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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 24353 ***
+
+
+
+
+WIRED LOVE:
+
+A ROMANCE
+
+OF
+
+DOTS AND DASHES
+
+
+
+BY
+
+ELLA CHEEVER THAYER.
+
+
+"The old, old story,"--in a new, new way.
+
+
+
+DEDICATION.
+
+DEDICATED
+TO
+THE MEMORY
+OF A DEAR
+FRIEND BUT FOR WHOM THIS LITTLE
+WORK HAD NEVER BEEN
+
+[Transcriber's Note. The dedication was printed in American Railroad
+dialect of Morse. It cannot easily be represented in ASCII as it
+requires dashes of different lengths]
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+    I. Sounds from a Distant "C."
+   II. At the Hotel Norman
+  III. Visible and Invisible Friends
+   IV. Neighborly Calls
+    V. Quimby Bursts Forth in Eloquence
+   VI. Collapse of the Romance
+  VII. "Good-By"
+ VIII. The Feast
+   IX. Unexpected Visitors
+    X. The Broken Circuit Reunited
+   XI. Miss Kling Telegraphically Baffled
+  XII. Crosses on the Line
+ XIII. The Wrong Woman
+  XIV. Quimby Accepts the Situation
+   XV. One Summer Day
+  XVI. O. K.
+
+
+
+WIRED LOVE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+SOUNDS FROM A DISTANT "C."
+
+
+-... -- .-.. -.
+
+Just a noise, that is all.
+
+But a very significant noise to Miss Nathalie Rogers, or Nattie, as she
+was usually abbreviated; a noise that caused her to lay aside her book,
+and jump up hastily, exclaiming, with a gesture of impatience:--
+
+"Somebody always 'calls' me in the middle of every entertaining
+chapter!"
+
+For that noise, that little clatter, like, and yet too irregular to be
+the ticking of a clock, expressed to Nattie these four mystic letters:--
+
+"B m--X n;"
+
+which same four mystic letters, interpreted, meant that the
+name, or, to use the technical word, "call," of the telegraph office
+over which she was present sole presiding genius, was "B m," and that "B
+m" was wanted by another office on the wire, designated as "X n."
+
+A little, out-of-the-way, country office, some fifty miles down the
+line, was "X n," and, as Nattie signaled in reply to the "call" her
+readiness to receive any communications therefrom, she was conscious of
+holding in some slight contempt the possible abilities of the human
+portion of its machinery.
+
+For who but an operator very green in the profession would stay _there_?
+
+Consequently, she was quite unprepared for the velocity with which the
+telegraph alphabet of sounds in dots and dashes rattled over the
+instrument, appropriately termed a "sounder," upon which messages are
+received, and found herself wholly unable to write down the words as
+fast as they came.
+
+"Dear me!" she thought, rather nervously, "the country is certainly
+ahead of the city this time! I wonder if this smart operator is a lady
+or gentleman!"
+
+And, notwithstanding all her efforts, she was compelled to "break"--that
+is, open her "key," thereby breaking the circuit, and interrupting "X n"
+with the request,
+
+"Please repeat."
+
+"X n" took the interruption very good-naturedly--it was after
+dinner--and obeyed without expressing any impatience.
+
+But, alas! Nattie was even now unable to keep up with this too expert
+individual of uncertain sex, and was obliged again to "break," with the
+humiliating petition,
+
+"Please send slower!"
+
+"Oh!" responded "X n."
+
+For a small one, "Oh!" is a very expressive word. But whether this
+particular one signified impatience, or, as Nattie sensitively feared,
+contempt for her abilities, she could not tell. But certain it was that
+"X n" sent along the letters now, in such a slow, funereal procession
+that she was driven half frantic with nervousness in the attempt to
+piece them together into words. They had not proceeded far, however,
+before a small, thin voice fell upon the ears of the agitated Nattie.
+
+"Are you taking a message now?" it asked.
+
+Nattie glanced over her shoulder, and saw a sharp, inquisitive nose, a
+green veil, a pair of eye-glasses, and a strained smile, sticking
+through her little window.
+
+Nodding a hasty answer to the question, she wrote down another word of
+the message, that she had been able to catch, notwithstanding the
+interruption. As she did so the voice again queried,
+
+"Do you take them entirely by sound?"
+
+With a determined endeavor not to "break," Nattie replied only with a
+frown. But fate was evidently against her establishing a reputation for
+being a good operator with "X n."
+
+"Here, please attend to this quick!" exclaimed a new voice, and a tall
+gentleman pounded impatiently on the shelf outside the little window
+with one hand, and with the other held forth a message.
+
+With despair in her heart, once more Nattie interrupted "X n," took the
+impatient gentleman's message, studied out its illegible characters, and
+changed a bill, the owner of the nose looking on attentively meanwhile;
+this done, she bade the really much-abused "X n" to proceed, or in
+telegraphic terms, to
+
+"G. A.--the."
+
+"G. A." being the telegraphic abbreviation for "go ahead," and "the" the
+last word she had received of the message.
+
+And this time not even the fact of its being after dinner restrained "X
+n's" feelings, and "X n" made the sarcastic inquiry,
+
+"Had you not better go home and send down some one who is capable of
+receiving this message?"
+
+Now it would seem as if two persons sixty or seventy miles apart might
+severally fly into a rage and nurse their wrath comfortably without
+particularly annoying each other at the moment. But not under present
+conditions; and Nattie turned red and bit her nails excitedly under the
+displeasure of the distant person of unknown sex, at "X n." But no
+instrument had yet been invented by which she could see the expression
+on the face of this operator at "X n," as she retorted, and her fingers
+formed the letters very sharply;
+
+"Do you think it will help the matter at all for you to make a display
+of your charming disposition? G. A.--the--."
+
+"I am happy to be able to return the compliment implied!" was "X n's"
+preface to the continuation of the message.
+
+And now indeed Nattie might have recovered some of her fallen glories,
+being angry enough to be fiercely determined, had not the owner of the
+nose again made her presence manifest by the sudden question:
+
+"Do you have a different sound for every word, or syllable, or what?"
+
+And, turning quickly around to scowl this persevering questioner into
+silence, Nattie's elbow hit and knocked over the inkstand, its contents
+pouring over her hands, dress, the desk and floor, and proving beyond a
+doubt, as it descended, the truth of its label--
+
+"Superior Black Ink!"
+
+And then, save for the clatter of the "sounder," there was silence.
+
+For a moment Nattie gazed blankly at her besmeared hands and ruined
+dress, at the "sounder," and at the owner of the nose, who returned her
+look with that expression of serene amusement often noticeable in those
+who contemplate from afar the mishaps of their fellow beings; then with
+the courage of despair, she for the fourth time "broke" "X n," saying,
+with inky impression on the instrument,
+
+"Excuse me, but you will have to wait! I am all ink, and I am being
+cross-examined!"
+
+Having thus delivered herself, she turned a deliberately deaf ear to "X
+n's" response, which, judging from the way the movable portion of the
+"sounder" danced, was emphatic.
+
+"A little new milk will take that out!" complacently said the owner of
+the nose, watching Nattie's efforts to remove the ink from her dress
+with blotting-paper.
+
+"Unfortunately I do not keep a cow here!" Nattie replied, tartly.
+
+Not quite polite in Nattie, this. But do not the circumstances plead
+strongly in her excuse? For, remember, she was not one of those
+impossible, angelic young ladies of whom we read, but one of the
+ordinary human beings we meet every day.
+
+The owner of the nose, however, was not charitable, and drew herself up
+loftily, as she said in imperative accents,
+
+"You did not answer my question! Do you have to learn the sound of each
+letter so as to distinguish them from each other?"
+
+Nattie constrained herself to reply, very shortly,
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Can you take a message and talk to me at the same time?" pursued the
+investigator.
+
+"No!" was Nattie's emphatic answer, as she looked ruefully at her dress.
+
+"But your instrument there is going it now. Ain't they sending you a
+message?" went on the relentless owner of the nose.
+
+At this Nattie turned her attention a moment to what was being done "on
+the wire," and breathed a sigh of relief. For "X n" had given place to
+another office and she replied,
+
+"No! Some office on the wire is sending to some other office."
+
+The nose elevated itself in surprise.
+
+"Can you hear everything that is sent from every other office?"
+
+"Yes," was the weary reply, as Nattie rubbed her dress.
+
+"What!" exclaimed the owner of the nose, in accents of incredulous
+wonder. "All over the world?"
+
+"Certainly not! only the offices on this wire; there are about twenty,"
+was the impatient reply.
+
+"Ah!" evidently relieved. "But," considering, "supposing you do not
+catch all the sounds, what do you do then?"
+
+"Break."
+
+"Break! Break what? The instruments?" queried the owner of the nose,
+perplexedly, and looking as if that must be a very expensive habit.
+
+"Break the circuit--the connection,--open the key and ask the sending
+office to repeat from the last word I have been able to catch!"
+
+Then seeing unmistakable evidence of more questions in the nose, Nattie
+threw the ink-soaked blotting-paper and her last remnant of patience
+into the waste basket, and added,
+
+"But you must excuse me, I am too busy to be annoy--interrupted longer,
+and there are books that will give you all the information that you
+require!"
+
+So saying, Nattie turned her back, and the owner of the nose withdrew
+it, its tip glistening with indignation as she walked away. As it
+vanished, Nattie gave a sigh of relief, and sat down to mourn her ruined
+dress. Whatever may have been her previous opinion, she was positive now
+that this was the prettiest, the most becoming dress she had ever
+possessed, or might ever possess! Only the old, old story! We prize most
+what is gone forever!
+
+"And all that dreadful man's--or woman's--fault at X n!" cried Nattie,
+savagely. Unjustly too, for if any one was responsible for the accident,
+it was the owner of the nose.
+
+But not long did Nattie dare give way to her misery. That fatal message
+was not yet received.
+
+Glancing over the few words she had of it, she read; "Send the hearse,"
+and then she began anxiously "calling" "X n."
+
+"Hearse," looked too serious for trifling. But either "X n's"
+attention was now occupied in some other direction, or else he--or
+she--was too much out of humor to reply, for it was full twenty minutes
+before came the answering,
+
+"X n."
+
+At which Nattie said as fiercely as fingers could, "I have been after
+you nearly half an hour!"
+
+"Have you?" came coolly back from "X n." "Well, you're not alone, many
+are after me--my landlord among others--not to mention a washerwoman or
+two!"
+
+Then followed the figure "4," which means, "When shall I go ahead?"
+
+"Waxing jocose, are you?" Nattie murmured to herself, as she replied:
+
+"G. A.--hearse--"
+
+"G. A.--_what?_"
+
+"Hearse," repeated Nattie, in firm, clear characters.
+
+To her surprise and displeasure "X n" laughed--the circumstance being
+conveyed to her understanding in the usual way, by the two letters "H
+a!"
+
+"What are you laughing at?" she asked.
+
+"At your grave mistake!" was "X n's" answer, accompanied by another "Ha!
+To convert a _horse_ into a hearse is really an idea that merits a smile!"
+
+As the consciousness of her blunder dawned upon her, Nattie would gladly
+have sank into oblivion. But as that was impossible, she took a fresh
+blank, and very meekly said,
+
+"G. A.--horse--!"
+
+With another laugh, "X n" complied, and Nattie now succeeded in
+receiving the message without further mishap.
+
+"What did you sign?" she asked, as she thankfully wrote the last word.
+Every operator is obliged to sign his own private "call," as well as the
+office "call," and "O. K." at the close of each message.
+
+"C." was replied to Nattie's question.
+
+"O. K. N. B m," she then said, and added, perhaps trying to drown the
+memory of her ludicrous error in politeness, "I hope another time I
+shall not cause you so much trouble."
+
+"C" at "X n" was evidently not to be exceeded in little speeches of
+this kind, for he--or she--responded immediately,
+
+"On the contrary, it was I who gave you trouble. I know I must certainly
+have done so, or you never could have effected such a transformation as
+you did. Imagine the feelings of the sender of that message, had he
+found a hearse awaiting his arrival instead of a horse!"
+
+Biting her lip with secret mortification, but determined to make the
+best of the matter outwardly, Nattie replied,
+
+"I suppose I never shall hear the last of that hearse! But at all events
+it took the surliness out of you."
+
+"Yes, when people come to a hearse they are not apt to have any more
+kinks in their disposition! I confess, though," "C" went on frankly, "I
+was unpardonably cross; not surly, that is out of my line, but cross. In
+truth, I was all out of sorts. Will you forgive me if I will never do so
+again?"
+
+"Certainly," Nattie replied readily. "I am sure we are far enough apart
+to get on without quarreling, if, as they say, distance lends
+enchantment!"
+
+"Particularly when I pride myself upon my sweet disposition!" said "C."
+
+At which Nattie smiled to herself, to the surprise of a passing
+gentleman, on whom her unconscious gaze rested, and who thought, of
+course, that she was smiling at him.
+
+Appearances are deceitful!
+
+"I fear you will have to prove your sweetness before I shall believe in
+it," Nattie responded to "C," all unaware of what she had done, or that
+the strange young gentleman went on his way with the firm resolve to
+pass by that office again and obtain another smile!
+
+"It shall be my sole aim hereafter," "C" replied; and then asked, "Have
+you a pleasant office there?"
+
+"I regret to say no." Then looking around, and describing what she
+saw--"a long, dark little room, into which the sun never shines, a crazy
+and a wooden chair, a high stool, desk, instruments--that is all--Oh!
+And me!"
+
+"Last but not least," said "C;" "but what a contrast to my office! Mine
+is all windows, and in cold days like this the wind whistles in until my
+very bones rattle! The outward view is fine. As I sit I see a stable, a
+carpenter's shop, the roof of the new Town Hall that has ruined the
+town, and--"
+
+"Excuse me,"--some one at another office on the line here broke in--and
+with more politeness than is sometimes shown in interrupting
+conversations on the wire--"I have a message to send," and forthwith
+began calling.
+
+At this Nattie resumed her interrupted occupation of bewailing her
+spoiled dress, but at the same time she had a feeling of pleased
+surprise at the affability of "C" at "X n."
+
+"I wonder," she thought, as she took up her book again, and tried to
+bury the remembrance of her accident therein, "I do wonder if this 'C'
+is _he_ or _she!_"
+
+Soon, however, she heard "X n" "call" once more, and this time she laid
+her book aside very readily.
+
+"You did not describe the principal part of your office--yourself!" "C"
+said, when she answered the "call."
+
+"How can I describe myself?" replied Nattie. "How can anyone--properly?
+One sees that same old face in the glass day after day, and becomes so
+used to it that it is almost impossible to notice even the changes in
+it; so I am sure I do not see how one can tell how it really does
+look--unless one's nose is broken--or one's eyes crossed--and mine are
+not--or one should not see a looking-glass for a year! I can only say I
+am very inky just now!"
+
+"Oh! that is too bad!" "C" said; then, with a laugh, "It has always been
+a source of great wonder to me how certain very plain people of my
+acquaintance could possibly think themselves handsome. But I see it all
+now! Can you not, however, leave the beauty out, and give me some sort
+of an idea-about yourself for my imagination to work upon?"
+
+"Certainly!" replied Nattie, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye that
+"C" knew not of. "Imagine, if you please, a tall young man, with--"
+
+"C" "broke" quickly, saying,
+
+"Oh, no! You cannot deceive me in that way! Under protest I accept the
+height, but spurn the sex!"
+
+"Why, you do not suppose I am a lady, do you?" queried Nattie.
+
+"I am quite positive you are. There is a certain difference in the
+'sending,' of a lady and gentleman, that I have learned to distinguish.
+Can you truly say I am wrong?"
+
+Nattie evaded a direct reply, by saying,
+
+"People who think they know so much are often deceived; now I make no
+surmises about you, but ask, fairly and squarely, shall I call you Mr.,
+Miss, or Mrs. 'C'?"
+
+"Call me neither. Call me plain 'C', or picture, if you like, in place
+of your sounder, a blonde, fairy-like girl talking to you, with pensive
+cheeks and sunny--"
+
+"Don't you believe a word of it!"--some one on the wire here broke in,
+wishing, probably, to have a finger in the pie; "picture a hippopotamus,
+an elephant, but picture no fairy!"
+
+"Judge not others by yourself, and learn to speak when spoken to!" "C"
+replied to the unknown; then "To N.--You know the more mystery there is
+about anything, the more interesting it becomes. Therefore, if I envelop
+myself in all the mystery possible, I will cherish hopes that you may
+dream of me!"
+
+"But I am quite sure you can, with propriety be called _Mr._ 'C '--plain,
+as you say, I doubt not," replied Nattie. "Now, as it is time for me to
+go home, I shall have to say good-night."
+
+"To be continued in our next?" queried "C."
+
+"If you are not in a cross mood," replied Nattie.
+
+"Now that is a very unkind suggestion, after my abject apology. But,
+although our acquaintance had a _grave re-hearse_-al, I trust it will have
+a happy ending!"
+
+Nattie frowned.
+
+"If you will promise never to say '_grave_,' '_hearse,_' or anything in the
+undertaking line, I will agree never to say 'cross!'" she said.
+
+"The _undertaking_ will not be difficult; with all my heart!" "C"
+answered, and with this mutual understanding they bade each other
+"good-night."
+
+"There certainly is something romantic in talking to a mysterious
+person, unseen, and miles away!" thought Nattie, as she put on her hat.
+"But I would really like to know whether my new friend employs a tailor
+or a dressmaker!".
+
+Was Nattie conscious of a feeling that it would add to the zest of the
+romantic acquaintance should the distant "C" be entitled to the use of
+the masculine pronoun?
+
+Perhaps so! For Nattie was human, and was only nineteen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+AT THE HOTEL NORMAN.
+
+
+Miss Nattie Rogers, telegraph operator, lived, as it were, in two
+worlds. The one her office, dingy and curtailed as to proportions, but
+from whence she could wander away through the medium of that slender
+telegraph wire, on a sort of electric wings, to distant cities and
+towns; where, although alone all day, she did not lack social
+intercourse, and where she could amuse herself if she chose, by
+listening to and speculating upon the many messages of joy or of sorrow,
+of business and of pleasure, constantly going over the wire. But the
+other world in which Miss Rogers lived was very different; the world
+bounded by the four walls of a back room at Miss Betsey Kling's. It must
+be confessed that there are more pleasing views than sheds in greater or
+less degrees of dilapidation, a sickly grape-vine, a line of flapping
+sheets, an overflowing ash barrel; sweeter sounds than the dulcet notes
+of old rag-men, the serenades of musical cats, or the strains of a
+cornet played upon at intervals from nine P. M. to twelve, with the
+evident purpose of exhausting superfluous air in the performer's lungs.
+Perhaps, too, there was more agreeable company possible than Miss Betsey
+Kling.
+
+Therefore, in the evening, Sunday and holiday, if not in the telegraphic
+world of Miss Rogers, loneliness, and the unpleasant sensation known as
+"blues" are not uncommon.
+
+Miss Betsey Kling, who, although in reduced circumstances, boasted of
+certain "blue blood," inherited from dead and gone ancestors--who
+perhaps would have been surprised could they have known at this late day
+how very genteel they were in life,--rented a flat in Hotel Norman, on
+the second floor, of which she let one room; not on account of the
+weekly emolument received therefrom, ah, no! but "for the sake of having
+some one for company." In this respect she was truly a contrast to Mrs.
+Simonson, a hundred and seventy-five pound widow, who lived in the
+remaining suite of that floor, and who let every room she possibly
+could, in order, as she frankly confessed, to "make both ends meet." For
+a constant struggle with the "ways and means" whereby to live had quite
+annihilated any superfluous gentility Mrs. Simonson might have had,
+excepting only one lingering remnant, that would never allow her to hang
+in the window one of those cheaply conspicuous placards, announcing:
+
+"Rooms to Let."
+
+Miss Betsey Kling was a spinster--not because she liked it, but on
+account of circumstances over which she had no control,--and her
+principal object in life, outside of the never-expressed, but much
+thought-of one of finding her other self, like her, astray, was to keep
+watch and ward over the affairs of the occupants of neighboring flats,
+and see that they conducted themselves with the propriety becoming the
+neighbors of so very genteel and unexceptionable a person as Miss Betsey
+Kling. In pursuit of this occupation she was addicted to sudden and
+silent appearances, much after the manner of materialized spirits, at
+windows opening into the hall, and doors carelessly left ajar. She was,
+however, afflicted with a chronic cold, that somewhat interfered with
+her ability to become a first-class listener, on account of its
+producing an incessant sniffle and spasms of violent sneezing.
+
+Miss Rogers going home to that back room of hers, found herself still
+pondering upon the probable sex of "C." Rather to her own chagrin, when
+she caught her thoughts thus straying, too; for she had a certain scorn
+of anything pertaining to trivial sentiment. A little scorn of herself
+she also had some-times. In fact, her desires reached beyond the
+obtaining of the every-day commonplaces with which so many are content
+to fill their lives, and she possessed an ambition too dominant to allow
+her to be content with the dead level of life. Therefore it was that any
+happy hours of forgetfulness of all but the present, that sometimes came
+in her way, were often followed by others of unrest and dissatisfaction.
+There were certain dreams she indulged in of the future, now hopefully,
+now utterly disheartened, that she was so far away from their
+realization. These dreams were of fame, of fame as an authoress. Whether
+it was the true genius stirring within her, or that most unfortunate of
+all things, an unconquerable desire without the talent to rise above
+mediocrity, time alone could tell.
+
+Compelled by the failure and subsequent death of her father to support
+herself, or become a burden upon her mother, whose now scanty means
+barely sufficed for herself and two younger children, Nattie chose the
+more independent, but harder course. For she was not the kind of girl to
+sit down and wait for some one to come along and marry her, and relieve
+her of the burden of self-support. So, from a telegraph office in the
+country, where she learned the profession, she drifted to her present
+one in the city.
+
+To her, as yet, there was a certain fascination about telegraphy. But
+she had a presentiment that in time the charm would give place to
+monotony, more especially as, beyond a certain point, there was
+positively no advancement in the profession. Although knowing she could
+not be content to always be merely a telegraph operator, she resolved to
+like it as well and as long as she could, since it was the best for the
+present.
+
+As she lighted the gas in her room, she thought not of these things that
+were so often in her mind, but of "C," and then scolded herself for
+caring whether that distant individual was man or woman. What mattered
+it to a young lady who felt herself above flirtations?
+
+So there was a little scowl on her face as she turned around, that did
+not lessen when she beheld Miss Kling standing in her door-way. For Miss
+Rogers did not, to speak candidly, find her landlady a congenial spirit,
+and only remained upon her premises because being there was a lesser
+evil than living in that most unhomelike of all places, a
+boarding-house.
+
+"I thought I would make you a call," the unwelcome visitor remarked,
+rubbing her nose, that from constant friction had become red and
+shining; "I have been lonesome to-day. I usually run into Mrs.
+Simonson's in the afternoon, but she has been out since twelve o'clock.
+I can't make out--" musingly, "where she can have gone! not that she is
+just the company I desire. She has never been used to anything above the
+common, poor soul, and will say 'them rooms,' but she is better than no
+one, and at least can appreciate in others the culture and standing she
+has never attained," and Miss Kling sneezed, and glanced at Nattie with
+an expression that plainly said her lodger would do well to imitate, in
+this last respect, the lady in question.
+
+"I am very little acquainted with Mrs. Simonson," Nattie replied, with a
+tinge of scorn curling her lip, for, in truth, she had little reverence
+for Miss Kling's blue blood. "Her lodgers like her very much, I believe;
+at least, Quimby speaks of her in the highest terms."
+
+"Quimby!" repeated Miss Kling, with a sniffle of contempt. "A
+blundering, awkward creature, who is always doing or saying some
+shocking thing!"
+
+"I know that he is neither elegant nor talented, and is often very
+awkward, but he is honest and kind-hearted, and one is willing to
+overlook other deficiencies for such rare qualities," Nattie replied, a
+little warmly, "and so Mrs. Simonson feels, I am confident."
+
+Miss Kling eyed her sharply.
+
+"Not at all! Allow me, Miss Rogers, to know! Mrs. Simonson endures his
+blunders, because, as she says, he can live on the interest of his
+money, 'on a pinch,' and she thinks such a lodger something of which to
+boast. On a pinch, indeed!" added Miss Kling, with a sneeze, and giving
+the principal feature in her face something very like the exclamation,
+"a very tight pinch it would be, I am thinking!" Then somewhat
+spitefully she continued, "But I was not aware, Miss Rogers, that you
+and this Quimby were so intimate! The admiration is mutual, I suppose?"
+
+"There is no admiration," replied Nattie, with a flash of her gray eyes,
+inwardly indignant that any one should insinuate she admired
+Quimby--honest, blundering Quimby, whom no one ever allowed a handle to
+his name, and who was so clever, but like all clever people, such a
+dreadful bore. "I have only met him two or three times since that
+evening you introduced us in the hall, so there has hardly been an
+opportunity for anything of that kind."
+
+"You spoke so warmly!" Miss Kling remarked. "However," conciliatingly,
+"I don't suppose by any means that you are in love with Quimby! You are
+much too sensible a young lady for such folly!"
+
+Nattie shrugged her shoulders, as if tired of the subject, and after a
+spasm of sneezing, Miss Kling continued:
+
+"As you intimate, he means all right, poor fellow! and that is more than
+I should be willing to acknowledge regarding Mrs. Simonson's _other_
+lodger, that Mr. Norton, who calls himself an artist. I am sure I never
+saw any one except a convict wear such short hair!" and Miss Kling shook
+her head insinuatingly.
+
+From this beginning, to Nattie's dismay, Miss Kling proceeded to the
+dissection of their neighbors who lived in the suite above, Celeste
+Fishblate and her father. The former, Miss Kling declared, was setting
+her cap for Quimby. Mr. Fishblate being an unquestionably disagreeable
+specimen of the _genus homo_, with a somewhat startling habit of exploding
+in short, but expressive sentences--never using more than three
+consecutive words--Nattie naturally expected to hear him even more
+severely anathematized than any one else. But to her surprise, the lady
+conducting the conversation declared him a "fine sensible man!" At which
+Nattie first stared, and then smiled, as it occurred to her that Mr.
+Fishblate was a widower, and might it not be that Miss Kling
+contemplated the possibility of _his_ becoming that other self not yet
+attained?
+
+Fortunately Miss Kling did not observe her lodger's looks, so intent was
+she in admiration of Mr. Fishblate's fine points, and soon took her
+leave.
+
+After her departure, Nattie changed her inky dress, and put on her hat
+to go out for something forgotten until now. As she stepped into the
+hall, a tall young man, with extremely long arms and legs, and mouth,
+that, although shaded by a faint outline of a mustache, invariably
+suggested an alligator, opened the door of Mrs. Simonson's rooms,
+opposite, and seeing Nattie, started back in a sort of nervous
+bashfulness. Recovering himself, he then darted out with such
+impetuosity that his foot caught in a rug, he fell, and went headlong
+down stairs, dragging with him a fire-bucket, at which he clutched in a
+vain effort to save himself, the two jointly making a noise that echoed
+through the silent halls, and brought out the inhabitants of the rooms
+in alarm.
+
+"What is it? Is any one killed?" shrieked from above, a voice,
+recognizable as that of Celeste Fishblate--two names that could never by
+any possibility sound harmonious.
