The Herr would, but looked around in vain for the means to do it. He was thinking of a scaling-ladder, when the young woman reappeared at the open door, and bade him enter.
Following the youthful hostess, Mr. Clinch mounted the staircase, but, passing the mysterious wall, could not forbear an allusion to it. “It is old, very old,” said the girl: “it was here when I came.”
“That was not very long ago,” said Mr. Clinch gallantly.
“No; but my grandfather found it here too.”
“And built over it?”
“Why not? It is very, very hard, and SO thick.”
Mr. Clinch here explained, with masculine superiority, the existence of such modern agents as nitro-glycerine and dynamite, persuasive in their effects upon time-honored obstructions and encumbrances.
“But there was not then what you call—this—ni—nitro-glycerine.”
“But since then?”
The young girl gazed at him in troubled surprise. “My great-grandfather did not take it away when he built the house: why should we?”