come and waken up the princess with a kiss, the same as in the story book. But how are you going to work to find out what it all means? You must tell me everything you do about it for I’ll never be able to sleep at night until you’re restored to your rights.”

Bruce tells Laura the story o............