+
+"What _is_ the matter now?" screamed Miss Kling, appearing at her door
+with the query.
+
+"Have you hurt yourself?" Nattie asked, as she went down to where the
+hero of the catastrophe sat on the bottom stair, ruefully rubbing his
+elbow, but who now picked up his hat and the fire-bucket, and rose to
+explain.
+
+"It's nothing--nothing at all, you know!" he said, looking upward, and
+bowing to the voices; "I caught my foot in the rug, and--"
+
+"Did you tear the rug?" here anxiously interrupted the listening Mrs.
+Simonson, suddenly appearing at the banisters; not that she felt for her
+lodger less, but for the rug more, a distinction arising from that
+constant struggle with the "ways and means."
+
+"Oh, no! I assure you, there was no damage done to the rug--or
+fire-bucket," the victim responded, reassuringly, and in perfect good
+faith. "Or myself," he added modestly, as if the latter was scarce worth
+speaking of. "I--I am used to it, you know," reverting to his usual
+expression in accidents of all descriptions.
+
+"I declare I don't know what you will do next!" muttered Mrs. Simonson,
+retreating to examine the rug.
+
+"I think you must be in love, Quimby!" giggled Celeste; an assertion
+that caused Miss Kling to give vent to a contemptuous "Humph" and
+awakened in its subject the most excruciating embarrassment. The poor
+fellow glanced at Nattie, blushed, perspired, and frantically clutching
+at the fire-bucket, stammered a protest,--
+
+"Now really--I--now!--you are mistaken, you know!"
+
+"But people who are in love are always absent-minded," persisted
+Celeste, with another giggle. "So it is useless to--"
+
+But exactly what was useless did not appear, as at this point a
+stentorian voice, the voice of Miss Kling's "fine, sensible man,"
+roared,
+
+"Enough!"
+
+At which, to Quimby's relief, Celeste, always in mortal fear of her
+father, hastily withdrew. Not so Miss Kling. She silently waited to see
+if Nattie and Quimby would go out together, and was rewarded by hearing
+the latter ask, as Nattie made a movement towards the door,--
+
+"May I--might I be so bold as to--as to ask to be your escort?"
+
+"I should be pleased," Nattie answered, adding with a mischievous
+glance, but in a low tone, aware of the listening ears above,--
+
+"That is, if you will consent to dispense with the fire-bucket!"
+
+Quimby started, and dropping the article in question, as if it had
+suddenly turned red-hot, ejaculated,--
+
+"Bless my soul! really I--I beg pardon, I am sure!" then bashfully
+offering his arm, they went out, while Miss Kling balefully shook her
+head.
+
+"So, Celeste will insist upon it that you are in love, because you
+tripped and fell down stairs!" Nattie said, by way of opening a
+conversation as they walked along--a remark that did not tend to lessen
+his evident disquietude. And having now no fire-bucket, he clutched at
+his necktie, twirling it all awry, not at all to the improvement of his
+personal appearance, as he replied,--
+
+"Oh! really, you know! its no matter! I--I am used to it, you know!"
+
+"Used to falling in love?" queried Nattie, with raised eyebrows.
+
+"No--no--the other, you know, that is--" gasped Quimby, hopelessly lost
+for a substantive. "I mean, it's a mistake, you know" then with a
+desperate rush away from the embarrassing subject, "Did you know
+we--that is, Mrs. Simonson, was going to have a new lodger?"
+
+"No, is she?" asked Nattie.
+
+"Yes, a young lady coming to-morrow, a--a sort of an actress--no, a
+prima donna, you know. A Miss Archer. If you and she should happen to
+like each other, it would be pleasant for you, now wouldn't it?" asked
+Quimby eagerly, with a devout hope that such might be, for then should
+he not be a gainer by seeing more often the young lady by his side,
+whose gray eyes had already made havoc in his honest and susceptible
+heart.
+
+"It would be pleasant," acquiesced Nattie, in utter unconsciousness of
+Quimby's selfish hidden thought; "for I am lonely sometimes. Miss Kling
+is not--not--"
+
+"Oh, certainly! of course not!" Quimby responded sympathetically and
+understandingly, as Nattie hesitated for a word that would express her
+meaning. "They never are very adaptable--old maids, you know!"
+
+"But it isn't because they are unmarried," said Nattie, perhaps feeling
+called upon to defend her future self, "but because they were born so!"
+
+"Exactly, you know, that's why no fellow ever marries them!" said
+Quimby, with a glance of bashful admiration at his companion.
+
+Nattie laughed.
+
+"And this Miss Archer. Did you say she was a prima donna?" she
+questioned.
+
+"Yes--that is, a sort of a kind of a one, or going to be, or some way
+musical or theatrical, you know," was Quimby's lucid reply. "I'll make
+it a point to--to introduce you if you will allow me that pleasure?"
+
+"Certainly," responded Nattie, and added, "I shall be quite rich, for
+me, in acquaintances soon, if I continue as I have begun. I made a new
+one on the wire to-day."
+
+"On the--I beg pardon--on the what?" asked Quimby, with visions of
+tight-ropes flashing through his mind.
+
+"On the wire," repeated Nattie, to whom the phrase was so common, that
+it never occurred to her as needing any explanation.
+
+"Oh!" said the puzzled Quimby, not at all comprehending, but unwilling
+to confess his ignorance.
+
+"The worst of it is, I don't know the sex of my new friend, which makes
+it a little awkward," continued Nattie.
+
+Quimby stared.
+
+"Don't--I beg pardon--don't know her--his--sex?" he repeated, with
+wide-open eyes.
+
+"No, it was on the wire, you know!" again explained Nattie, privately
+thinking him unusually stupid; "about seventy miles away. We first
+quarreled and then had a pleasant talk."
+
+"Talk--seventy miles--" faltered the perplexed Quimby; then brightening,
+"Oh! I see! a telephone, you know!"
+
+"No indeed!" replied Nattie, laughing at his incomprehensibility. "We
+don't need telephones. We can talk without--did you not know that? And
+what is better, no one but those who understand our language can know
+what we say!"
+
+"Exactly!" answered Quimby, relapsing again into wonder. "Exactly--on
+the wire!"
+
+"Yes, we talk in a language of dots and dashes, that even Miss Kling
+might listen to in vain. And do you know," she went on confidentially,
+"somehow, I am very much interested in my new friend. I wish I knew--its
+so awkward, as I said--but I really think it's a gentleman!"
+
+"Exactly--exactly so!" responded Quimby, somewhat dejectedly. And during
+the remainder of their walk he was very much harassed in his mind over
+this interest Nattie confessed in her new friend--"on the wire,"--who
+_would_ appear as a tight-rope performer to his perturbed imagination.
+And he felt in his inmost heart that it would be a great relief to his
+mind if this mysterious person should prove a lady, even though, if a
+gentleman, he _was_ many miles away. For Quimby, with all his obtusity,
+had an inkling of the power of mystery, and was already far enough on
+the road to love to be jealous.
+
+Of these thoughts Nattie was of course wholly unaware, and chatted
+gayly, now of the distant "C" and now of the coming Miss Archer, to
+her somewhat abstracted, but always devoted companion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE FRIENDS.
+
+
+With perhaps one or two less frowns than usual at the destiny that
+compelled her to forego any morning naps, and be up and stirring at the
+early hour of six o'clock, Nattie arose next morning, aware of a more
+than accustomed willingness to go to the office. And immediately on her
+arrival there, she opened the key, and said, without calling, just to
+ascertain if her far-away acquaintance would notice it,--
+
+"G. M. (good morning) C!"
+
+Apparently "C" had his or her ears on the alert, for immediately came
+the response,
+
+"G. M., my dear!"
+
+A form of expression rather familiar for so short an acquaintance, that
+is, supposing "C" to be a gentleman. "But then, people talk for the sake
+of talking, and never say what they mean on the wire," thought Nattie.
+Besides, did not the distance in any case annul the familiarity?
+Therefore, without taking offense, even without comment, she asked:
+
+"Are we to get along to-day without quarreling?"
+
+"Oh! it is you, is it, 'N'?" responded "C," "I thought so, but wasn't
+quite sure. Yes, you, may 'break' at every word, and I will still be
+amiable."
+
+"I should be afraid to put you to the test," replied Nattie, with a
+laugh.
+
+"Do you then think me such a hopelessly ill-natured fellow?" inquired
+"C."
+
+"Fellow!" triumphantly repeated Nattie. "Be careful, or you will betray
+yourself!"
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed "C." "Stupid enough of me, wasn't it? But it only
+proves the old adage about giving a man rope enough to hang himself."
+
+"Don't mention old adages, for I detest them!" said Nattie. "Especially
+that one about the early bird and the worm. But I fear, as a _mys_tery,
+you are not a success, _Mr._ 'C'."
+
+"A very bad attempt at a pun," said "C." "I trust, however, you will not
+desert me, now your curiosity is satisfied, Miss 'N.'?"
+
+"Don't be in such a hurry to _miss_ me. I have said nothing yet to give
+you that right," Nattie replied.
+
+"Nevertheless, it's utterly impossible not to miss you. I missed you
+last night after you had gone home, for instance. "But _you_, a great,
+hulking fellow! No, indeed! In my mind's eye--"
+
+But what was in "C's" mind's eye did not just then appear, for at this
+interesting point some one at Nattie's window, saying. "I would like to
+send a message," obliged her reluctantly to interrupt him with,
+
+"Excuse me a moment, a customer is waiting."
+
+She then turned as much of her attention as she could separate from "C"
+to the customer, enabled, perhaps, to answer the volley of miscellaneous
+questions poured upon her with unusual affability, on account of the
+settlement--and in the right direction!--of that vexed question of "C's"
+sex.
+
+But she could not help thinking, as she glanced at the message finally
+written, and handed to her that had the writer attended a little more to
+the spelling-book, and a little less to the accumulation of diamond
+rings, it might have been a very wise proceeding. But perhaps
+
+"Meat me at the train," was sufficiently intelligible for all purposes.
+
+"What was it about your mind's eye?" Nattie asked over the wire, at the
+first opportunity.
+
+"C" was again on the alert, without being called, for the answer came,
+after a moment, just long enough for him to cross the room, perhaps.
+
+"As I was saying, in the eye aforesaid, me thinks I see a tall slim
+young lady with blue eyes and light hair, and dimples that come into her
+cheeks when I stupidly betray my sex."
+
+As "C" said this, Nattie glanced into the glass just over her head at
+the reflection of her face. A face whose expression was its charm; that
+never could be called pretty, but that nevertheless suggested a
+possibility--only a possibility, of being handsome. For there is a vast
+difference between pretty and handsome. Pretty people seldom know very
+much; but to be handsome, a person must have brains; an inner as well as
+an outer beauty.
+
+"How fortunate it is you are not near enough to be disenchanted!" Nattie
+replied to "C." "Your mind's eye is very unreliable. Tall! why, I'm
+only five feet! never was guilty of a dimple, and my eyes are of some
+dreadfully nondescript color."
+
+"If you are only five feet, you never can look down on me, which is a
+great consolation," "C" responded. "And for the rest imagination will
+clothe the unseen with all possible beauty and grace."
+
+"I am sure I am perfectly willing you should imagine me as beautiful as
+you please," replied Nattie, "As long as we don't come face to face,
+which in all probability we never shall, you will not know how different
+from the real was the ideal."
+
+"Please don't discourage me so soon, for I hope sometime we may clasp
+hands bodily as we do now spiritually, on the wire--for we do, don't
+we?" said "C" asserting before he questioned.
+
+"Certainly--here is mine, spiritually!" responded Nattie, without the
+least hesitation, as she thought, of the miles of safe distance between.
+"Now may I ask--"
+
+"Oh! come, come! this will never do! You are getting on altogether too
+fast for people who were quarreling so yesterday!" broke in a third
+party, who signed, "Em." and was a young lady wire-acquaintance of
+Nattie's, some twenty miles distant.
+
+"You think the circuit of our friendship ought to be broken?" queried
+Nattie.
+
+"Ah! leave that to time and change, by which all circuits are broken,"
+remarked "C."
+
+"Yes, but such a sudden friendship is sure to come to a violent end,"
+Em. said. "Suppose now I should report you for talking so much--not to
+say flirting--on the wire, which is against the rules you know?"
+
+"In that event I should know how to be revenged", replied "C." "I should
+put on my 'ground' wire and cut off communication between you and that
+little fellow at Z!"
+
+Em. laughed, and perhaps feeling herself rather weak on that point,
+subsided, and Nattie began, "Sentiment--"
+
+But the pretty little speech on that subject she had all ready was
+spoiled by an operator--who evidently had none of it in his
+soul--usurping the wire with the prefaced remark,
+
+"Get out!"
+
+The wire being unusually busy, this was all the conversation Nattie and
+"C" had during the day, but Just before six o'clock came the call,
+
+"B m--B m--B m--X n."
+
+"B m," immediately responded Nattie.
+
+"I merely want to ask for my character before saying g. n. (good night).
+Haven't I been amiable to-day?" was asked from X n.
+
+"Very, but there is no merit in it, as Mark Tapley would say," replied
+Nattie. "You had no provocation."
+
+"Now I flattered myself I had 'come out strong!' Alas! what a hard thing
+it is to establish one's reputation," said "C," sagely; "but I trust to
+Time, who, after all, is a pretty good fellow to right matters,
+notwithstanding a dreadful careless way he has of strewing crow's feet
+and wrinkles."
+
+"Has he dropped any down your way?" asked Nattie.
+
+"Hinting to know my age now, are you? Oh! curiosity! curiosity! Yes, I
+think he has implanted a perceptible crow's foot or two; but he has
+spared the hairs of my head, and for that I am thankful! Did you ever
+see an aged operator? I never did, and don't know whether it's because
+electricity acts as a sort of antidote, or whether they grow wise as
+they grow old, and leave the business. The case is respectfully
+submitted."
+
+"Your organs of discernment must be very fully developed," Nattie
+replied. "It is fortunate I am too far away to be analyzed personally;
+but I don't think I will stay after hours to discuss these things to
+night. I am tired, for I have had a run of disagreeable people to-day.
+So g. n."
+
+"G. n., my dear," said the gallant "C," in whose composition bashfulness
+seemed certainly to have no part. But then--as Nattie previously had
+thought--he was along way off.
+
+It must be confessed "C" could hardly fail to have been flattered had he
+known how full Nattie's thoughts were of him, as she went home that
+night. A little foolish in the young lady, who rather prided herself on
+being strong-minded, this deep interest; but hers was a lonely life,
+poor girl, and "C" was certainly entertaining "over the wire," whatever
+he might be in a personal interview--of course, not very likely to
+occur. No! it was all "over the wire!"
+
+As she reached her own door, absorbed in these meditations, she heard
+the sound of a merry laugh over in Mrs. Simonson's, and saw a large
+trunk in the hall. From this she inferred that Miss Archer had arrived,
+a fact Miss Kling confirmed, with uplifted eyebrows, and the remark,
+
+"There must be something wrong about a young woman who has _three_ immense
+trunks!"
+
+Although Nattie felt a desire to make this newcomer's acquaintance, it
+was less strong than it might have been had she arrived a week sooner;
+for it was undoubtedly true that the interest she had in her new,
+invisible friend far exceeded that towards a possible visible one. Such
+is the power of mystery!
+
+The office now possessed a new charm for her. To the surprise of an idle
+clerk in an office over the way, who had always noted how particular she
+was to arrive at exactly eight A. M., and to leave precisely at six P.
+M., she suddenly began to appear before hours in the morning, and to
+stay after hours at night. Of course this benighted person was not aware
+that by so doing she secured quiet chats with "C," uninterrupted, and
+without being told in the middle of some pretty speech to "Shut up!"
+or to " Keep out!" by some soured and inelegant operator on the line, to
+whom the romance of telegraphy had long ago given place to the
+monotonous, poorly-paid, everyday reality.
+
+And it came to pass that "C" soon shared all her daily life, thoughts
+and troubles. Annoyances became lighter because she told him, and he
+sympathized. Any funny incident that occurred was doubly funny, because
+they laughed over it together, and so it went on.
+
+That "good-night, dear," previously unchallenged, became a regular
+institution and still, on account of those long miles between them,
+Nattie made only a faint remonstrance when his usual morning salutation
+grew into "Good-morning, little five-foot girl at B m!" then was
+shortened to "Good-morning, little girl!"
+
+And all this time it never occurred to them that excepting "N" was for
+Nattie, and "C" for Clem, they knew really nothing about each other, not
+even their names.
+
+Thus the acquaintance went on, amid much banter from the
+before-mentioned "Em.," and interruptions from disgusted old settlers.
+
+It was by no means to the satisfaction of Quimby, that Miss Rogers
+should thus allow the telegraphic world to supersede the one in which he
+had a part. That intimacy with Miss Archer, of which he had dreamed, as
+a means of improving his own acquaintance with her towards whom his
+susceptible heart yearned, did not make even a beginning. In fact, what
+with Nattie being engaged all day, and stopping after hours for a quiet
+talk with "C," and Miss Archer having many evening engagements, the two
+had never even met. And how a young man was to make himself agreeable in
+the eyes of a young lady he only caught a glimpse of occasionally, was a
+problem quite beyond solution by the brain of Quimby.
+
+Two or three times, in his distraction of mind, he had stood in very
+light clothing, about Nattie's hour of returning home, full twenty-five
+minutes at the outer door of the hotel, with a cold wind blowing on him.
+But Nattie, utterly unconscious of this devotion, was enjoying the
+conversation of "C;" and so at last, half frozen, poor Quimby was
+compelled to retreat, his object unaccomplished. He would willingly have
+wandered about the halls for hours, and waylaid her, had it not been
+that the fear of those two terrific ones, Miss Kling and Mr. Fishblate,
+"catching him at it," prevailed over all other considerations. As for
+going to her office, Quimby, in his bashfulness, dared not even walk
+through the street containing it, lest she should penetrate his motives,
+and be offended at his presumption. Under these circumstances he began
+to despair of ever having the opportunity, to say nothing of the
+ability, of making an impression, when one afternoon he chanced to meet
+Miss Archer in the vicinity of Nattie's office, and was instantly
+overwhelmed by a brilliant idea; that was to ask Miss Archer--to whom he
+had talked much of Nattie during their short acquaintance--if she would
+call on her with him, omitting the fact that he dared not go alone.
+
+Miss Archer, a little curious to see the lady with whom, she was
+secretly convinced, Quimbv was in love, readily consented to the
+proposition; and so it came to pass that Nattie was interrupted in an
+account she was giving "C" of a man who wanted to send a message to his
+wife, and seemed to think "My wife, in Providence," all the address
+necessary, by the unexpected apparition of Quimby, accompanied by a
+stylish and handsome young lady.
+
+"I--I beg pardon, if I--if I intrude, you know," he stammered, beginning
+to wish he had not done it, as Nattie, with an "Excuse me, visitors," to
+"C," rose and came forward. "But I--I brought Miss Archer! To make you
+acquainted, you know."
+
+"I am indebted to you for that pleasure," Nattie said, with a smile, as
+she took the hand Miss Archer extended, saying,
+
+"I have heard Quimby speak about you so much, I already feel
+acquainted."
+
+Quimby blushed, and nervously fingered his necktie.
+
+"Such near neighbors--so lonesome--thought you ought to know each
+other," he said confusedly.
+
+"Yes, I began to fear we were destined never to meet," Nattie replied,
+as she held the private door open for her visitors to enter, a
+proceeding contrary to rules, but she preferred rather to transgress in
+this way, than in manners, and leave her callers standing out in the
+cold.
+
+"I don't know as we ever should, had it not been for Quimby," said Miss
+Archer, glancing curiously around the office. "I believe I never was in
+a telegraph office before. Don't you find the confinement rather
+irksome?"
+
+"Sometimes," Nattie replied; "but then there always is some one to talk
+with on the wire,' and in that way a good deal of the time passes."
+
+"Talk with--on the wire?" queried Miss Archer, with uplifted eyebrows.
+"What does that mean? Do tell me. I am as ignorant as a Hottentot about
+anything appertaining to telegraphy. Nearly all I know is, you write a
+message, pay for it, and it goes."
+
+Nattie smiled and explained, and then turning to Quimby, asked,
+
+"You remember my speaking about 'C' and wondering whether a gentleman or
+lady?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" Quimby remembered, and fidgeted on his chair.
+
+"He proved to be a gentleman."
+
+"Oh, yes; exactly, you know!" responded Quimby, looking anything but
+elated.
+
+"It must be very romantic and fascinating to talk with some one so far
+away, a mysterious stranger too, that one has never seen," Miss Archer
+said, her black eyes sparkling. "I should get up a nice little
+sentimental affair immediately, I know I should, there is something so
+nice about anything with a mystery to it."
+
+"Yes, telegraphy has its romantic side--it would be dreadfully dull if
+it did not," Nattie answered.
+
+"But--now really," said Quimby, who sat on the extreme edge of the
+chair, with his feet some two yards apart from each other; "really, you
+know, now suppose--just suppose, your mysterious invisible shouldn't
+be--just what you think, you know. You see, I remember one or two young
+men in telegraph offices, whose collars and cuffs are always soiled, you
+know!"
+
+"I have great faith in my 'C,'" laughed Nattie.
+
+"It would be dreadfully unromantic to fall in love with a soiled
+invisible, wouldn't it," said Miss Archer, with an expressive shrug of
+her shoulders.
+
+Nattie colored a little, and answered hastily:
+
+"Oh! it's only fun, you know;" at which Quimby brightened, and Miss
+Archer inquired gayly,
+
+"_Pour passer le temps?_"
+
+Nattie nodded in reply, as she took a message from a lady, who had only
+a few words to send, but found it necessary to ask about fifteen
+questions, and relate all her recent family history, concluding with the
+birth of twins, before being satisfied her message would go all
+right,--a proceeding that made Quimby stare, and afforded Miss Archer
+much amusement.
+
+"Oh! that is nothing!" Nattie said, in answer to the latter's
+significant laugh, when the customer had retired. "Some very ludicrous
+incidents occur almost daily, I assure you. Truly, the ignorance of
+people in regard to telegraphy is surprising; aggravating too,
+sometimes. Just imagine a person thinking a telegraph office is managed
+on the same principle as those stores where they at first charge double
+the value of the goods, for the sake of giving people the pleasure of
+beating them down! It was only yesterday that a woman tried to coax me
+to take off ten cents, and then snarled at me because I wouldn't, and
+declared she would patronize some other office next time, as if it
+mattered to me, except to wish she might! And there was some one calling
+on the wire with a rush message all the time she was detaining me!"
+
+"They think you ought to be harnessed with a punch, like a horse-car
+conductor," said Miss Archer, laughing, and added,
+
+"I wish I knew how to telegraph, I would have a chat with your 'C.' I am
+getting very much interested in him!"
+
+Quimby twirled his hat uneasily.
+
+"But--I beg pardon, but he may be a soiled invisible, you know!" he
+hinted, seemingly determined to keep this possibility uppermost.
+
+Before Nattie could again defend her "C" a woman, covered with cheap
+finery, thrust her head into the window.
+
+"How much does it cost to telegram?" she asked.
+
+"To what place did you wish to send?" Nattie inquired.
+
+With a look, as if she considered this a very impertinent question, the
+woman replied, with a slight toss of her head,
+
+"It's no matter about the place, I only want to know what it costs to
+telegram!"
+
+"That depends entirely on where the message is going," answered Nattie,
+with a glance at Miss Archer.
+
+"Oh, does it?" said the woman, looking surprised. "Well, to Chicago,
+then."
+
+Nattie told her the tariff to that city.
+
+"Is that the cheapest?" she then asked. "I only want to send a few
+words, about six."
+
+"The price is the same for one or ten words," said Nattie rather
+impatiently.
+
+The woman gave another surprised stare.
+
+"That's strange!" she said incredulously. "Well"--moving away--"I'll
+write then; I am not going to pay for ten words when I want to send
+six."
+
+"That is a specimen of the ignorance you were just speaking of, I
+presume," laughed Miss Archer, as soon as the would-be sender was out of
+hearing.
+
+"Yes," replied Nattie, "it's hard to make them believe sometimes that
+everything less than ten words is a stated price, and that we only
+charge per word after that number. And, speaking of ignorance, do you
+know I once actually had a letter brought me, all sealed, to be sent
+that way by telegraph."
+
+Miss Archer laughed again, and Quimby inquired,
+
+"I--I beg pardon, but did I understand that the last came within your
+experience?"
+
+"Yes," Nattie replied, "and I had a young woman come in here once, who
+asked me to write the message for her, and after I had done so, in a
+somewhat hasty scrawl, she took it, looked it all over critically,
+dotted some 'i's,' and crossed some 't's,' I all the time staring,
+amazed, and wondering if she supposed I could not read my own
+hand-writing, then scowled and threw it down disgustedly saying, 'John
+never can read _that!_ I shall have to write it myself. He knows my
+writing!'"
+
+"Can such things be!" cried Miss Archer.
+
+"But," asked Quimby, from his uncomfortable perch on the edge of the
+chair, "Isn't there a--a something--a _fac-simile_ arrangement?"
+
+"I believe there is, but it is not yet perfected," replied Nattie.
+
+"Ah, well! then the young woman was only in advance of the age," said
+Miss Archer; "and what with that and the telephone, and that dreadful
+phonograph that bottles up all one says and disgorges at inconvenient
+times, we will soon be able to do everything by electricity; who knows
+but some genius will invent something for the especial use of lovers?
+something, for instance, to carry in their pockets, so when they are far
+away from each other, and pine for a sound of 'that beloved voice,' they
+will have only to take up this electrical apparatus, put it to their
+ears, and be happy. Ah! blissful lovers of the future!"
+
+"Yes!--I--yes, that would be a good idea!" cried Quimby eagerly; then
+instantly fearing he had betrayed himself, turned red, and clutched at
+the mustache that eluded his grasp. Miss Archer looked at him and
+smiled, and Nattie was about to expound further when she heard "C"
+asking on the wire,
+
+"N, haven't your visitors gone yet? Tell them to hurry!"
+
+"You wouldn't say so," Nattie responded to him, "if you knew what a
+handsome young lady one of my two visitors is. We have been talking
+about you, too."
+
+"Introduce me, please do," said "C."
+
+"What are you doing, now?" asked Miss Archer, watchful of Nattie's
+smiling face.
+
+Leaving the key open, Nattie explained, to Quimby's unconcealed
+dissatisfaction; but Miss Archer was delighted.
+
+"Oh! do introduce me! Can you any way?" she said.
+
+Nattie nodded affirmatively, and taking hold of the key, wrote, "She is
+as anxious as you are. So allow me to make you acquainted with Miss
+Archer, a young lady with the prettiest black eyes I ever saw!"
+
+"Is she an operator?" asked "C."
+
+"Doesn't know a dot from a dash," Nattie answered him.
+
+"Then tell her in plain language, that this is the happiest moment of my
+life, and also that black eyes are my especial adoration!"
+
+"What have you been telling him about me, you dreadful girl?" queried
+Miss Archer, shaking her head remonstratingly when this was repeated to
+her. "But you may inform him I am delighted to make his acquaintance,
+and hope he has curly hair, because it's so nice to pull!"
+
+"With the hope of such a happy occurrence, I will hereafter do up my
+hair in papers," "C" replied when Nattie had repeated this to him. "But
+do not slight your other visitor."
