"You can do as you please," said she. "If you can save us from loss, do so; if not, let the matter go; I shall not allow it to worry me further." Then she looked up at him with a total change of expression, and for the first time the hint of a smile softened the almost severe outline of her mouth. "You are searching, I hear, for a woman named Harriet Smith; have you found her, sir?"
Delighted at this evidence on her part of a wish to indulge in general conversation, he answered with alacrity:
"Not yet. She was not, as it seems, a well-known inhabitant of this town as I had been led to believe. I even begin to fear she never has lived here at all. The name is a new one to you, I presume."
"Smith. Can the name of Smith ever be said to be new?" she laughed with something like an appearance of gayety.
"But Harriet," he explained, "Harriet Smith, once Harriet Huckins."
"I never knew any Harriet Smith," she averred. "Would it have obliged you very much if I had?"
He smiled, somewhat baffled by her manner, but charmed by her voice, which was very rich and sweet in its tones.
"It certainly would have saved me much labor and suspense," he replied.
"Is not all law-business serious?"