“Better give me t’ box, miss,” suggested Bram presently.
Miss Biron started, not knowing that he was so near.
“Very well,” said she. “You can look, but I am afraid you won’t find any proper tools here at all.”
She was right. But Bram was clever with his hands as well as with his head, and he could “make things do.” So that in a very few minutes he was at work upon the door, while Miss Biron held the light for him, and watched his nimble movements with interest.
And while she watched him it occurred to her, now that she felt quite sure he was no mere idler who had burst his way into the house from curiosity, that she had been by no means as grateful for his timely entrance as he had had a right to expect. And the candle began to shake in her hands as she glanced at him rather shyly, and wondered how, without casting blame upon her father, she could make amends to this methodical, quiet, and rather mysterious young Orson for the part he had taken in the whole affair.
“I’m really very much obliged to you,” she said at last, with a very great change in her manner from the rather haughty airs she had previously assumed. “I——”
She hesitated, and stopped. Bram had glanced quickly up at her, and then his eyes had flashed rapidly back to his work again.
“I seem to know your face,” said she with a manner in which sudden shyness struggled with a sense of the dignity it was necessary for her to maintain in these novel circumstances. “Where have I met you before? And what is your name?” she added quickly, as a fresh suspicion rushed into her mind.
“My name is Elshaw, miss. Bram Elshaw,” he answered, as he sat back on his heels and hunted again in the biscuit tin. “And I’ve seen you. I saw you t’ other day, last Tuesday, at Mr. Cornthwaite’s works. It was me showed you round, miss.”
“Oh!”