+
+"Shall I introduce you?" asked Nattie holding the key open, and turning
+to Quimby, who had betrayed various symptoms of uneasiness while this
+conversation was going on, and who now grasped his hat firmly, as if to
+throw it at the little sounder that represented the offending "C," and
+answered,
+
+"Oh, no! I--really I--I beg pardon, but it's really no matter about
+me--you know!"
+
+"He says he is of no consequence," Nattie said to "C."
+
+"He!" repeated "C," "a he, is it? Ought I to be jealous? Is it you, or
+our black-eyed friend who is the attraction?"
+
+Nattie replied only with a ha!
+
+"Is he talking now?" asked Miss Archer, mindful of Nattie's smile, and
+nodding towards the clattering sounder, at which Quimby was scowling.
+
+"No, some other office is sending business now, so our conversation is
+suspended," answered Nattie, as much to Quimby's relief as to Miss
+Archer's regret.
+
+"I shall improve the acquaintance, however," the latter said. "I am very
+curious to know how he looks, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, but I do not suppose I ever shall," Nattie answered.
+
+"Then you--I beg pardon, but you never expect to see him?" queried
+Quimby, with great earnestness.
+
+"In all probability we never shall meet. I think I should be dreadfully
+embarrassed if we should," Nattie replied, as she handed the day's cash
+to the boy who just then came after it. "Face to face we would really be
+strangers to each other."
+
+Quimby evinced more satisfaction at this than the occasion seemed to
+warrant, as Nattie noticed, with some surprise, but several customers
+claiming her attention, all at once, and all in a hurry, she was kept
+too busy for some time, to think upon the cause.
+
+As soon as she was at leisure, Miss Archer, with the remark that they
+had made an unpardonably long call, arose to go.
+
+But you must certainly come again, "Nattie said, cordially, already
+feeling her to be an old friend.
+
+"Indeed I shall," she answered, in the genial way peculiar to her. "You
+have a double attraction here, you know. Can I say good-by to 'C?'"
+
+"I fear not, as the wire is busy," replied Nattie. "But I will say it
+for you as soon as possible."
+
+"Yes, tell him, please, that I will see him--I mean, hear the clatter he
+makes again soon: You, I shall see at the hotel, I hope, now we have
+met."
+
+"Oh, yes!" Nattie replied. "I am very much indebted to Quimby for making
+us acquainted."
+
+"Oh! really now, do you mean it?" exclaimed Quimby, with sudden delight.
+"I am so glad I've done something right at last, you know! Always doing
+something wrong, you know!" then hugging his hat to his breast, and
+speaking in a confidential whisper, he added, to the great amusement of
+the two girls, "I have a presentiment--a horrible presentiment--I'm
+always making mistakes, you see. I'm used to it, but I couldn't get used
+to _that_, you know--that some day I shall marry the wrong woman!"
+
+So saying, and with a last glance of implacable dislike at the sounder,
+Quimby bowed awkwardly, and departed with the laughing Miss Archer.
+
+Soon after their departure, "C" asked,
+
+"Has Black-Eyed Susan gone?"
+
+"Yes," responded Nattie. "She left a good-by for you, and means to
+improve your acquaintance."
+
+"Thrice happy I! But about this he? Who is this he? I want to know all
+about him. Is he a hated rival?"
+
+"Ha! I never heard him say so, but I will ask him if you wish. He lives
+in the same building with me, and brought Miss Archer, a fellow-lodger,
+down to introduce her."
+
+"Do you ever go to balls, concerts, theaters, or to ride with him?"
+asked "C," who seemed determined to make a thorough investigation of
+matters.
+
+"Dear me! No! He never asked me!"
+
+"Do you wish he would?" persisted "C."
+
+"Of course I do!" replied Nattie, somewhat regardless of truth.
+
+"It is my opinion I shall be obliged to come and look after you," "C"
+replied, at this admission.
+
+"But you wouldn't know whether you were looking after the right person
+or not, when you were here!" Nattie said, with a smiling face and
+sparkling eyes turned in the direction of an urchin,' flattening his
+nose against her window-glass, who immediately fled, overwhelmed with
+astonishment, at being, as he supposed, so smiled upon.
+
+"And why wouldn't I?" questioned "C."
+
+"Because I should recognize you immediately, and should pretend it was
+not I, but some substitute," replied Nattie.
+
+"You seem to be very positive about recognizing me. Is your intuitive
+bump so well-developed as all that?" asked "C."
+
+"Yes," Nattie responded. "And then you know there would be a twinkle in
+your eye that would betray you at once."
+
+"Indeed! We will see about that, young lady. But now, as a customer has
+been drumming on my shelf for the past five minutes, in a frantic
+endeavor to attract my attention, and has by this time worked himself
+into a fine irascible temper, because I will not even glance at him, I
+must bid you good-night, with the advice, watch for that _twinkle_, and be
+sure you discover it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+NEIGHBORLY CALLS.
+
+
+In the opinion of Miss Betsey Kling, a lone young woman, who possessed
+three large trunks, a more than average share of good looks, and who
+went out and came in at irregular and unheard-of hours, was a person to
+be looked after and inquired about; accordingly, while Miss Archer was
+making the acquaintance of Nattie, and of the invisible "C," Miss Kling
+descended upon Mrs. Simonson, with the object of dragging from that lady
+all possible information she might be possessed of, regarding her latest
+lodger. As a result, Miss Kling learned that Miss Archer was studying to
+become an opera singer, that she occasionally now sang at concerts,
+meeting with encouraging success, and further, that she possessed the
+best of references. But Miss Kling gave a sniffle of distrust.
+
+"Public characters are not to be trusted. Do you remember," she asked
+solemnly, "do you remember the young man you once had here, who ran away
+with your teaspoons and your toothbrush?"
+
+Ah, yes! Mrs. Simonson remembered him perfectly. Was she likely to
+forget him? But he, Mrs. Simonson respectfully submitted, was not a
+singer, but a commercial traveler.
+
+Miss Kling shook her head.
+
+"That experience should be a warning! You cannot deny that no young
+woman of a modest and retiring disposition would seek to place herself
+in a public position. Can you imagine _me_ upon the stage?" concluded Miss
+Kling with great dignity.
+
+Mrs. Simonson was free to admit that her imagination could contemplate
+no such possibility, and then, neither desirous of criticising a good
+paying lodger, or of offending Miss Kling--that struggle with the ways
+and means having taught her to, offend no one if it could possibly be
+avoided--she changed the subject by expatiating at length upon a topic
+she always found safe--the weather. But Miss Celeste Fishblate coming
+in, Miss Kling left the weather to take care of itself, and returned to
+the more interesting discussion, to her, of Miss Archer.
+
+Celeste, a young lady favored with a countenance that impressed the
+beholder as being principally nose and teeth, and possessing a large
+share of the commodity known as _gush_, was ready enough to be the
+recipient of her neighbor's collection of gossip. But, to Miss Kling's
+no small disgust, she was rather lukewarm in pre-judging the new-comer.
+In truth, although somewhat alarmed at the "three trunks," lest she
+should be out-dressed, she was already debating within herself whether
+Miss Archer, as a medium by which more frequent access to Mrs.
+Simonson's gentlemen lodgers could be obtained, was not a person whose
+acquaintance it was desirable to cultivate. Moreover, the words opera
+singer raised ecstatic visions of a possible future introduction to some
+"ravishing tenor," the remote idea of which caused her to be so visibly
+preoccupied, that Miss Kling took her leave with angry sniffles, and
+returned home to ponder over what she had heard.
+
+A few days after, Nattie, who had quite paralyzed Miss Kling by refusing
+to listen to what she boldly termed unfounded gossip about her new
+friend, went to spend an evening with her.
+
+Miss Archer occupied a suite of rooms, consisting of a parlor and a very
+small bed-room that had been Mrs. Simonson's own, but which on account
+of the "ways and means" she had given up now, confining herself
+exclusively to the kitchen, fitted up to look as much like a parlor as a
+kitchen could.
+
+"And how is 'C'?" asked Miss Archer as she warmly welcomed her visitor.
+
+"Still as agreeable as ever," Nattie replied. "I told him I was coming
+to see you this evening and he sent his regards, and wished he could be
+of the party."
+
+"I wish he might. But that would spoil the mystery," rejoined Miss
+Archer. "Do you know what the 'C' is for?"
+
+"'Clem,' he says. His other name I don't know. He would give me some
+outlandish cognomen if I should ask. But it isn't of much consequence."
+
+"It might be if you should really fall in love with him," laughed Miss
+Archer.
+
+"Fall in love! Over the wire! That is absurd, especially as I am not
+susceptible," Nattie answered, coloring a trifle, however, as she
+remembered how utterly disconsolate she had been all that morning,
+because a "cross" on the wire had for several hours cut off
+communication between her office and "X n."
+
+"You think it would be too romantic for real life? Doubtless you are
+right. And the funny incidents--have you anything new in your
+note-book?"
+
+"Only that a man to-day, who had perhaps just dined, wanted to know the
+tariff to the U--nited St--at--ates," answered Nattie, glancing at some
+autumn leaves tastefully arranged on the walls and curtains. "But 'C'
+was telling me about a mistake that was lately made--not by him, he
+vehemently asserts, although I am inclined to think it message as
+originally sent was, 'John is dead, be at home at three,' when it was
+delivered it read, 'John is dead _beat_; home at three.'"
+
+"How was that possible?" asked Miss Archer, laughing,
+
+"I suppose the sending operator did not leave space enough between the
+words; we leave a small space between letters, and a longer one between
+words," explained Nattie.
+
+"The operator who received it must have been rather stupid not to have
+seen the mistake," Miss Archer said. "I have too good an opinion of your
+'C' to believe it was he. But every profession has its comic side as
+well as its tricks, I suppose; mine, I am sure, does. But I am learning
+something every day, and I am determined," energetically, "to fight my
+way up!"
+
+Stirred by Miss Archer's earnestness, there came to Nattie an uneasy
+consciousness that she herself was making no progress towards her only
+dreamed of ambition, and a shade crossed her face; but without observing
+it, Miss Archer continued,
+
+"I always had a passion for the lyric stage, and now there is nothing to
+prevent--" did a slight shadow here darken also her sunny eyes, gone
+instantly?-- "I shall make music my life's aim. Fortunately I have money
+of my own to enable me to study, and--"
+
+Miss Archer's speech was here interrupted in a somewhat startling
+manner, by the door suddenly flying open, banging against the piano with
+a prodigious crash, and disclosing Quimby, red and abashed, outside.
+
+Nattie jumped, Miss Archer gave a little scream, and the Duchess, Mrs.
+Simonson's handsome tortoise-shell cat, so named from her extreme
+dignity, who lay at full length upon a rug, drew herself up in haughty
+displeasure.
+
+"I--I beg pardon, I am sure!" stammered the more agitated intruder.
+"Really, I--I am so ashamed I--I can hardly speak! I was unfortunate
+enough to stumble--I'm used to it, you know,--and I give you my word of
+honor I never saw such a--such an extremely lively door!"
+
+"It is of no consequence," Miss Archer assured him. "Will you come in?"
+
+"Thank you, I--I fear I intrude," answered Quimby, clutching his
+watch-chain, and glancing at Nattie, guiltily conscious of the strong
+desire to do so that had taken possession of him since the sound of her
+voice had penetrated to his apartment, and in perfect agony lest she
+should surmise it. However, upon Miss Archer's assuring him that they
+would be very glad of his company, he ventured to enter. But the door
+still weighed upon his mind, for after carefully closing it, he stood
+and stared at it with a very perplexed face.
+
+"Never saw such a lively door, you know!" he repeated, finally sitting
+down on the piano-stool, and folding both arms across one knee, letting
+a hand droop dismally on either side, while he looked alternately at
+Miss Archer, Nattie, and the part of the room mentioned, at which the
+former laughed, and then, with the kind intention of drawing his mind
+from the subject of his forced appearance, suggested a game of cards.
+
+"Then we shall have to have one more person, shall we not?" Nattie
+asked, at this proposition.
+
+"It would be better," replied Miss Archer. "Let me see--Mrs. Simonson
+does not play--"
+
+"Mr. Norton does!" interrupted Quimby, forgetting the door, in his
+eagerness to be of service. "I--I would willingly ask him to join us, if
+you will allow me!"
+
+"That queer young artist who lodges here, you mean?" inquired Miss
+Archer.
+
+"Oh! But he is a dreadful Bohemian!" commented Nattie, distrustfully,
+before Quimby could reply.
+
+"Is he?" laughed Miss Archer. "Then ask him in by all means! I am
+something of a Bohemian myself, and shall be delighted to meet a kindred
+soul! I do not know as I have ever observed the gentleman particularly,
+but if I remember rightly, he wears his hair very closely cropped, and
+is not a model of beauty?"
+
+"But he is just as nice a fellow as if he was handsome outside!" said
+Quimby earnestly, doubtless aware of his own shortcomings in the Adonis
+line. "He is a little queer to be sure, doesn't believe in love or
+sentiment or anything of that sort, you know, and he says he wears his
+hair cropped close because people have a general idea that artists are
+long-haired, lackadaisical fellows,--not to say untidy, you know,--and
+he is determined that no one shall be able to say it of him!"
+
+Miss Archer was much amused at this description.
+
+"He certainly is an odd genius, and decidedly worth knowing. Bring him
+in, I beg of you," she said.
+
+But Quimby hesitated and glanced at Nattie.
+
+"He is not very unconventional, I--I do not think he will shock you very
+much if you do not get him at it, you know!" he said to her
+apologetically.
+
+"Oh! I am not at all alarmed!" said Nattie, adding, as her thoughts
+reverted to Miss Kling, "I think, after all, a Bohemian is better than a
+perfect model of conventionalism!"
+
+Miss Archer heartily indorsed this sentiment, and Quimby went in quest
+of Mr. Norton, with whom he soon returned.
+
+Unlike enough to the melancholy artist of romantic fame was Mr. Norton.
+Short, rather stout, inclined to be red in the face, large-nosed,
+scrupulously neat in dress, clean shaven, and closely-cropped hair--all
+this the observing Miss Archer saw at a glance as she bowed to him in
+response to Quimby's introduction. But the second glance showed her that
+the expression of his face was so jovial that its plainness vanished as
+if by magic on his first smile.
+
+If Nattie, possibly a trifle prejudiced in his disfavor, expected him to
+outrage common propriety in some way, such as keeping on his hat,
+smoking a black pipe, or turning up his pantaloons leg, she was
+utterly--shall we say disappointed? Truth to tell, before ten minutes
+had elapsed from the time of his arrival, she was wishing she knew more
+"Bohemians," and even hoping "C" was one!
+
+At home as soon as he entered the room, in a very short time the
+strangers of a moment ago were his life-long friends. Full of anecdotes
+and quaint remarks, he was the life of the little party. Miss Archer,
+however, was a very able backer--Cyn, as they all found themselves
+calling her soon after Jo Norton's advent, and forevermore.
+
+"Cyn was," as its owner said, "short" for the samewhat lofty name of
+Cynthia.
+
+Doubtless, the fact of these two, who were partners, beating nearly
+every game they played, was not without its effect in promoting their
+most genial feelings. A result brought about, not so much by their
+skill, as by Quimby's perpetually forgetting what was trumps,
+confounding the right and left bowers, and disregarding the power of the
+joker.
+
+And in truth Quimby's mind was more on his partner than on the game, and
+he was becoming more and more awake to the fact that his heart was fast
+filling with admiration and adoration of which she was the object, and
+inevitably must soon overflow! For Nattie was really looking her very
+best this evening. It was excitement and animation that her face
+depended upon for its beauty. Miss Archer's companionship, too, was
+doing much towards promoting the cheerfulness that brought so clear a
+light to her eyes--the light that was now dazzling Quimby. For Cyn was
+one of those people who live always in the sunshine, and seem to carry
+its own brightness around with them, while Nattie, on the contrary,
+oftentimes dwelt among the shadows, and a touch of their somberness hung
+over her, and showed itself upon her face.
+
+But none of these lurking shadows were there to-night, and as a
+consequence, Quimby was unable to keep his eyes off her, and sighed, and
+made misdeals, and became generally mixed. His embarrassment was not
+lessened when Cyn mischievously informed him he had certainly found
+favor in the eyes of Miss Fishblate--who had called upon her the day
+before. He dropped the pack of cards he happened to have in his hand at
+the moment, all over the floor, and then dived so hastily to pick them
+up that his head came in violent contact with the edge of the table, and
+for a moment he was almost stunned.
+
+But in answer to Cyn's anxious inquiry if he was hurt, he replied,
+
+"It's nothing! I--I am used to it, you know!" Notwithstanding which
+assertion his forehead developed such a sudden and terrific bump of
+benevolence, that Cyn insisted upon binding her handkerchief over it.
+Thus, with his head tied up, and secretly lamenting the unornamental
+figure he now presented to the eyes of his partner and charmer, Quimby
+resumed the game. But what with this cause of uneasiness, and a latent
+fear that Cyn's jesting remark about Celeste might be true, a fear he
+had privately been conscious of previously, although the least conceited
+of mortals, Quimby played so badly--and indeed would undoubtedly have
+answered "checkers," had he been asked suddenly what game he was
+playing, on account of his meditations on a checkered existence--that
+the cards were soon abandoned, and Cyn delighted them with several
+songs, and a recitation of "Lady Clara Vere de Vere."
+
+While Cyn was singing, Nattie happened to glance at Mr. Norton, and
+suddenly remembering a sentence in a lately-read novel about some one
+looking with "his soul in his eyes," wondered if that was not exactly
+what Mr. Norton was doing now? She did not notice, however, that it was
+certainly what Quimby was trying not to do! She wondered too, if the
+young artist was paying Cyn some private compliments, for they seemed to
+be talking together apart, as all were bidding each other good-night. If
+so, she could not understand why Cyn should look so mischievous over it.
+It was but a momentary thought, however, forgotten as they all mutually
+agreed that the pleasant evening just passed should be but the beginning
+of many. The circumstance was recalled to her mind, however, and
+explained the next day, for on returning from the office she found under
+her door a pen and ink sketch, of which she knew at once Cyn was the
+designer, and Mr. Norton the executor. It represented two rooms, one on
+each side of a partition; in one was a table, containing the ordinary
+telegraphic apparatus, before which sat a young lady strangely
+resembling Miss Nattie Rogers, with her face beaming with smiles, and
+her hand grasping the key. In the other, a young man with a very
+battered hat knelt before the sounder on his table, while behind him an
+urchin with a message in his hand stared unnoticed, open-mouthed and
+unheard; far above was Cupid, connecting the wires that ran from the
+gentleman to the lady.
+
+"What nonsense!" murmured Nattie, laughing to herself; but' she put the
+picture away in her writing desk as carefully as she might some
+cherished memento.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+QUIMBY BURSTS FORTH IN ELOQUENCE.
+
+
+"That young lady over there acts very strangely. She is not crazy, is
+she?" inquired a gentleman who stood leaning against the counter over
+the way, and looking across at Nattie.
+
+"I don't know what to make of her," the previously mentioned clerk, to
+whom this question was addressed, answered, "I have been observing her
+for some weeks; she sits half the time as you see her now, laughing to
+herself and gesticulating. Sometimes she will lean back in her chair and
+absolutely shake with laughter, and she smiles at vacancy continually.
+She seems all right enough with the ex-ception of these vagaries. But
+she is a perfect conundrum to me."
+
+"A bit luny, I think," said the gentleman, who had asked the question.
+
+Just then, Nattie, who, of course, was talking to "C," and telling him
+about that sketch--with the slight reservation of the Cupid,--happened
+to look up, with her gaze seventy miles away; but becoming aware of the
+curious stares of the two gentlemen opposite, her vision shortened
+itself to near objects, and rightly surmising from their looks the tenor
+of their thoughts, she colored, and straightway turned her back, at the
+same time informing "C" of what she termed their impertinence. But "C"
+answered, with a laugh,
+
+"It cannot but look strange, you know, to outsiders, to see a person
+making such an ado apparently over nothing. Put yourself, if you can, in
+the place of the uninitiated; you come along, see an operator quietly
+seated, reading the newspaper, with his feet elevated on a chair or
+table, the picture of repose. Suddenly up he jumps, down goes the paper,
+he seizes a pencil, hurriedly writes a few words, frowns violently,
+pounds frantically on the table, stares savagely at nothing, bursts
+suddenly into a broad smile, and then quietly resumes his first
+position. Wouldn't these seem like rather eccentric gambols to you, if
+you didn't know their solution?"
+
+"Ha! Doubtless," answered Nattie. "So I suppose I must forgive my
+observers, and be more careful what I do in future. I have no doubt I
+often make myself ridiculous to chance beholders, when I am talking with
+you."
+
+"I wonder if that is complimentary to me?" queried "C."
+
+"Certainly, as it is because you make me laugh so much," Nattie replied.
+
+"Then I am not such a disagreeable fellow as I might be?" demanded "C,"
+evidently attempting to extort flattery.
+
+But before Nattie could answer, some one else opened their key, and
+said,
+
+"Oh, yes you are!"
+
+"That was not I," Nattie explained, as quickly as possible. "Some of
+those unpleasant people that can't mind their own business. I was about
+to say I should not know how to get through the days now, if I hadn't
+you to talk with."
+
+"Do you really mean it?" questioned "C," delightedly, it is reasonable
+to suppose. "Truly, I was thinking only last night how unbearable would
+have been the solitude of my office, had I not been blessed with your
+company. I was lonesome enough before I knew you, but I never am now."
+
+It was a pity that no telegraphic instrument had yet been invented that
+could carry the blush on Nattie's cheeks for his eyes to see, because it
+was so very becoming. She commenced a reply, expressing her pleasure,
+but was unable to finish it, on account of that unknown and disagreeable
+operator somewhere on the line, who kept breaking the circuit after
+every letter she made. Nor was "C" allowed to write anything either.
+This was a trick by which they had often been annoyed of late.
+
+For, on the wire in the telegraphic world, as well as elsewhere, are
+idle, mischief-making people, who cannot endure to see others enjoying
+themselves, if they also have no share.
+
+Thus, unable to talk farther at present with her indefatigable
+conversationalist, Nattie took up a pencil and began entering the day's
+business in her books, when a shadow darkened the doorway, and she
+looked up to see Quimby.
+
+Since the evening of the card party, when he had become so fully
+conscious of the condition of things inside his heart, Quimby had been
+in a really pitiable state of unrest. Too bashful, or too deficient in
+self-confidence to seek the society of her who was the cause of all his
+uneasiness, as his inclinations directed, and not knowing how to make
+himself as charming to her as she was to him, he wandered past the
+building containing her, two or three times a day, sometimes receiving
+the pleasure of a bow as he passed her window, but never before to-day
+being able to raise the necessary courage to go in and speak.
+
+Nattie, who could not but begin to surmise something of the state of his
+feelings, but without dreaming of their intensity, now smiled on him,
+and asked him inside the office. No man or woman can be quite
+indifferent to one, whom they know has set them on a pedestal, apart
+from the rest of the world.
+
+"I--really I--I beg pardon, I'm sure," the agitated Quimby, trembling at
+his own daring, responded to her invitation. "I--I was passing--quite
+accidentally, you know,--thought I would just step in, you know. Really,
+I--I must ask pardon for the liberty."
+
+"We are too old acquaintances now for you to consider it a liberty,"
+Nattie replied, and the words made his perturbed heart jump with joy.
+"Business being quite dull to-day, I shall be glad to be entertained. Of
+course," archly, "you came to entertain me?"
+
+Poor Quimby was decidedly taken aback by this question.
+
+"I--I--yes certainly--no--that is--I mean I am afraid I am not much of
+an entertainer," he stammered, his hands flying to his necktie and
+nervously untying it as he spoke. Certainly, the wear and tear on his
+neckties and watch chain while he was in his present condition of love
+must have been terrific.
+
+"Aren't you?" queried Nattie without gainsaying his assertion.
+
+"No--really you know I--I'm always making mistakes--but I'm used to it,
+you know--and I am not--possibly I might be a trifle better than
+nobody--but that's all."
+
+And having given this honest, and certainly not conceited opinion of
+himself, he entered the office, sat down, and proceeded to make
+compasses of his legs.
+
+"Have you seen Cyn to-day? she paid me a flying visit yesterday, and
+talked a little to 'C,' but I haven't seen her since."
+
+"She went away to sing out of town, let me see--I forget where, and she
+will not return until to-morrow;" then, uneasily, "I--I beg pardon, but
+you--you mentioned the Invisible. Do you--I beg pardon--but do you
+converse as much as ever with him?"
+
+"Yes indeed!" Nattie replied with an ardor that did not produce exactly
+an enlivening effect upon her caller; "we talk together nearly all the
+time."
+
+"What--I beg pardon--but really--what do you find to talk about so
+much?" he inquired jealously.
+
+"Oh, everything! of the books we read, and the good things in the
+magazines and papers, and the adventures we have--telegraphically; in
+short, of all the topics of the day. We agree very well too, except on
+candy, that I like and he doesn't," replied Nattie.
+
+Quimby suppressed a groan, and hastened to assure her that he himself
+possessed a great passion for sweetmeats.
+
+"But don't you--I beg pardon--but don't you find this sort of
+thing--'C,' I mean--ghostly, you know?"
+
+"Ghostly!" echoed the astonished Nattie.
+
+"Yes," he replied, with a gesture of his arm that produced an impression
+as if that member had leaped out of its socket. "Yes, talking with the
+unseen, you know; I--I beg pardon, but it strikes me as ghostly."
+
+Nattie stared.
+
+"What a strange fancy!" she exclaimed. "'C' is very real, and of the
+earth, earthy to me, I assure you!"
+
+Quimby's face lengthened some three inches. "Is he?" he said ruefully.
+"I--I beg pardon, but you haven't--you don't mean to say that--you have
+not taken a--bless my soul! how warm it is here!" and he mopped his face
+with a red silk handkerchief--a color very unbecoming to his complexion.
+
+"Warm!" repeated Nattie, her lips curving in an amused smile, for she
+had a shawl over her shoulders, and was nevertheless slightly chilly. "I
+don't perceive it, I am sure."
+
+"I--I beg pardon--but I've been walking, you know," Quimby said
+nervously. "But I--I was about to ask--I--I beg pardon--but you have
+not--not" desperately, "really fallen in love with him, have you?"
+
+Nattie's eyes danced with amusement, but her color deepened slightly
+too, as she replied,
+
+"How could one fall in love with an invisible? why, that would be even
+less satisfactory than an ideal!"
+
+Quimby's face brightened, and he recovered himself sufficiently to put
+away the red silk handkerchief.
+
+"I don't think--really, I should not think there could be much
+satisfaction in it!" then stealing a bashful but adoring glance at her,
+he added,
+
+"I--I prefer a--a visible, as being something more substantial, you
+know!"
+
+"Indeed?" said Nattie, demurely; then thinking perhaps he was drifting
+on to grounds that had best be avoided, she changed the subject, by
+saying,
+
+"Do you not think Cyn a very charming young lady?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I--I--yes, very charming!" Quimby answered, but not so
+enthusiastically as perhaps Mr. Norton might have done. For Quimby's
+heart was of the old-fashioned kind, and his fancy was not fickle;
+besides, being now, in a measure, launched upon the subject, of love, so
+awful to approach, he was unwilling thus soon to leave a theme so sweet,
+yet so formidable. Therefore, crossing his legs, and bracing up against
+the chair-back; he determined, now or never, to give her an inkling of
+his feelings, an intention so very palpable, that Nattie was glad indeed
+to hear from the sounder,
+
+"B m--B m--B m--."
+
+"Excuse me," she said, hastily. "They are calling me on the wire," and
+immediately answered, and began taking a message.
+
+Meanwhile, to him had come a reaction, and he was in a state of total
+collapse. Before she had finished receiving that message of only ten
+words, he had drawn himself dejectedly to his feet, and was looking for
+his hat.
+
+"I--I really--I must go, you know!" he faltered, blushing, as Nattie
+glanced up at him. "I--I fear I have intruded now--but I--I--" he
+stopped short, unable to find an ending to his sentence.
+
+"I'm always glad of company," Nattie said, but a little distantly, as
+she gave "O. K." on the wire.
+
+"I--I--really, you are very kind, you know," stammered Quimby. "I--I
+pass here on the way to dinner, you see--from the office, you know,"--he
+eked out his meagre income by writing in a lawyer's office--"where, 'pon
+my word, I ought to have been now. But it's--it's such a pleasure to see
+you--you know that--where can my hat be?"
+
+All this time he had been looking around for his hat, and now Nattie
+fished it out of the waste basket, into which he had unwittingly dropped
+it. Taking it with many apologies, he bowed himself confusedly and
+ungracefully out, and went away, wondering if he would ever be able to
+get himself up to such a pitch again, and resolving, if it proved
+possible, that it should not occur next time where there was one of
+those aggravating "sounders."
+
+"Now, I hope," thought Nattie, as she watched his retreating form, "that
+he is not going to make an idiot of himself! Not only because he is as
+good a fellow as he is a blundering one, and I wouldn't for the world
+hurt his feelings, but also because it would be dreadfully uncomfortable
+to have a rejected lover wandering around in the same house with one!"
+
+And Nattie, judging from his late conduct that the contingency referred
+to was likely to occur, resolved to be careful and not give him any
+opportunity to express his feelings, and furthermore, to kindly and
+cautiously teach him the meaning of the word Friendship, and
+particularly to define the broad distinction between that and Love.
+
+But circumstances are mulish things, and not to be governed at will, as
+Nattie was soon to discover.
+
+A few evenings after she called in to see Cyn, who happened to be out.
+But she was momentarily expected to return, as Mrs. Simonson said, so
+Nattie concluded to wait, and sat down at the piano. Not noticing she
+had left the door partly open, and never dreaming of approaching danger,
+she began to play, when suddenly, the hesitating voice of Quimby broke
+in upon the strains of the "First Kiss" waltz.
+
+"I--may I come in?" he asked. "I--I beg your pardon, but I knocked
+several times, you know, and you didn't hear at all."
+
+Nattie would gladly have refused the invitation he asked, but could
+think of no possible excuse for so doing, and was therefore compelled to
+say,
+
+"Yes--come in, I expect Cyn every moment."
+
+Availing himself of this permission, Quimby entered, balanced his hat on
+the edge of an album, and seating himself in a chair, seized a round on
+either side as if he was in danger of blowing away, and stared at her
+without a word.
+
+"It has been a lovely day, hasn't it?" Nattie said at last, beginning to
+find the silence embarrassing, and reverting to Mrs. Simonson's safe
+topic.
+
+"Yes--exactly so!" Quimby answered, strengthening his grasp on the chair
+in a vain endeavor to summon the requisite courage to avail himself of
+this rare opportunity of pouring out his feelings.
+
+Nattie tried him again on another safe topic.
+
+"Cyn and I dined together to-day."
+
+"I--I can't eat!" burst forth Quimby in accents of despair.
+
+"Can't you?" said Nattie, devoutly wishing Cyn would come. "I am very
+sorry, I hope you are not dyspeptic."
+
+"No, no!" he answered, his eyes almost starting from his head between
+his determination to wind himself up to the point, and the tightness of
+his grasp on the chair. "It's--it's my heart, you know!"
+
+"You don't mean to say you have heart disease?" said Nattie, seeing
+danger fast approaching, and taking refuge in obtusity.
+
+"No; I--I beg pardon--not a--not a bodily heart disease, you know, but a
+mental one!" and he relaxed his grasp on the chair with one hand to tug
+at his necktie as if being hung, and disliking the sensation.
+
+"That is something I never heard of," Nattie said dryly; then thinking,
+"I'll drown him in music," she asked hastily,
+
+"Do you like the First Kiss?"
+
+The bounce of an India rubber ball is no comparison to the agility with
+which Quimby jumped from his chair at this question.
+
+"Oh! Bless my soul! Wouldn't I?" he gasped.
+
+"I will play it to you," exclaimed Nattie instantly aware of the
+indiscretion of her question, and she thundered as loud as she could on
+the piano, while Quimby, with a very red face, subsided into the chair
+again. But not long did he remain subsided; whether it was the music
+that inspired im, or a desperate determination that nerved him, he
+suddenly sprang up, and with one stride was beside her, exclaiming
+excitedly,
+
+"No! That is--I beg pardon--but please do not play any more just now.
+There is something I must say to you! Oh! I can't express myself! It all
+comes upon me with a rush when I am alone, but now, at this supreme
+moment, I cannot tell you how I a--"
+
+"Excuse me, but I am afraid I cannot remain now," hastily interrupted
+Nattie, feeling that something must be done to stop him, and adopting
+the first expedient that suggested itself. "I just happened to recollect
+I left my gas burning in close proximity to the lace curtains, and I
+must go immediately and attend to it."
+
+With these words, Nattie rushed away, half amused and half annoyed,
+leaving him to stare after her with a blank and rueful face, to ask
+himself how any fellow could get on amid such drawbacks, to decide that
+proposing was a dreadful strain on the nerves, but to resolve his next
+attempt should be a success, if he had to inaugurate previously a series
+of private rehearsals. For although abashed and discomfited by his
+repeated failures to make his feelings understood, he was more in love
+than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+COLLAPSE OF THE ROMANCE.
+
+
+"B m--B m--B m--N--N--N--Oh! where are you, N? Where is the little girl at
+B m--B m--B m?"
+
+Such were the sounds that greeted Nattie's ears, as she entered the
+office the morning after her adventure with the love-lorn Quimby; and
+immediately she ceased to speculate on the probable embarrassment that
+must necessarily attend their not-to-be-avoided next meeting, and
+interrupted "C's" solitary conversation, by saying,
+
+"What is the matter with you this morning? Here I am, N."
+
+"G. M., my dear. I'm off, and wanted to say good-by before I went,"
+responded "C."
+
+"Off?" questioned Nattie, with a sudden fall in her mental temperature.
+
+"Yes, I am going to a station five miles below to substitute, to-day.
+The operator there is obliged to go away, and couldn't find any one
+competent to do his work, and as there was a fellow that could do mine,
+he comes here and I go there."
+
+"Oh, dear! what shall I do all day?" said Nattie, sinking into a chair,
+very much aggrieved.
+
+"I am very sorry, but I couldn't well avoid accommodating him. But what
+will you do when I leave entirely, if you can't get along without me one
+day? happy I, to be so necessary to your existence!"
+
+"But there is no prospect of your leaving at present, is there?" asked
+Nattie, forgetting in her alarm at such a possibility to challenge the
+last of his remark.
+
+"There is some probability of it now," "C" responded. "I will tell you
+all about it to-morrow. I may come nearer to you; near enough even for
+you to see that twinkle."
+
+"You don't mean you have a prospect of an office here in the city?"
+questioned Nattie, not knowing whether she would be glad or sorry if
+such were the case.
+
+"Not exactly," replied "C." "I haven't time to explain; train is coming,
+so--"
+
+"Where did you say you were going to-day?" broke in Nattie quickly.
+
+"B a--five miles down the line nearer you, but not on this wire. Used to
+be, you know, but switched on wire number twenty-seven last week," "C"
+responded so hurriedly, that Nattie could hardly read it, although so
+accustomed to his style of making his dots and dashes; for, with the
+key, as with the pen, all operators have their own peculiar manner of
+writing.
+
+"Ah, yes! I remember," responded Nattie quickly. "That hateful operator
+signing 'M' had it, that used to be fighting for the circuit always, and
+breaking in when we were talking. I wouldn't have gone for him."
+
+"Couldn't well avoid it. Here is train. Good-by; shall miss you
+terribly, but will be with you again to-morrow. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by. I am lonesome already," Nattie answered.
+
+As "C" made no reply, it was supposable he had gone, and probably had to
+run for the train, thought Nattie, as she took off her hat rather
+dejectedly.
+
+A broken companionship of any kind must ever leave a certain sense of
+loneliness, and this was none the less true now on account of the unique
+circumstances. Indeed, until to-day she had not fully realized how
+necessary "C" had become to her telegraphic life. Naturally, she had
+woven a sort of romance about him who was a friend "so near and yet so
+far." Perhaps too, a certain yearning for tenderness in her lonely
+heart, a feeling that every woman knows, found something, very pleasant
+in being always greeted with "Good morning, my dear," and hearing the
+last thing at night, "Good night, little girl at B m."
+
+Miss Kling undoubtedly would have been shocked at being thus addressed
+even on the wire, by a strange person--a person certainly, although
+unseen; but Nattie, used to the license that distance gave, whether
+wisely or unwisely, had never, thought it necessary to check the
+familiarity.
+
+Pondering over what he had hinted about leaving permanently, in the
+leisure usually devoted to chatting with him, but which that day she
+hardly knew how to fill, Nattie wondered if, should they ever come face
+to face, they would feel like the old friends they were, or if the
+nearness would bring a constraint now unknown? Yet she was fain to
+confess she would like to see him and ascertain the personal appearance
+of one who occupied so much of her thoughts. But how strange it would
+be, if, after all their friendly talks and gay confidences, he should
+pass out of the way that was both their ways now, and they never know
+anything more about each other than that one was "C" and one was "N!"
+something not impossible either, or even improbable; for fate is a sort
+of switch-board, and a slight move will switch two lives onto wires far
+asunder, even as the moving of a peg or two will alter everything on the
+board that shows its power so little.
+
+With such thoughts in her mind, Nattie was rather among the shadows that
+day, and presented no laughing face to the curious passers-by, much to
+that opposite clerk's relief, who came to the conclusion that she had
+once more recovered her senses.
+
+About an hour before the time for closing the office, as she was
+counting over her cash, and thinking how glad she was that "C" would be
+back to-morrow, she became conscious of some one waiting her attention
+outside, and went forward, scarcely looking at him, expecting, of
+course, a message. But instead, the individual, who filled the air with
+a suffocating odor of musk, asked,
+
+"You are the regular operator here, I suppose?"
+
+With a start Nattie looked up, expecting a complaint, an occurrence
+often prefaced by some like question, and scrutinizing him more
+particularly, saw a short, rather stout young man, possessing an air of
+cheap assurance, hair that insisted on being red, notwithstanding the
+bear's grease that covered it, teeth all at variance with each other,
+and seeming to rejoice obtrusively in the fact, and light blue eyes of a
+most insinuating expression, trimmed around with red.
+
+"Yes," Nattie replied as she took this survey. "I am."
+
+"You don't know me, I suppose?" was the next question.
+
+"No," Nattie replied with a glance at the large mock diamond pin, and
+immense imitation amethyst ring he wore; "I certainly do not."
+
+"I think you are mistaken about that," he rejoined, smiling at her in a
+most unpleasantly familiar manner.
+
+Surprised and offended, Nattie drew back haughtily. "I think, rather,
+you are mistaken," she said, stiffly. "May I inquire your business?"
+
+With an air of easy confidence and familiar remonstrance, he replied,
+
+"Come, now, don't freeze a fellow; why, I came to see you. That's my
+business and no other!"
+
+"He is drunk," thought Nattie, indignantly, but before she could reply
+he added,
+
+"I am an operator, you see."
+
+"Oh!" said Nattie, comprehensively, but not at all delightedly, for
+operator or no operator, and notwithstanding the sort of freemasonry
+between those of the craft, she preferred his room to his company. But
+constraining herself, she added as civilly as possible, "Did you wish to
+send a message, or speak to any one on the wire?"
+
+"No, thank you," he answered; then, with an insinuating smile,
+
+"Can't you guess who I am?"
+
+"I really can't," Nattie replied, coldly and indifferently; thinking,
+"some of the operators down town, I suppose, and a delightful set they
+are if he is a specimen! So impertinent of him!"
+
+"Can't you?" laughing and displaying his obtrusive teeth to their utmost
+advantage. "Now just think of some one you have been buzzing lately, and
+then guess, won't you, N?"
+
+Without the least suspicion Nattie shook her head impatiently, feeling
+very much disgusted, and longing for some interruption to occur. But his
+next words were startling. Leaning forward very confidentially, he asked
+with a smile of consciousness,
+
+"Do you see that twinkle, N?"
+
+"What!" ejaculated Nattie--so forcibly that a passing countryman stopped
+with a peanut half cracked, to stare--and clutching at an umbrella
+hanging by her side, for support, she turned a horror-stricken face to
+the questioner, who, looking as if he expected her to be enraptured,
+added,
+
+"You know a fellow that signs 'C,' don't you?"
+
+The bump of self-conceit must have largely overbalanced the perceptive
+faculties of this obnoxious young man, if he could possibly mistake the
+expression on Nattie's face for rapture, as, frantically grasping the
+umbrella, she gasped,
+
+"No--no--it can't be--you are not--not--"
+
+"Not C? Ain't I, though!" laughed the proprietor of the ring, pin,
+bear's-grease, et cetera.
+
+"But," said poor Nattie, clinging desperately to hope and the umbrella,
+"C said this morning he was going to B a--and--"
+
+"That was a trick to take you by surprise," he interrupted, with great
+enjoyment of his own words. "I knew I was coming here, all the time, but
+I wanted to give you a nice little surprise. Think I have, eh?" and he
+laughed again, and winked with almost vulgar assurance.
+
+Nattie let go of hope and the umbrella, and collapsed with her romance
+into a chair; and she thought of Quimby's warning about the "soiled
+invisible," and barely suppressed a groan. Involuntarily she stole a
+glance at this too-visible person, and shuddered. Could she reconcile
+"C," her visionary, interesting, witty and gentlemanly "C" of the wire,
+with this musk-scented being of greasy red hair, cheap jewelry and
+vulgar manners? Impossible!
+
+"It is the nightmare! it cannot be!" she thought, with the despairing
+refuge in dreams we often take when suddenly overwhelmed with terrible
+realities.
+
+As she made no reply to his last observation, her visitor, glancing at
+her as if slightly puzzled by her behavior, went on--
+
+"I did not think you would be so bashful, after all our talks. _I_ am
+not,"--a fact hardly necessary to mention. "We ought to be pretty good
+friends by this time. Say, do I look as you expected I would? and as if
+to give her a better view, he pushed his hat back on his head, a
+kindness wholly unappreciated, as Nattie had seen more than sufficient
+of him already.
+
+"Not--not exactly!" she stammered, in a sort of dazed way.
+
+"I believe you thought I was one of those slim fellows whose bones
+rattle when they walk, didn't you? I am no such a fellow, you see. But
+you ain't a bit as I imagined. May I be a plug [1] forever if you are!"
+
+[1] "Plug" is the common telegraphic expression for an incompetent
+operartor.
+
+Nattie was too wretched, too unable even yet to realize that her "C" and
+this odious creature were one and the same, to ask, as he evidently
+expected natural curiosity would induce her to do, in what way she so
+differed from the person of his imagination.
+
+"You go beyond all my calculations," he continued, flatteringly, after
+waiting in vain for a question from her; "Only you are more bashful than
+I supposed you would be, after the dots and dashes we have slung. But
+then it's easier to buzz on the wire than it is to talk, isn't it? For
+all a fellow has to do is to take up a book or a paper, pick things out
+to say, and go it without exercising his own brains!"
+
+At these words, that explained the previous incomprehensible difference
+between the distant "C" and present person, the realization of the
+companionship, the romance, the friendship gone to wreck on this reef of
+musk and bear's-grease came over Nattie with a rush, and for a moment
+so affected her that she could hardly restrain her tears. And yet, after
+all, was not "C," _her_ "C," the "C" whom she knew by his conversation
+only--"picked out of books!"--an unreal, intangible being, and not this
+so different person who claimed his identity?
+
+"I think we astonished some of them on the wire with all the stuff we
+had over!" went on with his monologue the knight of the collapsed
+romance, who, not being troubled with fine sensibilities, had no idea of
+the feelings under which she was laboring.
+
+"Yes--I--doubtless!" stammered Nattie, and turned very red, as, suddenly
+remembering the tenor of some of what he so elegantly termed "stuff,"
+the appalling thought, what if he should say "my dear?" presented itself
+in all its horrors, and the idea punished her for that girlish
+imprudence in allowing the familiarity from afar.
+
+Evidently he noticed the access of color, and attributed it to his own
+fascinations, for he smiled complacently as he said,
+
+"I wish I had longer to stay with you, but my train goes in five
+minutes." Nattie breathed a sigh of relief. "Too bad, isn't it? But I
+will come again some time! By the way," a cunning expression that seemed
+uncalled-for crossing over his face, "don't say anything on the wire
+about my being here to-day, will you? I don't want any one to know. Let
+them think I was at B a."
+
+"Certainly not!" replied Nattie, with an alacrity born of the knowledge
+that she should hold no further communication of any kind with him;
+then, in order to give a hint of her intentions, she added, bracing
+herself up to mention what was so difficult to speak of to this vampire
+who mocked her with her vanished "C."
+
+"Now that the--the mystery is solved, and I--and we have met, I don't
+think there will be much amusement in talking over the wire."
+
+Somewhat to her surprise, and not at all flattering to her vanity, he
+answered, without a remonstrance,
+
+"No! I don't know as there will!"
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't like my looks any better than I do his!" was
+Nattie's natural and indignant thought at this quiet reception of her
+hint. And if anything had been necessary--which it certainly was not--to
+her utter repudiation of him, this would have sufficed for the purpose.
+
+"You mentioned this morning you thought of leaving X n. Do you expect to
+go soon?" she asked, catching at the idea that a few hours ago had
+caused so much alarm, with a hope that he might be about to vanish from
+her world finally and forever. But even as she spoke, the difference of
+the now and then smote her like a pain.
+
+"Did I say that?" he said, with a look that she could not understand, as
+if for some secret reason, he was so well pleased with himself, he could
+hardly avoid laughing outright. "Oh! well! I was only fooling!"
+
+Nattie's face fell, but, catching at the opportunity to convey the
+impression that in her opinion they had not been very friendly, after
+all, she said,
+
+"I suppose no one really means what they say on the wire. I am sure _I_ do
+not!"
+
+"But we mean what we say now," he replied, with an insinuating smile.
+"Next time I come we will be more sociable. But we've have had a nice
+talk, ain't we?"
+
+For a moment the repulsive person before her overcame the remembrance of
+the lost "C," and Nattie replied, sarcastically,
+
+"I trust the talk has not been too much of an exercise for your brain!"
+
+He looked at her doubtfully, and then laughed. "You are sort of a queer
+girl, ain't you? I wish though, I could stay and buzz you longer, but I
+have only time to get my train, so good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said Nattie, betraying all her relief at his departure in the
+sudden animation of her voice, something so different from her preceding
+manner that he could but notice it, and he turned, looked at her, as if
+a suspicion of its true cause penetrated his mind at last, frowned, and
+then with that former look she did not understand crossing his face,
+nodded and ran for the depot, coming into violent collision with a fat
+Dutchman, looking perplexedly for a barber's shop. And thus the red
+hair, the bear's grease, the sham jewelry, and the obtrusive, fighting
+teeth disappeared forever from Nattie's sight, leaving her with a
+bewildered look on her face, as if, indeed, just awakened from that
+imagined nightmare.
+
+She looked around the office blankly. Everything was there just as
+usual, the little key and the sounder, over which had come all "C's"
+pleasant talk. "C!" That creature! The odor of his detestable musk
+hovered about her even now, but not yet could she realize that her "C"
+was no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"GOOD-BY."
+
+
+It was a very long face that Nattie carried to the Hotel Norman that
+night; so long that Miss Kling at once saw that something was amiss, and
+while curiously wondering as to the cause, took a grim satisfaction in
+the fact. For Miss Kling liked not to see cheerful faces; why should
+others be happy when she had not found her other self?
+
+Nattie's first act on gaining her own room was to drag forth that
+carefully-preserved pen and ink sketch, and tear it to atoms,
+annihilating the chubby Cupid with especial care.
+
+"And now," she thought to herself savagely, as she burned up the pieces,
+"I never will be interested in people again, unless I know all about
+them. Imagination is too dangerous a guide for me!"
+
+Having thus exterminated the illustrated edition of her romance, Nattie
+felt the necessity of unburdening her mind, her sorrow not being too
+deep for words, and with that object sought Cyn; a proceeding much
+disapproved of by Miss Kling, who, knowing well that weakness of human
+nature that seeks a friendly bosom wherein to repose its sorrows,
+rightly surmised her lodger's destination and design, and decidedly
+objected to any one knowing more than she herself did.
+
+Nattie found her friend at home, but to her vexation, not alone. With
+her was Quimby, who had called in the untold hope of gleaning tidings of
+the young lady who had--as he said to himself--floored him. His
+confusion at the sight of her, remembering as he did the somewhat
+unusual circumstances of their last meeting, was indescribable; indeed,
+his knees actually knocked together. Nattie, however, whose latest
+experience had effaced the effect, and almost the remembrance of that
+former one, bade him good-evening, without the least trace of
+consciousness or embarrassment, a composure of manner that astounded but
+at the same time filled him with admiration.
+
+As he did not take his departure, being, in fact, unable to tear himself
+away, Nattie, in her anxiety to tell Cyn all that was in her mind, and
+reflecting that he really was of no consequence--an argument not
+flattering to its object, but one that he probably would have been first
+to indorse had he known it--and, moreover, that he already knew the
+prologue, disregarded his presence and said,
+
+"The most incomprehensible thing has happened, Cyn! I cannot realize it
+even now!"
+
+Quimby quaked in his boots, and grew hot all over with the fear that she
+was going to relate their last evening's adventure. Could it be
+possible?
+
+"I knew that something was the matter the moment you entered the room,"
+said Cyn. "I cannot imagine, why you should look as if you were going
+into the grave-digging business!"
+
+"Ah, Cyn!" exclaimed Nattie, as if the words hurt her, "He--'C', called
+on me to-day!"
+
+Quimby gave a bounce, and then grew limp in all his joints.
+
+"Is it possible? Personally?" questioned Cyn, with great interest and
+animation; then glancing at Nattie's face, her tone changed as she
+added, "He was not what you thought! I understand, poor Nat!"
+
+Quimby straightened himself up. He fancied he saw a gleam of hope ahead.
+
+"Far enough from what I thought!" replied Nattie, with a mixture of
+pathos and disgust. "Why did he not remain invisible?" then, in a burst
+of disappointment-- "Cyn, he is simply awful! All red hair and grease,
+musk, cheap jewelry, and insolent assurance!"
+
+Quimby glanced in the opposite glass, and his face brightened all over.
+He felt like a new man!
+
+"Oh, dear! Is it as bad as that?" said Cyn, looking dismayed. "He was so
+entertaining on the wire, I can hardly believe it. Are you quite sure it
+was 'C'?"
+
+"I could not realize it myself, but it is a fact nevertheless," Nattie
+answered sorrowfully, and then related what she termed the "disgusting
+details." Cyn listened, vexed and sorry, for she too had become
+interested in the invisible "C," but Quimby found it impossible to
+restrain his joy at this complete overthrow of one whom he had ever
+considered a formidable rival.
+
+"It is no use to talk about romance in real life!" said the annoyed Cyn,
+yielding to the conviction that the obnoxious visitor really was "C," as
+Nattie concluded. "It is nice to read about and to enact on the stage,
+but it's altogether too unreliable for our solid, every-day world. Well,
+dear!" consolingly, "it's better to know the truth than to have gone on
+blindly talking to so undesirable an acquaintance!"
+
+"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," quoted Nattie, with a
+shrug of her shoulders. "But--yes--I suppose I--ought to be glad I know
+the worst."
+
+"I--I beg pardon, but I--I think I hinted it might be as it has proved,
+you know!" said Quimby, trying not to look triumphant, and failing
+signally.
+
+Not particularly pleased at having his superior discernment thus pointed
+out, Nattie replied rather shortly,
+
+"It was luck and chance anyway, and it was my luck to stumble on the
+most disagreeable specimen in the business. That is all."
+
+"Do you suppose he is aware of the impression he produced on you?" asked
+Cyn.
+
+"No, indeed!" Nattie replied scornfully. "Is there anything so blind as
+vulgar, ignorant, self-conceit? I have no doubt he thinks I was
+charmed!"
+
+"Then how will you manage when he wants to talk on the wire again?"
+asked Cyn.
+
+"I shall have to make excuses until he takes the hint. Oh, dear!" said
+Nattie with a sigh, "I believe it is impossible to get any comfort out
+of this world!"
+
+"Oh, no, it isn't!" said Cyn in her bright cheery manner. "The way to do
+is not to allow ourselves to fret over what we cannot help. I am almost
+as disappointed as you, dear, over this total collapse of what opened so
+interestingly; but the curtain has fallen on the ignominious last act of
+our little drama, so farewell--a long farewell to our wired romance!"
+
+As Cyn spoke, the somewhat unmusical voice of Jo Norton was heard in the
+hall, singing an air from a popular burlesque, followed by the
+appearance among them of Jo himself. Of course the whole story had to be
+related for his benefit, and very little sympathy did Nattie receive
+from him.
+
+"Let this teach you a lesson, young lady!" he said, with mock solemnity,
+"namely, Attend to your business and let romance alone!"
+
+"As you do!" said Cyn.
+
+"As I do," he echoed, "and consequently be happy as I am! I tell you,
+romance and sentiment and love, and all that bosh, are at the bottom of
+two-thirds of all the misery in the world!"
+
+Notwithstanding which sage remark, and the fact of the curtain having
+fallen on the end, as Cyn said, for a moment yesterday was as if it had
+never been, when Nattie entered her office the next morning and was
+greeted with the familiar,
+
+"B m--B m--B m--where is my little girl at B m, to say good-morning to
+me?" and she made an involuntary movement towards the key to respond in
+the usual way.
+
+The remembrance of the actual state of things checked her just in time,
+and then, with a rather uncertain and tremulous touch of the key she
+answered,
+
+"Good morning! wait--am busy!"
+
+"One untruth!" she thought to herself, as "C" became mute, "not the only
+one I shall have to tell, I fear, before I succeed in conveying my exact
+meaning to the understanding of--the person. I will pick a quarrel, if
+possible, and he persists in talking! Oh, dear! I could have endured the
+red hair, even those dreadful teeth, had it not been for the
+bear's-grease and general vulgarity of the creature. Well, it's all over
+now!" and she sighed, from which it may be inferred that Jo's
+admonitions had not been of much consolation to her.
+
+We do not take the lessons our experience teaches us, to heart
+immediately; first, their bitterness must be overcome.
+
+To Nattie's great relief, the wire happened to be very busy that
+morning, but whenever it was possible "C" called her, and called in
+vain.
+
+Immediately after her return from dinner, however, having just received
+and signed for a message, "C," the moment she closed her key, said,
+
+"Where have you been to-day? are you not glad to have me back again? it
+cannot be I am so soon forgotten?"
+
+Unable to avoid answering, Nattie responded on the wrong side of truth
+again. "Have been busy; wait, please, a customer here."
+
+"I cannot help saying, confound the luck!" "C" responded, savagely. To
+which anathema Nattie turned up her nose scornfully, and made no reply.
+
+The nervous dread of his "calling," that was upon her all day, caused
+her to make more blunders than she had ever done in all her telegraphic
+career. She gave wrong change continually, numbered her messages
+incorrectly, and "broke" so much that the operator who sent to her had a
+headache with ill-humor. Usually very quick at deciphering the illegible
+scrawls often handed her for transmission, she to-day was frowned at for
+her stupidity in making them out; and one lady to whom a message was
+sent through poor Nattie's office, was much exercised on receiving it,
+to learn over an unknown gentleman's signature, that he would be with
+her at midnight. He really was her husband, but Nattie had transmitted
+the name the writing looked most like, which was one very remote from
+the real one.
+
+All these mistakes she laid at "C's" door, and grew more disgusted with
+him, accordingly, especially when she counted her cash, and found
+herself a dollar short. She managed, however, by frequent excuses, to
+get along without holding any conversation with him until the latter
+part of the afternoon, when, the wire not being in use, and business
+slacking up, he called persistently, savagely, and entreatingly--all of
+which phases can be expressed in dots and dashes--interspersing the call
+with such expressions as,
+
+"Please answer, N! Where are you, N? Why will you treat thus a poor
+fellow who thinks so much of you?"
+
+"I should think he might take a hint! Must I tell him in plain words
+that a personal inspection leads me to decline the honor of farther
+acquaintance? when, too, he particularly requested me not to mention his
+visit, over the wire?" thought Nattie; and then, as he continued to
+call, she arose impatiently, and answered shortly,
+
+"B m!"
+
+"You naughty little girl!" immediately responded "C," "where have you
+been all day? Is it thus you treat me on my return, when I expected you
+would be glad to see me again?"
+
+"I have been busy," Nattie replied briefly, with a repetition of her
+platitude, and cringing at the same time over the first of his remark,
+as she recalled his _tout ensemble_.
+
+"So you have said every time I have called," "C" answered, apparently
+entirely unconscious of the possible reason. "What is the cause? You
+never used to be busy _always_, you know!"
+
+"How different he is on the wire from what he is in reality!" thought
+Nattie, with a return of her first disappointment, "and how hard it is
+to merge the two in one!" But she answered,
+
+"There is a first time for everything; besides, I have not felt like
+talking to-day."
+
+"Not with me?" queried "C."
+
+"No!" replied Nattie briefly, and to the point.
+
+"C" held his key open a moment.
+
+"I do not understand it," he said at last. "It isn't possible that I
+have done anything to offend you?"
+
+"Only offended me with the sight of you!" thought Nattie; but unwilling
+to be really impolite, replied, "Certainly not!"
+
+"You are not angry about yesterday, are you?" pursued "C."
+
+"Certainly not," repeated Nattie, adding to herself, "A faint idea that
+I did not exactly fall in love with you is creeping into your red head,
+is it?"
+
+"If I have done anything, I beg you to tell me what, for I am ignorant
+of it, and I assure you I am penitent, and that I forgive you!"
+continued "C," "only please don't be cross to me!"
+
+Nattie saw her opportunity for picking a quarrel, and seized it.
+
+"I do not know what you mean by my being cross!" she said. "I am sure I
+was not aware that I was obliged to talk to any one unless I felt like
+it. I am not in the mood to-day, and I will not be forced. You have no
+right to call me cross, and when I am in the humor to talk with you
+again I will let you know!"
+
+"Very well!" "C" replied promptly, undoubtedly angry himself now; "I
+will wait your pleasure!" and then was mute.
+
+"It has not been quite so gradual as I intended, but I think I have
+effectually settled the matter, and my mind is relieved," thought
+Nattie; yet she sighed, and her satisfaction was followed by depression,
+for with "C" departed the pleasantest part of her office life, a fact
+she could not disguise. In the week that followed, when "C," true to his
+word, waited, saying nothing, she missed continually the sympathy, the gay
+talk, the companionship that had made the constantly-occurring
+annoyances endurable, and the days that dragged so now seem short. The
+office business did not fill half her time, and the constant confinement
+began to be irksome to her, whose nature demanded activity; in
+consequence, she often grew impatient and answered unnecessary questions
+of customers with a shortness that gave considerable offence; and had it
+not been for Cyn, who brought her sunny presence quite often into the
+office, heedless of the "no admittance" on the door, the monotony that
+had now displaced the romantic side of telegraphy would have plunged
+Nattie among the shadows almost constantly.
+
+Of course the sudden cessation of the intimacy between "C" and "N" was a
+theme of much surprise and bantering comments along the line, especially
+from "Em." But these facetious remarks gradually became fewer as the
+wonder subsided. One day, nearly two weeks after the "collapse," Nattie
+was surprised to hear the old familiar "B m--B m--B m--X n." Wondering if
+he had grown tired of waiting and was about to attempt a renewal of
+their former friendship, Nattie rather impatiently answered. But it
+proved he had a message, an occurrence quite infrequent with him. This
+he sent without unnecessary words. But after she had given "O. K." and
+closed her key, he opened his to say,
+
+"Please, don't you want to make up, N?"
+
+"I have nothing to make up!" Nattie replied.
+
+"O. K." was "C's" response as he again subsided.
+
+"He snubs easily!" thought Nattie, much relieved.
+
+The following Saturday night, however, as she was taking in from the
+shelf outside the blanks, ink, and bad pens that excited the ire of
+irascible customers, preparatory to closing, "C" once more called. With
+a devout hope that he was not going to be annoying, Nattie answered.
+
+"Notwithstanding the late coolness between us, which was not my fault,
+and for which I cannot account" he began, and then some one with a rush
+message broke in.
+
+"What is he coming at now I wonder--he commenced with a great display of
+words," thought Nattie curiously; and then with a little curl of her
+lip, "a sentence out of some book, I suppose."
+
+But as soon as the wire was quiet she said,
+
+"To 'C' Please g a--account"
+
+"I could not leave, as I am about to do to-night, without saying
+good-by, in remembrance of our former pleasant intercourse," concluded
+"C."
+
+"You mean you are leaving permanently?" queried Nattie, surprised.
+
+"Yes, this is my last day here. Monday I leave town; and so, with much
+regret that anything unpleasant should have interrupted our
+acquaintance--although what it was I assure you I do not know, since you
+deign me no explanation--I will say, not as I would once, _au revoir_, but
+good-by."
+
+"Good-by," answered Nattie, forgetting for the moment everything but
+"C," the old "C," the "C" who had enlivened so many hours, and about
+whom had dwelt that romantic mystery. "Good-by. Believe me, I shall
+always remember the many social talks we have enjoyed."
+
+"Possibly we might enjoy them again, if you desired," "C" said then, as
+if he gave her a chance for explanation or to express such a wish.
+
+But Nattie, recalling now the bears-grease, the musk, the cheap jewelry
+and their obnoxious possessor, answered only, "Good-by."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE FEAST.
+
+
+Pondering discontentedly over the perplexities of life, a habit she had
+allowed herself to indulge in quite frequently of late, one day not long
+after the final exit of the once interesting but now obnoxious "C,"
+Nattie suddenly became aware of a pair of merry brown eyes, belonging to
+a fine-looking young gentleman, observing her critically, and with
+apparently no intention of discontinuing their scrutiny. At which, in
+her present state of temper, Nattie turned very red and very angry. "I
+am not on exhibition," she thought, indignantly, and rising
+majestically, went towards him with the curt inquiry,
+
+"Did you wish to send a message, sir?" The young gentleman hesitated,
+and appeared slightly embarrassed, but did not take his eyes from her
+face, nevertheless.
+
+"I merely wished to ask the tariff to Washington," he replied, at
+length.
+
+"Forty cents," Nattie answered, shortly.
+
+"Thank you," he said, but without moving, and after a moment, as if
+desirous of opening a conversation, he continued, smiling, "I hardly
+think I will send a message to-day; I presume you will not object to
+being spared the trouble?"
+
+Nattie, having been quarreling all day with intangible somethings, was
+rather glad than otherwise to find a real object upon which she could
+vent the unamiability resulting from her surplus discontent. The young
+man's evident desire to talk more than circumstances warranted, was
+displeasing to her, and she rejoined very stiffly,
+
+"It is a matter of perfect indifference to me," and turned away.
+
+With an amused smile, he looked at the back thus presented to his view,
+opened his lips to speak, hesitated, and finally walked away. Nattie,
+looking after him out of the corners of her eyes, saw him glance back as
+he opened the door, and had a remorseful feeling that perhaps she had
+been crosser to him than he really deserved, for he was certainly very
+fine-looking. But what was done could not be undone, and with no
+expectation of ever seeing him again, she dismissed the matter from her
+mind.
+
+The best, perhaps the only really pleasant part of Nattie's life now,
+was her evenings, passed almost invariably with Cyn. Indeed, Cyn seemed
+to be a magnet, around which all gathered--Quimby, although, of course,
+Cyn herself was not his chief attraction--Celeste Fishblate, who
+determinedly pushed herself into an intimacy, and Jo Norton, who, had it
+not been for the fact so loudly proclaimed by himself, of his having no
+sentiment in his soul, would have been suspected of being on the road to
+falling in love with Cyn, so strangely was he attracted to her company.
+But this, of course, was impossible for _him_!
+
+"That will not do, dear," Cyn remarked, when Nattie related her little
+adventure with the young gentleman. "Do you know you have been in a
+dreadful state of mind ever since 'C' intruded his personality?"
+
+Nattie colored a little as she replied, discontentedly, "Oh, it isn't
+_that_, I assure you; the truth is, I am ambitious, Cyn. I suppose I
+forgot it, slightly, while I was so interested in 'C;' but I cannot be
+content with a mere working on from day to day, in the same old routine,
+and nothing more."
+
+Cyn looked at her scrutinizingly, as she asked, "But in what particular
+way are you ambitious? to be rich, or what?"
+
+"Oh! not for money!" Nattie answered, with a slight contempt for that
+necessary and convenient article. "I am ambitious for fame! I want to be
+a writer; but when I think of the obstacles in my way to an opening,
+even, in that direction, I am daunted. I have attacks of energy, it is
+true, but I fear it is fitful; it comes and goes."
+
+"I understand," Cyn replied, with more than wonted seriousness. "Your
+ambition is great enough to render you useless and discontented, but you
+need something to stimulate your energy, else it will waste itself in
+idle dreams. Perhaps love may come to be that motive power; perhaps--"
+and a shade crossed her sunny face--"some great disappointment."
+
+There was a moment's silence, Nattie pondering thoughtfully on these
+words; and then Cyn continued,
+
+"But in the meantime, since you can at present accomplish nothing, why
+not get all the enjoyment you can out of life, as it goes? So, when the
+opportunity comes, and you seize it, you will not have to look back on
+years wasted in vain longings for the then unattainable. _That_ is my
+philosophy--and I, too, am ambitious."
+
+"Your philosophy is cheery, at least," said Nattie, smiling. "But I am
+afraid it is very hard for ambitious people to take life easy: and that
+is not all of my troubles," she continued, gayly, "I can't get anything
+good to eat!"
+
+"Poor child," said Cyn, with mock seriousness, "this _is_ coming from the
+sublime to the ridiculous. What is the cause of the lamentable fact?"
+
+"Oh! I am so tired of both boarding-houses and restaurants. In the
+former they never have what one likes--and ah! such steak!--while in
+the latter you have to pick out all the cheap dishes, or ruin yourself
+at a meal."
+
+Cyn laughed.
+
+"I assure you I can appreciate your feelings, from sad experience! I,
+myself, am positively longing for a nice sirloin steak." Then, a sudden
+thought striking her, "I will tell you what we will do, Nat, we will
+have a little feast!"
+
+"A feast?" repeated Nattie, not exactly comprehending.
+
+"Yes--I have a little gas stove--low be it said, lest Mrs. Simonson hear
+and bring in a terrific bill for extra gas!--I use it sometimes to cook
+my dinner, when I do not feel like going out, and why should we not have
+a feast all to ourselves some day? and the sirloin steak shall be
+forthcoming! and what do you say to Charlotte Russe? In short, we will
+have everything we can think of, and you shall be assistant cook!"
+
+"That would be splendid!" cried Nattie, delighted, "only it will have to
+be some Sunday, as that is my only leisure day, you know."
+
+"All the better, for then we will be less liable to intrusion,"
+responded Cyn, gayly. "So make a memorandum to that effect, for next
+week. We must not let Mrs. Simonson know, however, on account of the gas
+stove; I pay her too much rent now. I am afraid we shall have a little
+difficulty about dishes. The few I have are not exactly real Sevres
+china, or even decently conventional. But--"
+
+"Oh! never mind the dishes!" interrupted Nattie. "Anything will do! I
+have myself a cracked tumbler, and a spoon, that will perhaps be useful
+for something."
+
+Agreeing therefore to hold dishes in strict contempt, the following
+Sunday found the two girls with closed doors, in the midst of great
+preparations for a truly Bohemian feast, as Cyn termed it; Nattie with
+her crimps tied down in a blue handkerchief, and Cyn with her sleeves
+rolled up, and an old skirt of a dress doing duty as apron.
+
+"Let me see," said Nattie merrily, taking account of stock. "Two pounds
+of steak--the first cut of the sirloin, I think you said?--waiting,
+expectant of making glad our hearts, on the rocking-chair, potatoes in
+plebeian lowliness under the table, tomatoes and two pies on your trunk,
+Charlotte Russes--delicious Charlotte Russes--where? Ah!--on your
+bonnet-box, in a plate ordinarily used as a card receiver, and sugar,
+butter, et cetera, and et cetera lying around almost anywhere, and the
+figs, oranges and homely, but necessary bread, where are they? I see, on
+top of 'Dombey & Son!'"
+
+"And our dishes will not quarrel, because thev are none of them any
+relation to each other!" laughed Cyn, as she peeled the tomatoes. "I
+fear goblets will have to take upon themselves the duties of cups, and
+that cracked tumbler of yours must be used for something. I am sorry
+that saucepan is so dilapidated, but it is the best I own!"
+
+"And in that saucepan we must both boil the potatoes and stew the
+tomatoes. Won't one cool while the other is doing?" queried Nattie,
+hovering lovingly over the steak.
+
+"I think not;" Cyn answered. "You won't mind the coffee being boiled in
+a tin can, once the repository of preserved peaches, will you?"
+
+"Ah, no!" replied Nattie emphatically, and sawing at the steak with a
+very dull knife, without a handle. "It will be just as good when it's
+poured out."
+
+"I had a coffee-pot once, but I melted the nose off and forgot to buy
+another yesterday," Cyn said, putting on the potatoes.
+
+"We will call our contrivance a coffee-urn; it sounds aristocratic,"
+suggested Nattie, as she cleared the books from the least shaky table,
+and spread it with three towels, in lieu of a table-cloth. "But what
+shall we do for plates to put the pies on?"
+
+"Take those two wooden box covers in the closet," promptly responded
+Cyn. "That is right, and see, here is room also for the coffee--pardon
+me, I had almost said commonplace coffee-pot!"
+
+"But the tomato! what _can_ we pour that in?" suddenly exclaimed Nattie,
+with great concern.
+
+Cyn scanned every object in the room with dismay.
+
+"The--the wash-bowl!" she insinuated at last, determined not to be
+daunted.
+
+"Don't you think it rather large? to say nothing of its being too
+suggestive?" said Nattie, laughing.
+
+Cyn did not press the point, but shook her head, dubiously.
+
+"I have it!" cried Nattie, "there is a fruit-dish in my room."
+
+"Just the thing!" interrupted Cyn ecstatically, "I will run and bring
+it, if you will attend to the cooking."
+
+"Look out for Miss Kling," said Nattie, warningly; "if she catches a
+glimpse of you making off with my fruit-dish, she will never rest until
+she finds out everything."
+
+"Rely on me for secrecy and dispatch," said Cyn, going. "If she sees me,
+I will mention nuts and raisins; merely mention them, you know."
+
+But Miss Kling, for once, was napping; perhaps dreaming of him Cyn
+called the Torpedo--Celeste's father--and she obtained the dish, reached
+her own door again without being seen by any one except the Duchess, and
+was congratulating herself on her good luck, when suddenly, like an
+apparition, Quimby stood before her.
+
+Cyn started, murmured something about "oranges," slipped the soap-dish
+she had also confiscated into her pocket, and tried to make the big
+fruit-dish appear as small as possible.
+
+She might, however, have spared herself any uneasiness, for this always
+the most unobservant of mortals, was too much overburdened with some
+affair of his own, to notice even a two-quart dish.
+
+"Oh! I--I beg pardon, I--I was coming with a a--request to your room,"
+he said eagerly. "I--would it be too much to--to bring a friend, he
+knows no one here, and I am sure he and you would fraternize at once, if
+I might bring him, you know."
+
+"Certainly--yes!" replied Cyn, too anxious to get away to pay much
+attention to his words, particularly as an odor of steak reached her
+nostrils.
+
+"Thank you! I--I never knew any one who understood me as well as you!"
+he said with a grateful bow, and without more words, Cyn left him.
+
+"How long you have been gone!" Nattie remarked, looking up, her cheeks
+very red, and her nose embellished with a streak of smut, as Cyn
+entered. "Did you see any one?"
+
+"No one except Quimby, who stopped me to ask about bringing a friend to
+call some evening," Cyn replied, displaying the fruit, and producing the
+soap-dish.
+
+"Mercy on us!" Nattie said, looking rather aghast, "it is rather large,
+isn't it? and what did you bring-that soap-dish for?"
+
+"I thought it might come handy," laughed Cyn. "We will make a potato
+holder of it for the time. 'To what base uses may we come at
+last?'--Why--" in a tone of surprise, "here is the Duchess!"
+
+And sure enough, up by the window sat that sagacious animal, winking and
+blinking complacently, and evidently determined to be a third in the
+feast.
+
+"She came in unnoticed under the shadow that fruit-dish threw," said
+Nattie, teasingly.
+
+Cyn shook an oyster fork at her threateningly.
+
+"Say another such word and you shall have no steak!" she said
+tragically, "instead, a dungeon shall be your doom. We will let the
+Duchess remain as a receiver of odds and ends. I suppose her suspicions
+were excited by the sight of these articles. A rare cat! a learned cat!
+now please set the table, for our feast will soon be prepared!" and Cyn
+bent over the sizzling steak, that emitted a most appetizing odor.
+
+Setting that table was no such easy matter as might appear, for what
+with the big fruit-dish, wooden covers, different sizes of plates and
+other incongruous articles, considerable management was necessary.
+
+"I shall have to put the sugar on in the bag," Nattie said, incautiously
+backing to view the general effect, and so stumbling over the saucepan
+of potatoes that sat on the floor, but luckily doing no damage.
+
+"Ah, well! Eccentricity is quite the rage now, you know," responded the
+philosophical Cyn, "and certainly, a sugar-bowl so closely resembling a
+brown paper bag as not to be distinguishable from the real thing, is
+quite _recherche_. But my dear Nat, where am I to set the steak if you
+have that big fruit-dish in the center of the table, taking up all the
+room?"
+
+"I shall have to put it on the floor, then," Nattie answered,
+despairingly, "for I have tried it on all parts of the table! If you set
+it on the edge," she added hastily, seeing Cyn about to do so, "you will
+tip the whole thing over!"
+
+"Then we must have a side-board," Cyn announced, with a plate of steak
+in one hand, and the big fruit-dish in the other. "Put my writing-desk
+on a chair, please; spread a towel over it, and there you have it!"
+
+"But what a quantity of eatables we have! Two pounds of steak, ten big
+potatoes, a two-quart dish of tomatoes, two large pies, two Charlotte
+Russes, an urn of coffee, a dozen oranges and a box of figs--good
+gracious! Think of two people eating all that!" exclaimed Nattie,
+decidedly dismayed at the prospect.
+
+"It is considerable," Cyn confessed, surveying the array with a slightly
+daunted expression. "You see I am not used to buying for a family, and I
+was afraid of getting too little. But," brightening, "there isn't more
+than one quart of the tomatoes, and there are _three_ of us, you know--the
+Duchess!"
+
+"To be sure; I had forgotten her!" Nattie said, recovering her
+equanimity, and glancing at the purring animal, who was looking on
+approvingly, and evidently appreciated the difference between sirloin
+and her usual rations of round.
+
+"Then let the revels commence, at once!" cried Cyn, rolling down her
+sleeves, while Nattie wiped the smut from her face.
+
+But now another difficulty presented itself; the chairs were all too low
+to admit of feasting with the anticipated rapture; this was soon
+overcome, however, by piling a few books in the highest chair, and
+appropriating the music-stool.
+
+"Now for a feast," exclaimed Nattie, exultantly, as they sat down
+triumphant, and she brandished her very big knife and extremely small
+fork, while Cyn poured the coffee from the--urn; an undertaking attended
+with some difficulty, and requiring caution; and the Duchess looked on
+expectantly.
+
+And then--the goal almost reached--upon their startled ears came a
+dreadful sound--the sound of a knock at the door!
+
+Down to the ground went Nattie's knife and fork, the coffee-urn narrowly
+escaped a similar fate, up went the back of the Duchess, and two
+dismayed Bohemians and one impatient cat gazed at each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+UNEXPECTED VISITORS.
+
+
+"It must be Miss Kling, overpowered by curiosity!" murmured Nattie.
+
+"No!" answered Cyn in a stage whisper, "the knock is too timid. Good
+gracious! there it is again! Stand in front of the gas stove, Nat, lest
+it be Mrs. Simonson, while I go and invent some excuse for not letting
+in whoever it is."
+
+And having given these hasty directions, Cyn opened the door the
+smallest possible crack. As she did so, and before she could speak, it
+was pushed back violently, almost knocking her over, and in burst
+Quimby. This, however, might not have much disconcerted them, as _he_
+could have been disposed of easily enough, had not at his heels came a
+tall, fine-looking young man, a perfect stranger to both Cyn and Nattie.
+
+"You see I keep my word!" was the enigmatical remark the smiling Quimby
+made as he entered. Then, catching sight of the festive board, he
+stopped short and stared, with an utterly confounded face, at that, at
+the embarrassed Nattie, at Cyn, behind the door, and at the saucepan
+cover, which, embellished with potato parings, occupied a prominent
+position in the middle of the floor.
+
+His companion also paused, a surprised and amused smile lurking in his
+merry brown eyes as he looked at Nattie, seemingly regardless of
+anything else in the room.
+
+Cyn was the first to recover from the general petrifaction, and with the
+involuntary thought, "what an excellent stage situation!" came from
+behind the door, where Quimby's impetuous entrance had thrust her,
+saying, with as much ease as she could possibly gather together,
+
+"Don't be frightened at what you see, friend Quimby; we were only
+extemporizing a little feast, that is all. Will you join us?"
+
+But Quimby only stared harder than ever; he was evidently struck
+speechless.
+
+His companion, thus placed in the awkward position of an unintroduced
+intruder, withdrew his eyes from Nattie, took in the situation at a
+glance, and turning to Cyn, said, smiling,
+
+"I think we owe you an apology for our intrusion; my friend Quimby, on
+whom I called to day, in pity for my being a stranger in the city,
+kindly offered to introduce me to some friends of his. He informed me we
+were expected, but I fear we have made a mistake."
+
+At this Quimby recovered his voice.
+
+"No!" he cried, in stentorian tones, "it was not--I _cannot_ have made a
+mistake this time, you know! Cyn"--looking at her reproachfully--"you
+knew about it! I met you a short time ago, and asked you--and you said
+we might come, you know!"
+
+Half amazed and half amused, Cyn shook her head in denial, at which
+action Quimby started and turned pale.
+
+"Why I--I beg pardon--but in the hall! you said, 'certainly,' you know!"
+
+"Oh!" said Cyn, a light breaking in upon her. "I see, but I did not then
+understand you, I suppose;" rallying from her embarrassment, "my mind
+was so occupied with our feast, I was incapable of thinking of anything
+else; so please consider this an apology for the condition in which you
+find us, to yourself and your friend, whom, you will pardon me for
+reminding you, you have _not_ introduced," and Cyn looking laughingly at
+the stranger, who also laughed.
+
+"Oh! I--I beg pardon, I am sure, for--for all my stupidities. I--I am
+always doing something wrong, but I--I am used to it, you know," said
+the disconcerted Quimby; then wiping the perspiration from his forehead,
+he added clumsily, "my friend, Mr. Stanwood--Cyn--and Miss--Miss
+Rogers."
+
+Mr. Stanwood gayly shook hands with Cyn, whom Quimby had nervously
+forgotten to honor with a Miss, and then advanced to Nattie, who had not
+stirred from her position as screen for the gas stove, saying,
+
+"I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Rogers."
+
+And as Nattie accepted his proffered hand, in an embarrassed way, not
+yet being able to rise to the situation, and observed the peculiarly
+roguish expression with which he regarded her, she suddenly became aware
+that she had seen him on some previous occasion, but where she was
+utterly at loss to remember.
+
+Cyn, too, was struck by something a little odd in his manner to Nattie,
+and glanced at him curiously, as she said in her most cordial tones,
+
+"And now, gentlemen, as we have exchanged apologies all around, please
+be seated."
+
+Quimby immediately bounced up from the music-stool, on which, in his
+agitation, he had involuntarily dropped.
+
+"Oh, no!" he exclaimed hastily. "We--we did did not come to dinner, you
+know!"
+
+Cyn smiled at Quimby's anxiety to disclaim intentions no one thought of
+attributing to him, and turning to Mr. Stanwood, asked, thereby greatly
+scandalizing Nattie,
+
+"But supposing you were invited to stay and share our banquet, would
+you?"
+
+"Were I sure the invitation was heartfelt, I should be sorely tempted;
+wouldn't you, Quimby?" Mr. Stanwood replied, easily.
+
+Poor Quimby twirled his thumbs confusedly, and murmured something about
+leaving the ladies to enjoy their "feast" alone.
+
+"We have eatables enough for six, as Nat was just now intimating," went
+on Cyn, who certainly had a touch of true Bohemianism in her
+composition, as well as Jo Norton. "But our dishes, 'ay, there's the
+rub,'" and she laughingly held up the coffee-urn, while the less
+adaptable Nattie thought apprehensively of the propensity of things to
+cool.
+
+Undaunted by the urn, Mr. Stanwood said, with humorous wistfulness, but
+looking at Nattie,
+
+"You won't force us to eat the dishes, will you? and that steak smells
+so nice, and I haven't had any dinner!"
+
+"Then away with ceremony and sit down to the banquet!" said the reckless
+Cyn, regardless of the protest in Nattie's face; and truth to tell, the
+former young lady was not at all averse to this addition to their
+number.
+
+And to the consternation of Quimby, and dismay of Nattie, and possibly a
+little to the surprise of Cyn, Mr. Stanwood replied by seating himself
+down in a rocking-chair, and saying gayly,
+
+"I feel positive that I am about to enjoy myself as I have not since I
+was a boy, and stole eggs, and cooked them on a flat rock behind my
+uncle's barn, and had raw turnip for dessert. Sit down, Quimby!"
+
+Upon this Quimby, with a blushing protest against an intrusion, that did
+not seem to trouble his merry friend in the least, also sat down.
+
+As he did so, Nattie screamed; but too late. On the crowning glory of
+the feast, on those enticing Charlotte Russes, crowded from the table on
+to a chair, there was Quimby!
+
+"Bless my soul! what is the matter?" he asked, staring astounded at
+Nattie's scream, but still sitting there, entirely of the
+ruin he had wrought.
+
+Cyn's anguish knew no bounds, as she saw what had happened.
+
+"Get up!" she cried, wringing her hands, "can't you get up? good
+gracious! don't you know what you are sitting on?"
+
+"Eh?" he queried, rising obediently, and looking at her with a blank
+expression. "Sitting on?" then following her frantic gesture, he turned
+and looked at the chair behind him, and instantly horror overspread his
+countenance.
+
+"Bless my soul!" he gasped, turning round and round, trying to get a
+glimpse of his own coat-tails. "How did it come there? what is it?"
+
+"It is--_was Charlotte Russe!_" said Nattie, in gloomy despair.
+
+"_Charlotte Russe!_" echoed Quimby, still turning himself around like a
+revolving light. "It--it don't look much like it, you know!"
+
+At this, Mr. Stanwood, who had with difficulty suppressed his laughter
+until now, burst into an uncontrollable roar, in which he was joined by
+Cyn, and then by Nattie. They laughed until utterly exhausted, Quimby
+all the time keeping up his rotatory motion, with a face whose
+lugubriousness cannot be described.
+
+"I--I--bless my soul! I will replace what I have destroyed! I--I assure
+you, I will!" the unfortunate Quimby groaned, as soon as he could be
+heard. "I--what can I say, to express my sorrow--I--" and suddenly
+ceasing to revolve, he snatched Mr. Stanwood's hat, and started for the
+door.
+
+"Where are you going!" his friend questioned as gravely as he could.
+
+"More Charlotte Russes!" he responded incoherently, and with an agonized
+face.
+
+"If I may be permitted to make a suggestion," said Mr. Stanwood with
+labored gravity, "I should say, some little change in your toilet would
+be quite appropriate before going on the street, and moreover, that my
+hat will not fit your head!"
+
+At this, Quimby dropped the hat he held as if it had been red-hot,
+glanced at the chair whereon he had so lately distinguished himself,
+took up the tails of his coat one in each hand, revolved again, and then
+without a word darted from the room.
+
+As well as she could from laughing, Cyn called after him, telling him
+not to mind about getting the Charlotte Russes, and to hurry back, but
+he made no response.
+
+"Poor Quimby!" said Mr. Stanwood, wiping the tears of excessive mirth
+from his eyes. "He is such a good fellow, it is too bad he always is in
+hot water."
+
+"Yes," assented Cyn, removing the chair with the remains of what had
+been clinging to it from sight, Nattie following it with a somewhat
+rueful glance. "Shall we wait for him? I fear our dinner is getting
+cold."
+
+"I don't think we had better," Nattie, who had long been filled with a
+similar presentiment, responded. "There is no knowing whether he will
+return or not, and it's no use in having everything spoiled."
+
+"I do not think he will expect us to wait," Mr. Stanwood said.
+
+"Well then," said Cyn, "here is a chair for you, Mr. Stanwood. It's all
+right, so you need not look before sitting. Luckily you are taller than
+we, and need no books to raise you. Now the question is, what shall we
+give you to eat from? Ah! here is the bread plate! Nat, can't you find
+another wooden cover? No? Then spread a piece of brown paper over
+'Scribner's.' How fortunate we have an extra knife and fork; you don't
+mind their being oyster forks? I thought not! Nat and I will use the
+same spoon, so you can have a whole one. Nat, you and I will have to
+drink from that cracked tumbler."
+
+"Allow me," interrupted Mr. Stanwood. "Do you know," solemnly, "a
+cracked tumbler is and always was the height of my ambition."
+
+"Well then, we are all right!" said the jovial Cyn. "But I fear," she
+added, helping to steak, "if Quimby comes before we finish, he will have
+to go foraging for his own dishes!"
+
+Mr. Stanwood was praising the steak, which he certainly ate as if the
+admiration was genuine, when a timid rap announced Quimby's reappearance
+on the scene. In complete change of raiment, smelling like a field of
+new-mown hay, and figuratively clothed in sackcloth and ashes, he
+entered.
+
+"I--I beg pardon," he said, looking not at those he addressed, but
+humbly at the Duchess, who had been walking the floor impatiently and
+indignantly, but was now contentedly chewing. "I--I assure you I shall
+be delighted to go out and get Charlotte Russes to replace those I so
+wantonly destroyed. Will you--may I be allowed?"
+
+"Not on any account," said Cyn, quickly. "Besides, the stores are closed
+to-day."
+
+"So they are, so they are!" he exclaimed, putting his hand to his head
+dejectedly.
+
+"But we can exist without Charlotte Russes, I think," Nattie said. She
+had quite recovered her good humor, and was reconciled even to Mr.
+Stanwood's company; indeed, had secretly confessed he was really an
+acquisition. Such is the power of good beefsteak!
+
+"Some other time we will talk about it," Cyn said. "And now, we must
+improvise you a cup, plate, knife, fork, and spoon. I know you must be
+hungry after your exploit."
+
+Quimby blushed.
+
+"I--you shall have fifty Charlotte Russes tomorrow!" he ejaculated. "But
+the articles you mention--I--have in my room, and will bring them. You
+see I--sometimes have a little private lunch myself, you know," and
+departing, he in a moment returned with his dinner accouterments which
+Cyn commanded him to put down at once, lest he demolish them.
+
+"Let me see," she added, as he meekly deposited his burden on the
+nearest piece of furniture--which happened to be the piano. "I can make
+room for you here, next me, I think."
+
+"No! no!" he exclaimed quickly; "if you will be so kind, I--I would
+rather sit on that little stool in the corner, where I can do no damage,
+you know!"
+
+"Oh! we must not make a martyr of you!" laughed Nattie, as she cut a pie
+with a very dull knife, which caused the very unsteady table to shake,
+so that every one's coffee slopped over.
+
+"No, indeed; there is plenty of room here," added Mr. Stanwood,
+steadying his cracked tumbler. But Quimby shook his head.
+
+"Now, really--I--I shall feel much more comfortable if I may--if you
+will allow me to sit on the stool. I--I am used to it, you know! 'Pon my
+word, I--I mean all right, but some way I always make a mess of it!"
+
+Cyn would have remonstrated further, but Mr. Stanwood said, "We had
+better let him be happy in his own way; I suppose he will not be easy
+unless we do!"
+
+And so Quimby, much to his satisfaction, was allowed to eat his share of
+the feast on a low stool, in the corner, like a naughty school-boy.
+
+Visitors were destined to be numerous to-day, for hardly had Quimby been
+served, when a knock at the door was followed by the appearance of Jo,
+who tip-toed into the room, and in a mysterious whisper, said,
+
+"I saw Quimby enter this room, bearing utensils that could only be used
+for one purpose! I smelt a savory odor! and here I am!"
+
+"And welcome, too!" said Cyn, laughing; "come, sit here by me. Are you
+and Mr. Stanwood acquainted?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" replied Jo, perching himself on the arm of a rocking-chair
+close to Cyn, and appropriating a wooden cover for a plate as he spoke.
+"He and Quimby did me the honor to call on me to-day, but left for metal
+more attractive--whether the dinner or you ladies, I will not pretend to
+say!"
+
+"It was we ladies, you dreadful matter-of-fact creature!" said Nattie.
+"Their presence at the dinner was quite accidental; Cyn and I started
+out for a little quiet feast, and behold the result! Bohemian enough for
+even you, isn't it, Jo?"
+
+"Exactly what I like!" replied Jo--and very close indeed to Cyn had Jo
+managed to get, but then the table was very small--"But the idea of you
+two girls proposing to selfishly enjoy such a feast all alone!"
+
+"I begin to think we did make a mistake, in not making preparations for,
+and inviting a larger party," acquiesced Cyn.
+
+"I wonder if Miss Rogers has overcome her anger towards offending me?"
+questioned Mr. Stanwood, looking at her roguishly, as she helped him to
+a second piece of pie.
+
+"My anger towards you?" repeated Nattie, coloring.
+
+"Yes; you did not want me to accept Miss Archer's most kind invitation,
+and remain; now confess, did you?" he asked, laughing.
+
+Nattie was rather embarrassed at this instance of the young gentleman's
+perceptive faculties, and not exactly able to refute the charge, was
+somewhat at loss how to reply.
+
+"I--I do not get acquainted quite so easily as Cyn," she stammered.
+
+"Except on the wire!" Cyn added.
+
+"Except on the wire," repeated Nattie, with a smile; then meeting the
+curious glance of Mr. Stanwood, it suddenly flashed upon her that he was
+the same young gentleman who had called at the office, and inquired
+about the tariff to Washington, for the sole object of talking, as she
+then supposed.
+
+"I have seen you before!" she exclaimed, on the impulse of the moment.
+
+"That sounds like a novel! what is coming now?" ejaculated Jo, with his
+mouth full of pie.
+
+Mr. Stanwood laughed very heartily at Nattie's exclamation, and asked in
+reply,
+
+"Have you just discovered it? I recognized you the moment I entered the
+room to-day. That is one reason I was so anxious to remain. She snubbed
+me most outrageously," he added to Cyn, in explanation, "and simply
+because I tried to be agreeable to her one day at the office."
+
+"But you had no business to be agreeable!" said Nattie, also laughing,
+and not at all displeased.
+
+"Of course you had not," interrupted Jo.
+
+"I never talk to strangers," concluded Nattie.
+
+"Except, perhaps, on the wire, as you said just now!" he suggested.
+
+"You have caught her now!" said Cyn gayly, as she peeled an orange. "But
+you will never do even that again, will you, Nat?"
+
+"One such experience is quite enough for me," Nattie replied.
+
+"Still, the next one might not have red hair, or smell of musk!" Jo
+remarked.
+
+"He might be even worse, though!" interposed the penitent on the stool.
+
+With a strangely puzzled look, Mr. Stanwood glanced from one to the
+other, observing which, Cyn said,
+
+"You don't understand, of course. May I tell him, Nat?"
+
+"Ah! well--yes!" Nattie replied with an air of vexed resignation. "I
+suppose I may as well make up my mind to be laughed at on account of
+that story forever and a day."
+
+"I am as much of a victim as you, for I was intensely interested in the
+unknown," laughed Cyn; then turning to Mr. Stanwood, she went on. "It
+appears telegraph operators have a way of talking together over the
+wire, knowing little about each other, and nothing at all of their
+mutual personal appearance. In this manner, Nat became acquainted with a
+young man whom she knew as 'C,' and grew, to speak mildly, interested in
+him--Now, Nat, you know you did--and so, as I remarked previously, did
+I--we were introduced over the wire. In fact, he seemed everything that
+was nice and agreeable, and if we did not actually fall in love with
+him--you see, I am sharing your glory all I can, Nat--it is a wonder."
+
+"If this 'C' knew the impression he made on two young ladies, he would
+certainly feel complimented," Mr. Stanwood, who was playing with his
+knife and fork, here interrupted.
+
+"Fortunately, he never really knew," replied Cyn, while Nattie looked
+somewhat gloomily at her goblet of coffee, in memory of the romance that
+collapsed. "To continue this ower true tale!--Thus far all was
+mysterious, enchanting, romantic. But now comes the dark sequel. One day
+'C' called--bodily."
+
+Mr. Stanwood started and looked quickly up at Nattie, who, without
+observing his glance, murmured contemptuously,
+
+"Odious creature!"
+
+At this he turned with a perplexed look again to Cyn, who proceeded.
+
+"Yes, an odious creature he proved to be. Only think, he had red hair,
+and dreadful teeth, smelt of musk, wore cheap jewelry, and, in short,
+was decidedly vulgar!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Mr. Stanwood, staring at her as if he thought she was
+bereft of her senses. "What!" and he dropped his knife and fork, and
+pushed his chair back violently, to the alarm of the Duchess, who was
+immediately behind.
+
+Cyn appeared astonished at his vehemence; but Nattie, too occupied with
+thoughts of this newly-revived grievance to observe it, repeated,
+
+"Red hair, all bear's grease, and everything to match!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," Mr. Stanwood asked, looking at her earnestly,
+and speaking with great energy, "that a person, such as you describe,
+called on you and represented himself to be 'C'?"
+
+"Exactly," Nattie replied; "first telling me he was going away to
+substitute for a day, and then coming upon me in all his odiousness."
+
+"The story seems to interest you," added Cyn, glancing at him
+scrutinizingly.
+
+Mr. Stanwood looked at her, at Nattie, mused a moment, and then burst
+into a laugh, equal even to the one Quimby had caused.
+
+"It does interest me," he said, as soon as he could speak; "very much,
+indeed. It is really the best joke--considered from one point--I ever
+heard. And, of course, after that day, 'C' was cut?"
+
+"Indeed he was," Nattie replied, scornfully.
+
+"The circuit was broken after that!" Jo added, technically.
+
+"And a romance was spoiled in the first act," added Cyn, rising from the
+now vanished feast.
+
+"Poor 'C'!" said Mr. Stanwood, following her example. "Really, Miss
+Archer, I have enjoyed this dinner better than any I ever had, and the
+climax is the best of all!"
+
+"I wish we might have such a feast every day!" said Jo, regretfully.
+
+"And, except the damage--I don't refer to any done myself, I--I am used
+to it, you know--I quite agree with you about the dinner. And as for the
+joke--I--I--really it was quite a serious one to Miss Rogers, at the
+time, I assure you. Bless my soul! You should have seen how--how blue
+she was for a week, you know!" said Quimby.
+
+Nattie colored as Mr. Stanwood glanced at her, and knowing he could not
+but notice the blush, thought angrily, "How dreadful it is to have such
+honest, outspoken people as Quimby about!"
+
+"Come, Nat, and help me clear away the remains," said Cyn. Apparently
+glad enough was Nattie to obey, and turn aside her burning face from the
+sight of those merry brown eyes.
+
+In a very few moments the banqueting hall was transformed to a parlor,
+with only Quimby sucking an orange on his stool that he refused to
+leave, Jo cracking nuts, and the Duchess eating a fig, to tell of what
+had been.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+THE BROKEN CIRCUIT RE-UNITED.
+
+
+Mr. Stanwood sat down at the table where Nattie was looking over Cyn's
+album, and seemed to have become very thoughtful; Cyn meanwhile busied
+herself in dressing an ugly gash the ever-unfortunate Quimby had managed
+to inflict on his hand.
+
+Suddenly Nattie was disturbed by Mr. Stanwood drumming with a pencil on
+the marble top of the table, and glancing up casually, observed his eyes
+fixed upon her with a peculiar expression, and at the same moment her
+ear seemed to catch a familiar sound. With a slight start she listened
+more attentively to his seemingly idle drumming. Yes--whether knowingly,
+or by accident, he certainly was making dots and dashes, and what is
+more, was making N's!
+
+"I will soon ascertain if he means it or not!" thought Nattie, and
+seizing a pair of scissors, the only adaptable instrument handy, she
+drummed out, slowly, on account of the imperfectness of her impromptu
+key--pretending all the while to be entirely absorbed in the album,
+
+"Are you an operator?"
+
+Mr. Stanwood, in his turn, seemingly deeply engaged in the contents of a
+book, immediately drummed in response,
+
+"Yes."
+
+Nattie felt the color come into her face.
+
+"Oh, dear!" she thought, "and Cyn told him that ridiculous story! Every
+operator in town will know it now." Then with the scissors she asked,
+
+"Why didn't you say so? Where is your office?"
+
+"I have none now," the pencil answered, while Cyn, glancing across the
+room, wondered to see the two so studious, and unsuspiciously asked
+Quimby if he supposed they were practicing for a drum corps? After a few
+meaningless dots, the pencil went on,
+
+"A little girl at B m was dreadfully sold one day!"
+
+The album Nattie held fell from her hands as she stared petrified at her
+_vis-a-vis_, who kept his eyes on his book with the most innocent
+expression imaginable, one that even a Chinaman could not have equaled.
+Where could he have heard those words, once so familiar? A moment's
+thought gave her the most probable key.
+
+"You are in the main office of this city, and have heard me talking with
+'C'!" she wrote, as fast as the scissors would let her.
+
+"No, to the first of your surmise," came from the pencil, "and yes to
+the last."
+
+"What office were you in?" the scissors asked.
+
+"X n," responded the pencil.
+
+"What! with 'C'?" asked the scissors, and if ever there was a pair of
+excited scissors, these were the ones.
+
+"Well--yes," replied the pencil with provoking slowness. "Don't you
+'_C_' the point? Can't you 'C' that you did not 'C' the 'C' you thought
+you did 'C' that day?"
+
+Nattie's breath came fast, and her hand trembled so she could not hold
+the scissors. With a crash they dropped on the table, making one loud,
+long dash. But the imperturbable pencil went on calmly,
+
+"It was all a mistake. I am--'C'!"
+
+Disdaining scissors and pencil, Nattie started up, exclaiming
+vehemently,
+
+"What do you mean? it can't be possible!"
+
+The consternation of Cyn, who was just informing Quimby that his wound
+would do very well now, the horror of the patient, and the surprise of
+Jo Norton at this emphatic and unaccountable outburst from the hitherto
+so silent Nattie was indescribable.
+
+"Good gracious, Nat! what in the world is the matter?" cried Cyn,
+starting up and bringing the bottle of liniment she held in violent
+contact with Quimby's head, a circumstance that even the victim did not
+notice, so absorbed was he in amazement.
+
+At Nattie's exclamation, Mr. Stanwood threw aside his book, pencil, and
+innocent countenance together, and regardless of any one but her, sprang
+to his feet, advanced with both hands extended, and shining eyes,
+saying,
+
+"I mean just what I said, it is possible!"
+
+Hardly knowing what she did, utterly confused and bewildered, Nattie
+placed her hand in the two that clasped it, while Cyn stared with
+distended eyes, Quimby with wide-open mouth, and Jo gave a long whistle.
+Cyn was first to recover, and began to scold.
+
+"Well," she exclaimed, "this _is_ a pretty piece of business, never yet
+played on any stage, I should think! Nat, will you, or will somebody
+have the goodness to explain this sudden and extraordinary scene?"
+
+"I--I don't understand!" Nattie murmured faintly, and looking
+half-frightened, and half-beseechingly at Mr. Stanwood, who in response
+smiled and said, with a firmer clasp of the hand he still held,
+
+"I will explain in a very few moments how it is possible that I am the
+real 'C'!"
+
+"What!" screamed Cyn.
+
+"What!" shouted Jo.
+
+"What!!" absolutely yelled Quimby.
+
+"There has been a mistake!" Mr. Stanwood said, now looking at Cyn.
+
+"A mistake!" she repeated excitedly, "what _do_ you mean? YOU 'C,' our
+'C,' of the wire? Nonsense! You are joking!"
+
+"Yes, he is joking!" Quimby reiterated, but his teeth chattered as he
+spoke. "He is a dreadful fellow to joke, Clem is!"
+
+"Clem!" cried Cyn and Nattie, in the same breath.
+
+"Do you begin to believe me?" said the gentleman who had caused all this
+disturbance, and looking at Nattic, who now, becoming conscious that her
+hand was yet in his, withdrew it hastily, with a deep blush.
+
+"I don't know what to think!" cried Cyn.
+
+"Do explain something, quick, or I shall burst a blood-vessel with
+impatience; I know I shall!" exclaimed Jo.
+
+Mr. Stanwood complied, by saying,
+
+"The fact of the case is simply this. That red-haired young man, so
+graphically described by you girls, that 'odious creature,' was the
+operator I went to substitute for that day!"
+
+"Oh!" said Nattie, a light beginning to break upon her.
+
+"But how--" commenced Cyn.
+
+"I will tell you how, if you will be patient," Mr. Stanwood interrupted,
+smiling. "His office, as you," looking at Nattie, "remember, had once
+been on our wire. He had heard 'N' and I talking, and in fact had often
+annoyed us by breaking. So, as he was at the city, he took the
+opportunity to pass himself off for me; perhaps for the sake of a joke,
+perhaps from more malicious motives. I recognized his description at
+once, from your story to-day, and I remember, too, his telling me on his
+return, that he knew the best joke of the season; a remark I did not
+notice, never supposing it concerned me."
+
+"Yes!" said Nattie, eagerly, "and he was very particular to ask me not
+to mention his call, on the wire."
+
+"I do not suppose he imagined but we would eventually discover the
+fraud, however; and so we should, had not you," looking rather
+reproachfully at Nattie, "in your haste to drop so undesirable an
+acquaintance, avoided the least hint of the true cause. How the dickens
+was I to know what was the matter? I puzzled my brains enough over it, I
+assure you."
+
+"And that red-headed impostor has been chuckling in his sleeve ever
+since, I suppose," said Cyn, indignantly; then seizing. Mr. Stanwood by
+the arms, she cried, in a transport of delight, "and it really is true?
+you are our 'C?'"
+
+"What! am I not yet believed?" he questioned, laughing; "what more shall
+I do to convince you of my identity? you accepted our red-headed friend
+readily enough!"
+
+"Oh! I believe you!" cried Nattie, eagerly; then stopped, and colored,
+abashed at her own so plainly shown delight.
+
+But Mr. Stanwood looked at her with a gratified expression in his brown
+eyes.
+
+"And you will not snub me any more, will you?" he said, pleadingly;
+"because I never use bear's grease or musk, and my hair isn't red a
+bit!"
+
+"I will try and make amends," Nattie answered, shyly; adding, "I ought
+to have known there was some mistake. I never could reconcile that
+creature and--and 'C'!"
+
+"Then I may flatter myself that I am an improvement?" asked Mr.
+Stanwood, merrily; at which Nattie murmured something about fishing for
+compliments, and Cyn replied gayly,
+
+"Yes; because you have curly hair! You remember what I said on the wire,
+_via_ Nat?"
+
+"Could I forget?" he replied, gallantly.
+
+"And it isn't a dream! You are 'C', the real 'C,'" replied Cyn, pinching
+herself, and then seizing Nattie, who, from the suddenness of it all was
+yet in a semi-bewildered state--there was not a bit of unhappiness in
+it, though--waltzed ecstatically around the room, crying, "Oh! I am so
+glad! I am so glad!"
+
+At this point Quimby, who, during the preceding explanation had listened
+with a face illustrating every variety of consternation and dismay,
+attracted attention to himself by an audible groan, observing which, he
+muttered something about his "wound"--the word had a double meaning for
+him then, poor fellow!--and rising, came forward, took his friend by the
+shoulder, and asked, solemnly,
+
+"Now, Clem--I--I beg pardon--but is it--is this all true, and--and not
+one of your jokes, you know? Honestly, are you that--that 'C'?"
+
+"Here is a doubting Thomas for you!" cried Clem, gayly. "But, upon my
+word of honor, old boy, I truly and honestly am 'that C,' and I suppose
+you were the 'other visitor of no consequence,' who called with Miss
+Archer that day I was favored by an introduction to her. How little I
+thought it then!"
+
+"How little _I_ thought it!" groaned Quimby, as his hand fell dejectedly
+from Clem's shoulder. "But I--I am used to it, you know!" So saying he
+sank into a chair. That _he_ had brought about such a result as
+this--that _he_ had resurrected the dreaded "C" from the grave of musk
+and bear's grease was too much.
+
+"But now that all is explained, I am really not sorry for the mistake,"
+Clem said, utterly unconscious of his friend's state of mind. "For, had
+it not been for that I should never have learned, as I have to-day, from
+you two ladies, what a very interesting and agreeable fellow I am!" and
+he bowed profoundly, with a twinkle of merriment in his eyes.
+
+"Over the wire," Nattie added, pointedly.
+
+"Of course, over the wire!" he said, with another bow. "But it shall be
+my endeavor to make good my reputation, minus the wire!"
+
+"You will have to work very hard to place Mr. Stanwood where 'C' was in
+our good graces!" said Cyn, archly.
+
+"Then suppose we drop the Mr. Stanwood, and take up Clem, who already
+was somewhat advanced!" he said, adroitly.
+
+"Ah! Clem sounds more natural, doesn't it, Nat?" questioned Cyn
+laughing; "we knew Clem and 'C,' but Mr. Stanwood is a stranger!"
+
+"Then let us drop him by all means! and now say you are glad to see your
+old friend!" said Clem, gayly.
+
+"We are transported with delight at beholding our Clem, so lately given
+up as lost forever!" Cyn replied with equal gayety; and Clem, then
+looking at Nattie, as if he expected her to say something also, she
+murmured,
+
+"I am very glad to meet 'C,'" a remark that sounded cold beside that of
+enthusiastic Cyn. But in fact Nattie was so confused, so happy, and so
+strangely timid, that she longed to get away by herself and think it all
+over and quietly realize it; and besides, in her secret heart, Nattie
+felt a growing conviction that Cyn used the plural pronoun we more than
+previous circumstances actually warranted.
+
+"But Nat," said Cyn, all unconscious of her friend's jealous criticism,
+"you have not yet told me how you found him out?"
+
+"He telegraphed to me with a pencil on the table, and coolly informed me
+that he was 'C,'" Nattie explained.
+
+"And then you jumped up and threw us uninitiated ones into a great state
+of alarm," said Cyn; "and instead of practicing for a drum corps, as I
+supposed, you were talking secretly, you sly creatures!" then turning to
+Clem, she asked, laughing, "what did you think when Nat dropped you so
+suddenly and completely?"
+
+"What could I think, except that it was a caprice of hers," he answered,
+laughing. "At first I thought she was vexed at my having gone to B a,
+but she denied that, and finally I believe I became angry myself, and
+concluded to let her have her own way. Nevertheless, I could not resist
+calling to see her, when I came to the city, and had I met with any
+encouragement, I should probably have declared myself, but I was
+annihilated without ceremony."
+
+"You would not have been, perhaps, had you been honest in the first
+place, instead of asking unnecessary questions about tariffs," replied
+Nattie.
+
+"Yes, but you were to recognize me by intuition you know, and I wanted
+to give you a chance," responded Clem, quickly.
+
+Nattie looked a trifle abashed.
+
+"But I am quite sure I should have suspected it was you, had I not given
+you up as hopelessly red-headed," she persisted; "why, almost the very
+first question the creature asked was, 'do you see that twinkle?'"
+
+"So he heard and treasured that remark to some purpose," he said; "well,
+I will not dispute your intuition theory, since your last words assure
+me that I do not fall so far short of your imaginary 'C,' as did my
+personator. I imagine your expression of countenance, on learning the
+intelligence, was hardly flattering to his vanity."
+
+Nattie, who had colored at the first of his remark, replied
+contemptuously,
+
+"His self-conceit was too great to attribute my very uncordial reception
+to anything except, as he said, 'my bashfulness.' I presume it has
+afforded him great enjoyment to think how successfully he stepped into
+your shoes, and what a joke he had played upon me."
+
+"Upon _us_, you mean," corrected Clem.
+
+"Certainly; upon _us_," Nattie replied, with another flush of color. "I
+remember how indifferent he seemed when I hinted that now we had met the
+chief pleasure of talking on the wire was gone. And I believe he didn't
+actually say in so many words that he was 'C,' but left me to understand
+it so."
+
+"And I am indebted to him for being such a lonesome, miserable fellow
+the latter part of my telegraphic career," said Clem, rather savagely.
+
+Nattie murmured something about the time passing pleasanter when there
+was some one to talk with, and Cyn asked, curiously,
+
+"Then you have left the dot and dash business, have you?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It was merely temporary with me," Clem replied; then seating
+himself on the sofa beside Nattie, and drawing a chair up for Cyn,
+between himself and Jo--Quimby being at the other end of the room, a
+prey to his emotions--Clem continued;
+
+"The truth of the matter is simply this, my father, with a
+pig-headedness worthy of Eugene Wrayburn's M. R. F. in 'Our Mutual
+Friend,' determined to make a doctor of me, not on account of any
+qualifications of mine, but for the simple reason that a doctor is a
+good thing to have in a family. But I, having an intense dislike to the
+smell of drugs, a repugnance to knowing anything more than absolutely
+necessary about the 'ills that flesh is heir to,' and decided objections
+to having the sleep of my future life disturbed, declined, and at the
+same time expressed a desire to go into the store with him, and become a
+merchant. Upon which my most immediate ancestor waxed wroth, called me,
+in plain, unvarnished words, a fool; and a pretty one I was to set
+myself up against his will! I, who couldn't earn my salt without him to
+back me! Being of a contrary opinion myself, I determined to test my
+abilities in the salt line. I began," looking at Nattie, merrily, "by
+salting you!"--then explaining to Cyn, Jo, and the silent Quimby,
+"'Salt' is a term operators use, when one tries to send faster than the
+other can receive. I began my acquaintance with N by trying to 'salt'
+her. To go on with my narrative, I had learned to telegraph at college,
+where the boys had private wires from room to room, and being acquainted
+with one of the managers in our city, succeeded in obtaining that very
+undesirable office down there at X n, where I remained until my stern
+parent relented, concluded to hire a doctor instead of making one, and
+offered me the control of a branch of the firm here in your city. And
+here I am!"
+
+"And isn't it strange how you should have stumbled upon us, feast and
+all?" said Cyn, laughing.
+
+Nattie was again disturbed by the plural pronoun, and also angry at
+herself for observing it.
+
+"Isn't it?" Clem answered merrily; "what a lucky fellow I am! You see,
+not being at all acquainted in the city, I hunted up my old college
+friend Quimby, who asked me to call on some lady friends of his,
+mentioning no names, which of course I was only too glad to do! Imagine
+my surprise and delight when I discovered who those friends were! But I
+don't know as I should have dared to reveal myself, having been so often
+snubbed,"--With a roguish glance at Nattie-- "if that story had not been
+told and the mystery solved. Imagine my dismay, though, at being called
+an 'odious creature,' and the surprise with which I listened to my own
+description! So earnest were you, that I actually, for a moment, thought
+my hair must have turned red!" and he ran his fingers through his curly
+locks with a rueful face.
+
+The girls laughed, and Cyn exclaimed,
+
+"What a pity it is you tore up that picture, Nat!"
+
+"Yes," acquiesced Nattie, adding, in explanation, to Clem-- "You
+remember that pen and ink sketch? My first act of vengeance was to
+destroy it!"
+
+"Never mind, Jo will do another, will you not?" asked Clem, turning to
+that gentleman, who, upon being thus appealed to, arose, laid down the
+nutcracker he held, and said with the utmost solemnity,
+
+"Jo is ready to draw anything. _But_ Jo is aghast and horrified at being
+mixed even in the slightest degree with anything so near approaching the
+romantic, as the affair in question. What is the use of a fellow shaving
+off his hair, I would like to know, if such things as these will
+happen?"
+
+"It is no use fighting against Nature!" laughed Cyn. "Romance always has
+been since the world was, and always will be, I suppose. Your turn will
+come, Jo! I have no doubt we shall see you a long haired, cadaverous,
+sentimental artist yet!"
+
+"Never!" cried Jo heroically. "But you must confess that this affair is
+taking undue advantage of a fellow. A _wired_ romance is something
+entirely unexpected!"
+
+"And besides, viewed telegraphically, there is nothing at all romantic
+in the whole affair!" said Nattie, who, between her confusion at the
+turn the conversation had taken, and her alarm lest something should be
+said about that chubby Cupid--whom it will be remembered she had
+suppressed in her former description to "C "--was decidedly embarrassed.
+
+Before Jo could express his satisfaction at this statement, Clem
+exclaimed, reproachfully,
+
+"Oh! do not say that! not even to spare our friend's feelings can I deny
+the romance of our acquaintance."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Cyn; "I really believe Nat is going over
+to Jo's ideas. Never mind! just wait until your turn comes, you
+unsentimental Jo."
+
+"Madam!" cried Jo, "when I find myself in the condition you describe, I
+will come and place the disposal of myself in your hands!" and he made
+her a profound bow.
+
+There is many a true word spoken in jest, and none of the little party
+there assembled imagined how true, indeed, these words were to prove, as
+Cyn gayly answered,
+
+"It is a bargain, Jo, and I shall have no mercy on you, I can assure
+you."
+
+"And we must not forget that we are indebted to Quimby for the
+unraveling of all this mystery," said Nattie. She smiled on him where he
+sat, in his dismayed isolation, as she spoke, and although it was the
+warmest smile she had ever yet bestowed upon him, he was rendered no
+happier by its warmth.
+
+"Yes, how fortunate it was, Clem, that you looked him up!" said Cyn.
+
+Nattie wondered that she could pronounce the familiar name so easily.
+She was quite sure she herself could not.
+
+"Was it not?" exclaimed Clem, delightedly; "and what is better than all,
+I am coming here to room with him!" At this Jo shook him cordially by
+the hand, Cyn and Nattie gave exclamations of pleasure, and Quimby
+suddenly started into life. "I--I beg pardon," he said, hastily, "but
+I--I really--I though you said you had rather be farther down town, you
+know."
+
+"Yes, that was my first inclination, but as you urged me so much, and as
+I find so many old friends here, I have concluded to accept your offer,
+my boy, so consider the matter settled," replied Clem.
+
+And in his own entire satisfaction and unconsciousness, Clem did not
+observe but what Quimby looked as happy as might be expected, at this
+intelligence.
+
+"'Oh, won't we have a jolly time,"' sang Cyn, and Clem, Nattie and
+Jo--but not Quimby--took up the chorus.
+
+And obtuse as he was, Quimby could not but observe that Nattie's eyes
+were shining in a way he had never seen them shine before, that the
+ever-coming and going flush on her cheeks was very becoming, and that
+there was an expression in her face, when she looked at Clem, that face
+had never held for _him_. Nor could he fail to think, that the romantic
+commencement of the acquaintance of these two, even the episode of the
+musk-scented impostor all now enhanced the interest Nattie had once felt
+for the invisible "C" neither did he need a prophet to tell him that the
+two girls would sit up half the night, talking confidentially over this
+unexpected and happy _denouement_, or even that Nattie's sleep would not
+be quite as sound as usual.
+
+Love, it is said, is blind. So, to some things, perhaps, it is, but
+never to a rival.
+
+And when at last Clem tore himself away, with the remark,
+
+"What a fortunate day this has been! Quimby, my dear boy, how can I
+thank you? I shall take possession of my half of your apartment at once,
+to be sure no one shall again usurp my place; until then, _au revoir_!"
+and, in parting, perceptibly held Nattie's hand longer than was
+absolutely necessary, Quimby followed him with dejected mien, fully
+aware that of all the mistakes he had ever made he committed the worst,
+when he asked his old chum to call on some lady friends of his!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+MISS KLING TELEGRAPHICALLY BAFFLED.
+
+
+Miss Betsey Kling was quite uneasy in her mind about this time, not only
+because the Torpedo refused to see himself in the light of that other
+self, and fled whenever he saw her approaching, but also because some
+subtle instinct told her, that under her very nose, was going on
+something of which the details were unknown to her, and that listen as
+she would, could not be ascertained. This good-looking young man, who
+had so suddenly appeared on Mrs. Simonson's premises who and what was
+he? From Mrs. Simonson she learned that he was an old friend of
+Quimby's; that she believed he was also an old friend of Miss Archer's,
+or Miss Rogers', or of both, and that his father was very wealthy,
+
+"Humph!" said Miss Kling, with a suspicious sniffle. "Strange that he
+should room with Quimby if his father is so wealthy? Why does he not
+have a room of his own?"
+
+"He and Quimby are such friends, you see!" Mrs. Simonson explained.
+
+Miss Kling gave another sniffle, this time of contempt, at such a reason
+being possible.
+
+"Miss Rogers is in here about all her time when she isn't at the office,
+is she not?" was the next question.
+
+"She is very intimate with Miss Archer," Mrs. Simonson replied.
+
+"And I suppose _he_ and that Quimby are in there with them every evening,
+are they not?" pursued Miss Kling.
+
+They called quite often, Mrs. Simonson acknowledged, as did Mr. Norton,
+and Miss Fishblate.
+
+"They seem to have good times, too," added kindly Mrs. Simonson. "Young
+folks will be young folks, you know. And why not? Bless you! we never
+can enjoy ourselves again as we do when young. There are too many cares
+and worries when we get to our age."
+
+Miss Kling rose stiffly; this allusion to "our age" disgusted and
+offended her beyond pardon, and she flew into a spasm of sneezing.
+
+"Well, I, for one, do not think such conduct is proper," she said, as
+soon as possible. "I was brought up to understand that young ladies
+should never receive the visits of gentlemen except in the presence of
+older people!"
+
+Mrs. Simonson only laughed a little forced laugh she had when she did
+not know exactly what to say. For her own part, although not willing to
+offend Miss Kling by saying so, she was glad to see her lodgers enjoying
+themselves; more than glad to have Clem there, as on his arrival she had
+promptly tacked an extra dollar on the room rent, under the plea that
+the wear and tear on furniture was greater with two in a room.
+
+Miss Kling, fearing, perhaps, another reference to "our age," left her,
+and next attacked Celeste Fishblate, having long ago discovered Nattie
+to be impregnable to the process known as "pumping," a fact that had
+augmented her ever-increasing dislike towards her lodger.
+
+From Celeste, she learned that they had "_such_ nice times!" that Mr.
+Stanwood was "_so_ splendid!" and that "Miss Archer was just _dead_ in
+love with him, and he with her!"
+
+"Humph!" thought Miss Kling with a sneeze. "It's that Miss Archer then,
+is it?" Her next move was to arrest poor Quimby in the hall, intending
+to put him through a series of interrogations regarding the antecedents
+of his friend, and the length of his acquaintance with Miss Archer. But
+in this she was baffled, for at the first question, Quimby exclaimed,
+
+"I--I don't know! Don't ask me!" and fled.
+
+Miss Kling, much to her dissatisfaction, was therefore compelled to make
+the little she had gathered go as far as it would, for the present. But
+she lived in hopes.
+
+It was perhaps not wonderful, that Miss Kling sitting lonely by her
+fireside, and pining for her other self, should feel envious because her
+lodger, whom she took ostensibly for company, was enjoying herself over
+the way evening after evening, and telling her absolutely nothing about
+it, but confining their intercourse to the necessary civilities.
+
+Undoubtedly the few weeks that had passed since Clem's appearance on the
+scene ought to have been the happiest in Nattie's hitherto lonely life,
+happier even than those in which she talked to the then unseen "C," and
+speculated about him with Cyn. But yet--she sometimes felt that a
+certain something that had been on the wire was lacking now; that Clem,
+while realizing all her old expectations of "C," was not exactly what
+"C" had been to her. One reason of this she knew was her own inability
+to conquer a sort of timidity she felt in his presence, a timidity from
+which Cyn was certainly free. Well aware that beside the gay and
+brilliant Cyn she was nowhere, Nattie had a sensitive fear that he might
+be disappointed in her. But she did not yet know that the foundation of
+all these uneasy misgivings of hers was a selfish emotion, the same that
+had prompted that jealous pang at Cyn's "we" the day he first discovered
+himself, and this was, that on the wire "C" had been all hers, but in
+Clem, Cyn seemed to have the largest share.
+
+Twice he had called on Nattie at the office, but neither time could
+stop, and as it happened on each occasion, she was in the midst of a
+rush of business, that left no chance for conversation. But one rainy
+Saturday afternoon, when a general dullness prevailed, and she was
+fervently wishing the hands of the clock might move on faster towards
+six, Clem holding a very wet umbrella, and with water dripping from his
+curly locks, presented himself. If he was not, he certainly ought to
+have been flattered by the blush with which Nattie involuntarily
+welcomed him.
+
+"Did you rain down?" she hastily exclaimed, hoping by this trite
+commonplace to distract attention from the blush, of which she was
+conscious.
+
+"It appears like it, doesn't it?" he answered merrily, giving himself a
+little shake, and placing his wet umbrella and hat in a corner. "It was
+so dull at the store, I thought I would run around to the scene of
+former exploits. Do you not sometimes wish I was back at X n to keep you
+company such days as these?"
+
+Without thinking twice before she spoke once, Nattie answered candidly,
+as she placed a chair for her visitor,
+
+"Yes, I believe I do, often."
+
+"I do not know whether to take that as a compliment or otherwise," Clem
+said, looking at her as if half vexed.
+
+Nattie glanced up inquiringly
+
+"It certainly is a compliment to my abilities for, making myself
+agreeable at a _distance_. But--" said Clem, with a shrug of his
+shoulders, "a poor fellow does not like to feel as if the farther away
+he is, the better he is liked!"
+
+"Oh! I did not mean it that way at all!" exclaimed Nattie, in hasty
+explanation. "Only, you know, I had more of your company on the wire!"
+
+Clem looked pleased.
+
+"If that is the trouble--" he began, but Nattie interrupted, her face
+very red.
+
+"I did not mean that, either; I meant it was in such a different way,
+you know--and I--I could talk more easily, and--I do not believe I know
+what I do mean!" stopping short in embarrassment.
+
+Clem looked at her and smiled.
+
+"Let us see if it is any easier talking on the wire," he said; and
+taking the key, he wrote,
+
+"Good P m, will you please tell me truly, and relieve my mind, if you
+like me as well as you thought you would?"
+
+Taking the key he relinquished, and without looking at him, she replied,
+"Yes; and suppose I ask you the same question, what would you say,
+politeness aside?"
+
+"I should answer." wrote Clem, his eyes on the sounder, "that I have
+found the very little girl expected!"
+
+And then their eyes met, and Nattie hastily rose and walked to the
+window, for no ostensible purpose, and Clem said, going after her,
+
+"It _is_ nicer talking on the wire, isn't it?"
+
+Nattie was saved the necessity of replying by some one down the line who
+just then inquired,
+
+"Who was that talking soft nonsense just now? We don't allow that sort
+of thing here!"
+
+"How impertinent!" exclaimed Nattie.
+
+"Possibly our red-headed friend is somewhere about," Clem said; then
+taking the key, responded to the unknown questioner,
+
+"Don't trouble yourself; I shall not talk soft nonsense to you!"
+
+"That sounds like 'C's' writing! Is it?" was asked quickly.
+
+"My style must be very peculiar to be so readily detected," Clem said to
+Nattie, laughingly; then replied on the wire, "If you will sign I will
+tell you."
+
+"Em."
+
+"Ah!" said Clem, and immediately acknowledged himself. Then followed a
+short chat with "Em," in which she endeavored to make him confess what
+office he was then sending from, which he persistently refused to do.
+
+Having bade "Em" good-by, and closed the key, he said to Nattie,
+verbally, "We ought to have a private wire of our own, since a wire is
+so necessary to our happiness! I see," glancing around the office, "that
+you have an extra key and sounder here."
+
+"Yes;" Nattie replied, "we had at one time a railroad wire, and when it
+was taken out, the instruments were left, and have been here ever
+since."
+
+"Do you suppose you could take them home--to practice on, say?" queried
+Clem, a sparkle in his brown eyes.
+
+"Doubtless, if I asked permission, they would allow me that privilege;
+why?" asked Nattie, curiously.
+
+"I have a brilliant idea!" replied Clem, gayly. "But do not be alarmed,
+I am used to it, as Quimby would say; it is this. I myself have a key
+and sounder, relics of college days, beauties, too, and if you can take
+home those over there, we will have telegraphic communication from your
+room to ours, immediately. The wire and battery I will fix all right,
+and when Cyn is out, and you can't come over, and at odd times, we will
+have some of our old chats."
+
+"But," said Nattie, hesitatingly, although evidently delighted with the
+idea, "Miss Kling' will never--"
+
+"Hang Miss Kling!" interrupted Clem, emphatically; "excuse the
+expression, but she deserves it; she never need know. I will undertake
+to arrange everything, and keep the secret from her. To account for the
+instruments in your room, tell her you are going to practice at home,
+and have a pupil. Cyn, I know, will be delighted to amuse herself by
+learning."
+
+"I should like it very much," acknowledged Nattie, "but--"
+
+"I allow no buts," Clem interrupted with gay decision; "you get the
+instruments, tell me the first time Miss Kling goes out to spend the
+day, and leave the rest to me."
+
+Nattie needed little urging, being only too willing to have some more of
+those old confidential chats with "C,"--which _nobody_ could share--and
+the required promise was given.
+
+Strange it is, how circumstances alter cases. Coming to the office that
+morning, Nattie had found it disagreeable and hard enough to buffet the
+storm, and had growled at herself all the way, because she was not smart
+enough to get on in the world, even so far as to be able to stay at home
+in such weather For storms of nature, like storms of life, are hardest
+to a woman, trammeled as she is in the one by long skirts, that will
+drag in the mud, and clothes that every gust of wind catches, and in the
+other by prejudices and impediments of every kind, that the world, in
+consideration, doubtless, for her so-called "weakness," throws in her
+way. But now, on her way home, Nattie minded not the wind, and rather
+enjoyed the rain; it may be that this total change in her sentiments was
+due to the fact that Clem held the umbrella.
+
+Miss Kling saw them come into the hotel together, wet and merry, and
+scowled. Perhaps in former days she had gone home under an umbrella with
+somebody--a possible other self--and so knew all about the enjoyability
+of the experience. But Nattie did not even notice her landlady's
+acrimonious glance, and sang a gay song as she changed her bedrabbled
+dress.
+
+Cyn, who was of course immediately informed about the projected private
+wire, was delighted with the idea, and began studying the Morse alphabet
+at once.
+
+"And the best of all is that we are going to get the better of that
+argus-eyed Dragon!" said Cyn.
+
+"_If_ we can!" Nattie replied with emphasis.
+
+"Oh! but Clem is sure of that part!" Cyn said with great confidence.
+
+But Nattie shook her head dubiously.
+
+"She is so inquisitive!" she remarked.
+
+"Yes, and the most despicable character on earth to me, is a person
+whose chief object in life is gossip! why, life is too short to take
+care of our own affairs in! I wish you would leave her, and come and
+room with me!" exclaimed Cyn indignantly.
+
+"Mrs. Simonson would not dare have me. She is afraid of Miss Kling, you
+know. But I wish I might, for I am tired of being here," Nattie replied
+discontentedly.
+
+"Well, we will have our wire at all events, and for once something shall
+be that Miss Kling will not know," said Cyn exultantly.
+
+Unconsciously the dreaded individual favored them, shortly after, by
+going to spend the evening with friends after her own heart--very
+genteel, but in reduced circumstances:--and as the instruments were all
+ready, and they had only been waiting for her absence, Clem went to
+work. He was assisted by the willing Jo, who argued that running a wire
+was solid work, and _not_ romantic, and by Quimby, who viewed the
+arrangement as another formidable link in the chain of his rival, and
+clamored wildly for a "telephone," because "anybody could use a
+telephone." But that, as Clem said, was exactly what they did not want!
+Consequently Quimby, as he lent his aid, felt himself a very martyr.
+However, he was, by this time, "used to it, you know,"--as he would have
+said--having viewed himself in that light since his unwitting
+resurrection of "C." Still, he sometimes fancied he saw a dim light
+shining ahead through the gloom--a hope that Clem might be fascinated by
+Cyn. Many were, Quimby argued, so why should not Clem be? and certainly
+he talked with her more than he did with Nattie!
+
+In Nattie's room, they placed the instruments on a small shelf put up
+for the purpose, just outside her closet, and run the wire through the
+closet into the hall outside, and thence along, so close to the wall
+that it was not noticeable, except to those who knew, and then into Mrs.
+Simonson's apartments. Here, no concealment was necessary, as Mrs.
+Simonson had been informed of the plan, and, although trembling lest the
+vials of Miss Kling's wrath would be poured on her head, should that
+lady discover the arrangement, had no objections to offer, if they were
+positive "the electricity on the wire would not wear out the carpet, or
+injure the table"--which was the terminus in Quimby and Clem's room.
+
+Having satisfied her on this point, they deemed it expedient not to show
+her the battery in their closet, fearing alarm lest it might eat through
+the room and overpower her.
+
+"And now," said Clem, gayly, when all was finished, and fortunately
+without attracting attention, not even Celeste being in the secret;
+"now, Quimby, we can dispense with that alarm clock we were intending to
+buy."
+
+"I--I beg pardon, but I--I don't quite catch your meaning," the martyr
+replied, in evident surprise.
+
+"Why, Nat is to be our alarm clock!" explained Clem, laughing. "She is,
+from necessity, an early riser, and I shall depend on her to call on our
+wire at precisely six thirty every morning, and continue calling until I
+answer."
+
+"I certainly will," Nattie replied. "But I will venture to predict that
+both you and Quimby will privately call me all sorts of names for doing
+it. It makes people so very cross to be aroused from a morning nap, you
+know!"
+
+"It doesn't make _me_ cross, I--I assure you; it--it will be a pleasure!"
+quickly exclaimed Quimby, who was delighted with this idea of the alarm
+clock.
+
+"I will report him if he shows the least symptom of growling, after that
+assertion!" Clem said to Nattie, somewhat to Quimby's internal
+agitation, for, to tell the truth, he was not really quite certain of
+being in a state of rapture at six thirty every morning, even when awoke
+by the clatter of a sounder, of which the motive power was his
+inamorata.
+
+"And now, to christen our wire!" Nattie, who was in high spirits, said
+gayly, and she ran over to her room, and a half hour's chat with "C"
+followed before she went to bed. For a week after, however, she lived,
+as it were, on thorns, and came home every night half expecting an
+explosion.
+
+None came, however. Miss Kling's eyes were not as good as they once had
+been, what with their long service watching for that other self, and
+overlooking her neighbors; the hall was dark; she had no duplicate key
+to Nattie's always-locked room, and the small wire, nestling close to
+the wall, was undiscovered; of course, she heard the clatter of the
+sounder, but this Nattie explained on the score of "practice."
+
+"Well, I am sure!" said Miss Kling, snappishly, "I should think you
+would get 'practice' enough at the office, without sitting up nights to
+do it!"
+
+At which Nattie turned away to hide a blush, aware that "C" and she
+sometimes talked even into the small hours, in their zeal, doubtless,
+that the new wire should not rust out for lack of using.
+
+But this telegraphic arrangement came hardest on poor Quimby, who,
+between his jealousy when the two were communicating, his inability to
+understand what was being said, and the impossibility of sleeping with
+such a clatter in the room, lost his appetite, and invoked anything but
+blessings on the head of "that Morse man," who had made such things
+possible.
+
+Cyn had no intention of being left out in the cold, and making Jo join
+her, began the study of telegraphy, and the two hammered away
+incessantly. It began to be observable, about this time, that Jo was
+very willing to be led about by the nose by Cyn. Why, was not so
+apparent; perhaps because there was no romance in it.
+
+Cyn learned the quicker of the two, and she was soon able, slowly and
+uncertainly, to "call" Nattie, ask her to come over, or impart any
+little information, but was always driven frantic by the attempt to make
+out Nattie's reply, however slowly written. Cyn tried to induce Quimby
+to overcome the horrors of those little black marks, the alphabet and
+their sounds, but he recoiled from the effort as hopeless.
+
+However, whenever they made candy, as they often did, he had an
+opportunity of distinguishing himself, that he did not fail to improve.
+On the first occasion, so uneasy was he about a quiet conversation Clem
+and Nattie were having, that he absently put the mass of candy he had
+been pulling, into his pocket to cool. It _did_ cool, but he sold the coat
+afterwards, to a boy at the office.
+
+Next time, he forgot to grease his hands, and stuck himself so together,
+that they had the utmost difficulty in getting him apart, but, as he
+said,
+
+"It's no matter, I--I am used to it, you know!"
+
+He capped the climax, however, by accidentally dropping a large handful,
+warm, on top of Celeste's head, aggravating the offense by telling her
+to "go quick and soak her head;" which, although it was what she
+eventually did, was too much like a certain slang phrase much in vogue,
+for human nature to endure; and giving him an angry look, the only one
+on record ever given by her to a man, she rushed from the room, and was
+seen no more that evening.
+
+After this exploit, whenever molasses candy was on the programme, they
+made a rule that Quimby should sit in the corner, on the old familiar
+stool, and not move until all was over--a rule to which he submitted
+meekly.
+
+But he was not happy. In truth, all his joys in these days were mixed
+with alloy, between the pointed monopoly of Celeste-who, of late, and
+since she had given up every one else as hopeless, had devoted herself
+entirely to him--and his secret jealousy of Clem.
+
+Strangely enough, with the exception of Cyn, no one was aware of the
+exact state of his mind. Clem was as unconscious of it as a child, for
+any peculiarity in his behavior was laid to his well-known
+idiosyncrasies; Celeste suspected he was in love, but was blindly
+determined to believe she was the chief attraction in his eyes. Nattie,
+if she thought about it at all, imagined he was entirely cured Of that
+former "foolishness," as she termed his one attempt to put his devotion
+into words. And as for Jo, being so opposed to anything of a sentimental
+nature himself, naturally he was unwilling to observe any indications of
+the kind in another, and any glaring revelations that forced themselves
+on his notice, he, in common with Clem, decided was "only Quimby's way."
+
+Oh, Dear, no! Jo could see nothing but plain-unromantic facts. It was no
+sentiment, or anything of the sort on Jo's part, of course, that made
+him reproduce the handsome, brilliant face of Cyn, in so many of his
+recent pictures. Oh, no! she was a good "study," that was all! Nor that
+caused him to seek her society in preference to all others, to listen
+entranced when she sang, and to be exceedingly annoyed--a rare thing
+once for good humored Jo--when Clem was given more than his share of her
+attention. Again oh, no! Cyn was a fellow Bohemian, a congenial
+spirit, that was all. Neither in the least sentimental or jealous was Jo!
+
+But for all that, and for some unexplained reason, he was not quite so
+even in his spirits as he was wont to be, sometimes being very happy,
+and then terribly depressed. Did he eat too much, or too little, which?
+For if it was not the first commencement of a first love--and of course
+it was not--it must have been his digestion that ailed him!
+
+Had Miss Betsey Kling known of these little uneasy undercurrents amidst
+the gayety that so annoyed her, the knowledge would doubtless have given
+her much satisfaction, besides, possibly, the inkling she could not now
+obtain of what was "going on." It was a source of great distress to her
+that she could not ascertain whether it was Cyn or Nattie with whom Clem
+was "flirting." For she was positive he was trifling with the affections
+of one or the other, and that matters would end in some kind of a
+horrible scandal. But for all her listening and prying around, she could
+not seem to gain much information, except that everybody but
+herself--and perhaps the old gentleman Fishblate--was having a good
+time. Nor could she get hold of anything "dreadful," which was the
+greatest disappointment of all.
+
+One night, however, listening at her own door as Nattie bade Cyn "good
+night," over the way, Miss Kling heard Clem call out from within,
+something that made her very hair stand on end. It was this:
+
+"Please wake me up earlier than usual to-morrow morning, will you,
+Nattie?"
+
+"Wake him up, indeed!" thought the outraged but happy Miss Kling, as she
+wended her way back to her own room. "Pretty goings on! and I know I
+heard that machine clatter when she was not in, one day! Machines do not
+clatter without a human agency somewhere! There is something wrong here!
+and I will find it out, or my name is not Betsey Kling 'Wake him up,'
+indeed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+CROSSES ON THE LINE.
+
+
+It happened that not long after Cyn sang at a concert given in one of
+the principal halls of the city. Of course, a party from the Hotel
+Norman attended. This party consisted not only of all the young people,
+but also included Mrs. Simonson.
+
+Cyn made a great success, and was encored every time she sang. Never had
+Nattie so fully realized the beauty and brilliancy of her friend, as she
+did upon that evening. Nor could she fail to observe that Clem, too, was
+startled into a new admiration. Was it because of this that a
+seriousness, quite foreign to the gay scene, fell over Nattie's face?
+
+As for Celeste, she was decidedly envious, and had there been no
+gentlemen in the party, would have turned exceedingly glum. As it was,
+she, with some difficulty, called up her usual smiles, and contented
+herself with whispering spitefully to Quimby,
+
+"How can she appear before the public so? it seems _so_ unwomanly!"
+
+"Charming, indeed!" replied Quimby, without the slightest idea of what
+she had said, as his attention was concentrated on Cyn, and his brain
+incapable of entertaining two ideas at once.
+
+But while acknowledging her attractions, Quimby preserved his composure,
+arguing to himself in a common sense way,
+
+"What is the use of a fellow falling in love with a girl that every
+other fellow is sure to fall in love with too, you know?"
+
+Mrs. Simonson, good soul, quite swelled with pride in her lodger, and by
+her behavior created the impression in the minds of people sitting near,
+that she was the singer's mother.
+
+And Jo--unsentimental Jo--was entirely carried away. With the music, of
+course, for music was art, and art, only in another branch, was his life
+and work; and was not Cyn a beautiful work of Nature, the mother of all
+art?
+
+"He will be a very lucky man who shall call our Cyn his," whispered Clem
+to Jo, as she came out in answer to an encore.
+
+"What!" ejaculated Jo, so savagely that every one turned to look at him,
+and Clem opened his eyes wide with surprise. "Bah! Nonsense!"
+
+And some way or other, after this, the music sounded very dismal to Jo,
+and the close air of the room made his head ache; but he had been
+working very hard all day, and was tired, so this was quite natural.
+
+Was Clem presuming on his good looks, and thinking of making Cyn _his_,
+he wondered? If he was, _she_ certainly would not be fool enough to--Jo
+stopped here in his meditations, because he would like to have been a
+little surer that she would not. Very strongly he felt just then that
+"things of a doubtful nature were sometimes very uncertain!"
+
+It was, of course, no sentiment on his part that caused these emotions.
+He did not wish Cyn to throw herself away in matrimony, that was all;
+and so strong were his feelings on this point that he could not banish
+the idea from his mind all the rest of the evening, and was noticeably
+thoughtful.
+
+But he was very gay; even unusually, wildly gay on the way home, and
+kept Mrs. Simonson, whom he escorted, in such a state of laughter that
+she burst three buttons, and was all "wheezed up" when they reached the
+hotel.
+
+"Why are you so thoughtful to-night?" Clem asked Nattie, as they walked
+down their street behind the rest, in the wake of Jo's gayety and
+Celeste's meaningless giggle. Celeste was clinging to the arm of the
+unwilling, but helpless Quimby, and chatting of the handsome tenor.
+
+With a slight start, Nattie replied to Clem's question,
+
+"I do not know. Am I?"
+
+"Yes; you have hardly spoken a word all the way. Is anything the
+trouble?" asked Clem, and she, looking moodily oh the ground, did not
+see the anxiety in his eyes as he spoke.
+
+"Nothing!" she replied; then startled him by bursting out passionately,
+
+"I am tired of living with no object; with nothing but a daily routine.
+Can it be there is no better place in the world for me? That my life
+must be always thus? I _cannot_ be contented!"
+
+Clem stopped short and stared at her agitated face.
+
+"I never knew you were not happy, Nattie," he said, gently.
+
+"Oh! I am not unhappy; I am only discontented," Nattie replied.
+
+"You are somewhat contradictory in your statements," said Clem, as they
+went on again, for she also had stopped. "Is it office troubles that
+annoy you? Poor little girl, it _is_ a monotonous life!"
+
+Nattie flushed at the tenderness in his voice.
+
+"That is one thing," she replied, a little tremblingly, "but I want
+something to work for, as Cyn has. I am ambitious; my present position
+can never content me; I am haunted all the time by an uneasy
+consciousness that if I was smart I should be doing something to get
+ahead; and yet, I don't know what to do!"
+
+"I remember you once said something about becoming a writer; why not try
+that?" suggested Clem.
+
+They had reached their own landing at the hotel, and paused. The
+remainder of the party had disappeared.
+
+"It seems so hopeless," Nattie answered, dispiritedly; "there is no
+opening anywhere."
+
+"But it will never do to wait for that, you know. If the world is a
+closed oyster, we must open it. Isn't that the way Cyn did?" said Clem,
+half surmising the realization of the difference between Cyn's brilliant
+success and her own plodding along that had caused her dejection; and as
+he spoke, he took her hand in his, but Nattie snatched it quickly away.
+
+"Ah! Cyn!" she said in sudden and uncontrollable jealousy, "of course
+_you_ could never expect me to compare with her!"
+
+Clem looked at her a moment, then some emotion flushed his face, and he
+would have spoken had not Miss Kling, disgusted with her inability to
+catch a word from inside, opened her door, saying sharply,
+
+"Are you coming in, Miss Rogers?"
+
+"Certainly," Nattie replied quickly, and already ashamed of her jealous
+outburst. "Good night, Clem."
+
+"But will you not come over and congratulate Cyn on her success?" he
+asked, detaining her. "I heard a carriage just stop, and think she is in
+it."
+
+"Not to-night; to-morrow," said Nattie, hastily, and left him before he
+could again urge the request.
+
+"Oh!" said Miss Kling, as Nattie closed the door behind her, "was that
+Mr. Stanwood who came home with you?"
+
+"Yes;" Nattie answered, briefly. "I should hardly have thought Miss
+Archer would have allowed it!" remarked Miss Kling, with a sneeze.
+
+"I don't know why she should have forbidden it!" replied Nattie, coldly,
+yet looking somewhat startled. Poor Nattie's nerves were decidedly
+unstrung to-night.
+
+"You do not mean to say that you are ignorant of what every one else
+knows?" queried Miss Kling, with a malicious sparkle in her eyes; "that
+they are just the same as engaged."
+
+Nattie turned a very pale face towards her.
+
+"I--I think you are mistaken," she faltered.
+
+"Mistaken! no indeed!" said Miss Kling, positively; "I should think your
+own eyes might tell you that! Why, Mrs. Simonson says, Miss Archer has
+thought of nobody but him since he came into the house, and that anybody
+can tell he is in love with her, from his actions and the attentions he
+pays her, and Celeste told me the same thing, long ago. But I suppose
+Miss Archer is willing he should come home with _you_. She isn't, of
+course, jealous of _you!_"
+
+There was a sneering emphasis in Miss Kling's last words, that made them
+anything but complimentary, as Nattie felt; but saying only, in a voice
+she vainly tried to steady,
+
+"You may be right," she went into her own room, and locked the door
+behind her.
+
+She knew now! knew what that first romantic acquaintance, that dejection
+at the companionship lost in the obnoxious red-head, that joy when "C"
+was restored to her in Clem, that unsatisfied desire to have him back on
+the wire, all to herself; that suppressed jealousy of Cyn, led to--and
+what it all meant; that she loved him! and he, did he, as they said,
+love Cyn? alas! who could help loving bright, beautiful Cyn? To attract
+him to herself was only the romance of their first acquaintance--and
+even this Cyn slightly shared; it was not Cyn's fault. Nattie could not
+be guilty of the petty meanness of disliking her friend because she
+possessed attractions superior to her own. But if he loved Cyn, then,
+indeed, had the curtain fallen on the sad ending of her romance; the
+lights were out, and all was darkness. _If_ he loved Cyn? Nattie, with the
+first full knowledge of her own feelings, could hardly hope otherwise,
+remembering their intimacy, his marked attention to her, his praise of
+her, and her winning beauty and talents. Yes, it must be that he loved
+her! Oh, why must Cyn be given everything, and she--nothing? What kind
+of fate was it that marked out the broad, sunny road for one, and the
+somber, uneven pathway for another? Must her life be one of lonely
+discontent, a telegraph office at the beginning, and a telegraph office
+at the end? was this to be all?
+
+"No!" thought Nattie, raising her head proudly, and looking at the red
+and swollen eyes that gazed at her from the opposite glass. "Life _shall_
+give me something of its best; if not of love, then of fame! and I will
+work and persevere until I gain it!"
+
+Yet, for all of her resolution, Nattie sobbed herself to sleep. Not so
+easy is it to renounce love, and look forward to a life barren of its
+best and sweetest gift.
+
+And after this there was a change in her observable even to the
+undiscerning Quimby. Shadows had fallen over her face, lurked in her
+gray eyes and around the corners of her mouth. The old restlessness had
+given place to a settled gloom. She was less often seen among the gay
+circle that gathered in Cyn's parlor, pleading every possible excuse for
+staying away, and when with them, to his surprise and delight, and to
+Celeste's dismay, she devoted herself to Quimby, to Jo--to any one
+rather than to Clem. For most of all had she changed to him. Afraid of
+betraying her secret, and unable to control the pain that overpowered
+her when in his presence, now she knew her own heart, she avoided him in
+every practicable way, and seldom, even over their wire, talked with
+him. She was always "tired," or "busy," when he called her now.
+
+Clem, surprised and puzzled by this unaccountable change, at first
+endeavored to overcome her coolness, but ended by becoming cool in his
+turn, and talked and joked with Cyn more than ever. And if a touch of
+the shadows on Nattie's face sometimes crept over his own, she, in her
+self-engrossment, did not observe it.
+
+If Quimby's hopes burned brighter at this state of affairs, and he was
+consequently happier, Jo, for some reason unexplained, was not. In fact,
+he was decidedly queer; now gay, now horribly cynical, not to say
+morose.
+
+Truly, Cupid, viewed in the character of a telegraphist, was far from
+being a success; for he had switched everybody off on to the wrong wire!
+
+Cyn, gay unconscious Cyn, no more dreamed of Clem being supposedly in
+love with her, than she did that Jo was so filled with thoughts of her,
+that, had he been a different kind of a man, one would have called him
+desperately in love. But Cyn, unconscious of all this, saw, and with
+sorrow, the ever-increasing coldness between Nattie and Clem. For she
+had quite set her heart on the romance that had commenced in dots and
+dashes culminating in orange blossoms--a Wired Love. But now, to her
+vexation, she saw her anticipations liable to be set at naught, and
+herself unable to obtain even a clew to the trouble. Like the "line
+man," who goes up and down to find why the wires will not work, she
+could not find the "break" anywhere, and decided that romances, whether
+"wired" or taken in the ordinary way, were certainly very unwieldy
+things to manage.
+
+"It seems to me that you do not use that wire very often now," she said
+one evening to Clem and Nattie, the latter of whom she had forcibly
+dragged forth from the solitude of her room. "Were it not for me, it
+would rust. Why! I used to hear your clatter into the small hours, but
+now--"
+
+"Now we are more sensible," concluded Nattie, leaning over the piano to
+look at some music. "One gets tired of talking in dots and dashes after
+a time!"
+
+Poor Nattie's trouble made her bitter sometimes.
+
+"Yes, one wants a person they don't know to talk with, in order to make
+it interesting!" added Clem, not to be outdone.
+
+"Good gracious!" thought Cyn, dismayed at the result of her probing.
+"This is really dreadful!" then she exclaimed impulsively,
+
+"I hope you have not quarreled, you two!"
+
+"Oh! dear no!" replied Nattie quickly, "what should we quarrel about?"
+
+But Clem, after looking at her a moment, advanced and held out his hand,
+saying frankly,
+
+"I believe we have been cross to each other of late, although how it
+happened I do not know! So let us make up and be good!"
+
+Cyn looked up hopefully at this, but Nattie, who could hardly conceal
+her agitation, replied coldly,
+
+"I do not see that anything has been the matter!" and placing a limp
+hand in his for an instant, turned away.
+
+Clem bit his lip, then took out his watch, saying,
+
+"I believe I have an engagement down town this evening. I shall have to
+leave you now, I fear, ladies."
+
+Nattie celebrated his departure by bursting into tears that she vainly
+tried to hide, and was detected in this situation on the sofa by Cyn.
+
+Cyn's arms were about her in a moment, and Cyn's voice said lovingly,
+
+"What is it, dear? Tell me what is the matter lately? Trust me with it.
+Is it about Clem?"
+
+With a determination, very brave and unselfish, but unfortunately
+entirely uncalled for, not to mar Cyn's happy love by her sorrow, Nattie
+checked the tears, of which she was ashamed, and answered,
+
+"No! I am very weak and foolish. The idea of my crying like a
+school-girl! I am only unhappy because--because--I am nobody!"
+
+And this was all the information the sympathetic and perplexed Cyn could
+obtain.
+
+Sitting that night on a low cricket before the fire with her dark hair
+unbound--and it was fortunate for Jo's peace of mind that he could not
+see her just then, because she was such an interesting "study!"--Cyn
+thought it all over, and could not, as she told herself, make out what
+it was all about.
+
+"I thought everything was going on so smoothly," she mused, "and now
+here is what Clem himself would term a cross on the wire! and no one can
+find out where it is! Doesn't she love him, I wonder? I should, if I was
+she! Does he love her? if he does not, he is no kind of a hero! Ah! I
+know what would test the matter! a crisis! Now, for instance, if the
+house would only get on fire, and Nat burn up--that is, almost--and Clem
+save her just in time--that is the sort of thing that brings these
+heroes to terms in the dramas! but I suppose--everything is so different
+in real life--Clem would not wake up in time, and she would burn to a
+crisp--or some one else would save her first--Quimby, for instance, he
+is always doing something he ought not! no, I don't think it would do to
+risk it! nevertheless, I am convinced that a crisis is what is essential
+to complete the circuit, telegraphically speaking, or in other words, to
+bring down the curtain on every body, embracing everybody, with great
+_eclat!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+THE WRONG WOMAN.
+
+
+Somewhat exultant over the new aspect of affairs, and unable longer to
+endure the strain of the load of love he was carrying about with him,
+Quimby came to a desperate determination.
+
+This was no other, than to confide in his room-mate, and once dreaded
+rival, and then, provided he was not thrown out of the window, or kicked
+down stairs, ask his advice about how to render himself clearly
+understood by _her_, at the same time relating his former unfortunate
+attempt.
+
+This programme he carried into effect one morning, as Clem was blacking
+his boots. Perhaps he had made private calculations on a blacking-brush
+hitting a man with less damage than some larger article.
+
+"I say, Clem!" Quimby began, "I--I want to ask your advice, you know!"
+
+"I am at your service, my dear boy," replied the unsuspecting Clem,
+rubbing away at his boot.
+
+"Well--I--I want to know--the fact is, I--I am boiling over with love!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Clem, looking up with an amused smile, "you are not in
+love with Cyn too, are you?"
+
+"With Cyn, _too_?" These words were balm to the soul of Quimby, and gave
+him courage to answer eagerly,
+
+"Ah! no use in that for _me_, you know! It--it is _she_--Miss
+Rogers--Nattie--you know!"
+
+The blacking-brush left Clem's hand, but not to fly at the expectant
+Quimby. It simply dropped onto the floor, while Clem gave vent to his
+feelings in a prolonged whistle.
+
+"Is it possible!" he said, having thus relieved himself of his first
+astonishment. "I might have suspected as much if I had stopped to think,
+though!"
+
+"Yes, I--I think I showed it plain enough, you know!" said Quimby
+candidly. "You see, I--I tried to tell her of it once, before you came
+here, when you were invisible, you know, but some way she--she didn't
+just understand, and--and bolted, you know! So just tell me how to do
+it, that is a good fellow, for do it I must!"
+
+Clem picked up his blacking-brush, and very deliberately smeared the
+boot he had just polished, with another coat of blacking, before
+answering.
+
+"How can I tell you?" he said at last. "You don't suppose proposing is
+an every-day habit of mine, do you? My dear boy, I never proposed in my
+life!"
+
+"But you--you ought to--I mean you will sometime, you know! Just give me
+a--a start, you know!" pleaded Quimby, sitting down on the edge of the
+bed.
+
+"Shall I call her and propose for you?" inquired Clem, somewhat
+ironically, and glancing at the sounder.
+
+"No--no--I--_No!_" cried Quimby in great alarm at this proposition. "She
+might think you meant yourself, you know!"
+
+"In which case the rejection would be sure!" said Clem. Then flinging
+his brush savagely into a corner, he added as he went out,
+
+"You must settle it yourself, old fellow! No one can help us in those
+matters. There is no duplex!"
+
+Quimby was therefore left to his own devices; and his own devices
+brought about a most extraordinary result.
+
+That same evening, Nattie coming over to Cyn's room, and finding her
+absent, sat down to await her return, which Mrs. Simonson assured her
+would be very soon. There was no gas lighted, and in the dusk Nattie
+remained, feeling, perhaps, an affinity with the somber shadows of the
+twilight. As she sat musing, now wishing "C" had left her life forever
+when he left it with the odors of musk and bear's-grease about him, and
+now despising herself for the weakness she found it so hard to overcome,
+she became conscious of a denser shadow in the shadows of the open door.
+
+"I--I beg pardon. Is it Cyn?" asked this shadow, in the voice of Quimby.
+
+"No," Nattie replied, "Cyn is out."
+
+"I--I beg pardon. Is it _you_?" the shadow asked with accents of delight.
+
+Nattie acknowledged the "you."
+
+"And you--you are alone?"
+
+Nattie glanced around the room hoping the Duchess had strayed in, so she
+might truthfully say no. But she was compelled to reply in the
+affirmative.
+
+"Glorious opportunity--I--it must not be wasted! I--I will explain, you
+know!" he exclaimed, excitedly and incoherently. But to Nattie's
+surprise, instead of entering, he darted away in such a tremendous hurry
+that he stumbled and fell, and she distinctly heard his skull bang
+against his own door.
+
+But his last words were too ominous, and she was too well acquainted
+with his peculiarities to flatter herself she was permanently relieved
+of his company. He had perhaps gone to brush his hair, or take some
+quieting drops, but she knew he had certainly not gone to stay, and not
+being exactly in the humor for his company, Nattie resolved to fly
+ignominiously. Afraid of returning to her own room, lest she might meet
+him and be taken captive, she quietly retired into Cyn's bed-room. In a
+few moments she heard him stumbling over a stool in the parlor, and was
+just thinking that if he should take it into his head to remain any
+length of time, she would be in rather a predicament, when to her
+surprise she heard him say,
+
+"I--I must speak! I--I hope this time I shall remember what I have so
+often--so often said in the privacy of my own apartment, to--if I may
+confess it--to a pillow--a pair of pants and a coat--placed in a chair
+as a poor effigy of--of you, you know. Will you--will you--don't speak,
+but let me alone, hear me and let the--the flow of language come!"
+
+He paused, and in the greatest bewilderment, Nattie stared at the
+opposite wall. Did he by some powerful intuition discern she was within
+hearing distance, or was he in his disappointment rehearsing to her
+empty chair? Before Nattie could decide between these two solutions of
+his conduct, another voice, the voice of Celeste, said faintly and
+affectedly,
+
+"Oh, Quimby"
+
+And then Nattie comprehended the situation. After her own retreat,
+Celeste had entered and taken the just vacated chair. It was twilight.
+Celeste wore a black dress like hers, her hair was dressed in the same
+style, and was the same color, and Quimby had mistaken her for Nattie!
+And in his excitement and struggle with that "flow of language," he did
+not notice even that it was not Nattie's voice saying "Oh, Quimby!" for
+he continued,
+
+"I--I--you may reject me--I am afraid you will, but I must say it, you
+know. I must, or I shall--I shall explode and fly into atoms!"
+
+Here Celeste gave a little scream, but he went on determinedly, making
+the most of his "glorious opportunity."
+
+"I--I am not like other fellows, you know! that is, I mean I have not
+the--the brass, if I may so express myself, and I am always doing
+something wrong--but I am used to it, you know--the question is, could
+you get used to it? for I have a heart that is--that is honest, and that
+beats all full of love--of--love for--you know who I mean!"
+
+There was a murmured "oh!" from Celeste, as Quimby paused to wipe from
+his brow the perspiration called forth by his arduous undertaking.
+
+"What shall I do!" frantically thought the perplexed listener, divided
+between the ludicrous part of the affair, and her desire to save him
+from the dilemma into which he was rushing; "what _can_ I do? oh! if Cyn
+would only come!"
+
+But Cyn came not, and while Nattie paused, irresolute, and not knowing
+what course to take, Quimby went on to his fate.
+
+"I have thought, sometimes, that you liked some other fellow--Clem, I
+mean--" Nattie felt herself blush in the darkness--"but I do hope not!
+the thought has made me boil in secret often, and he loves Cyn, you
+know--" Nattie's color left her face as quickly as it had come--"but
+oh!" and he went down on to his knees with a whack that made the vases
+on the mantel jingle. "Let me tell you what I tried twice before to say,
+what is always in my thoughts! I--I adore you! the ground you walk on!
+and have, ever since I first saw your nose! I--I beg pardon, but I fell
+in love with your nose! and will you--can you tell me that you don't
+love any other fellow--Clem, I mean--and share my little property, and
+be--be Mrs. Quimby, you know!"
+
+"Ah! really I--such a trying moment!--but dear, _dear_ Quimby, I never
+cared for Clem, never only for you--and I am yours!"
+
+With these words, Celeste precipitated herself into his arms, and the
+next moment Nattie heard a crash as they both fell on the floor. The
+sudden shock of recognition that then burst upon him, weakened him to
+such an extent that he could not support himself, much less her, so down
+they went!
+
+"He must know who it is now!" thought Nattie, with a sigh of relief.
+
+And meanwhile Celeste had picked herself up, but Quimby still remained
+flat on the floor, bracing himself up by his hands on either side, and
+staring at her, motionless. Fortunately it was too dark for her to see
+the expression of his face.
+
+"Did you hurt yourself?" asked Celeste at length. "Let me help you up!
+We are to help each other now, you know."
+
+Quimby groaned.
+
+"Oh, misery!" he gasped. "This--my destiny is too much for me! Oh! the
+evil deeds of darkness! Listen to me, I implore you! It is all a
+mistake! I thought--"
+
+"Of course it was a mistake! You did not suppose I thought you fell
+purposely, did you, dear?" quickly interrupted Celeste, blindly or
+willfully misunderstanding--who shall say which? "But please get up, Cyn
+may come."
+
+At this Quimby scrambled to his feet with startling suddenness, and
+exclaiming hastily,
+
+"I will--I will write and tell you all--_all!_ I have an engagement now
+with a friend just around the corner!" he rushed from the room, and
+would have flown, but the pertinacious Celeste had followed, and just as
+he reached the outside hall, regardless of the publicity, flung herself
+around his neck, this time without bringing him to the ground.
+
+"It is not necessary to write!" she cried. "Pray, do not take such a
+trifle so much to heart. Remember I am yours, and--"
+
+Another voice from the stairs just above the pair, interrupted her. It
+was the voice of Fishblate _pere_, and it said,
+
+"Hugging! Marry her!"
+
+"I--I--will!" wailed the now alarmed Quimby, as Celeste blushingly
+withdrew from her embrace of him. "I--I will see you to-morrow if I--if
+I live!" and striking his forehead with his hand, he burst away, bounded
+frantically down the stairs and fled, ejaculating,
+
+"I knew it! I had a presentiment from my youth!"
+
+"Excuse his eccentricity, Pa!" Celeste said. "He loves me _so_ much, poor
+fellow!"
+
+"Humph! Get enough of _that!_" he growled, with contempt.
+
+"And he has a nice little property!" added Celeste, as they went up
+stairs.
+
+"Property is the thing!" Fishblate _pere_ said, with undisguised
+plainness.
+
+Nattie emerged from her retreat on the hasty exit of Quimby and Celeste,
+so full of regret for the flight that had proved so disastrous to him,
+that the ludicrous part of the scene just enacted was forgotten.
+
+"Poor Quimby!" she thought, remorsefully. "What a dreadful fix he is in!
+I hope he will get out of it; and I am so sorry for my share in it! How
+strange it would be if he should, as he once said, marry the wrong
+woman, after all!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+QUIMBY ACCEPTS THE SITUATION.
+
+
+When Quimby rushed out into the street, it was with some wild and
+indefinite intention of flying to the ends of the earth, but recalled to
+his senses by the stares of the passers-by, he concluded he had better
+first return and get his hat. When he reached his own room, where Clem
+was thoughtfully pacing the floor, he flung himself face downwards upon
+the bed, groaning and kicking his feet spasmodically.
+
+"What is the matter?" Clem inquired.
+
+"I've done it now! I've done it now!" was all the answer Quimby gave
+him.
+
+"Has she rejected you?" asked Clem, his mind going back to their
+morning's conversation.
+
+"No! no! she has accepted me!" wailed Quimby, with a prodigious kick.
+
+"_What!_" shouted Clem, stopping short in his promenade.
+
+"She has! Oh, she has!" moaned the wretched victim of mistakes. "I am
+engaged! Oh, heavens! engaged!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Rogers has accepted you?" inquired
+Clem harshly.
+
+This name completely unmanned poor Quimby, and he began to cry like a
+school-boy.
+
+"Miss Rogers!--No! never--never! but _she_--Celeste!"
+
+"Celeste!" echoed Clem; "Celeste!"
+
+"Yes! I--oh!--I made a mistake, you know!" explained Quimby, wiping his
+eyes on the bedspread.
+
+An irresistible smile, but quickly suppressed, curved Clem's lips as he
+asked,
+
+"But how could you possibly make such a mistake as that? Come, cheer up,
+my boy, tell me, and let me help you out!"
+
+Quimby looked at him mournfully.
+
+"It--it was dark," he answered dejectedly, "she sat in the chair--the
+lost Nattie I mean, it was she, for she spoke to me! Why did I not seize
+the chance then? But no! I left her to--to rehearse a little first, and
+when I returned--Oh!--it was still dark, and I did not know a
+transformation had been effected--I burst forth in eloquence,
+and--oh!--it was Celeste, you know! I fled--she followed,--caught and
+hugged me in the hall! Her father saw--roared 'Marry her' and I--there
+was no escape, you know!"
+
+"But, my dear fellow," remonstrated Clem, "you can explain the mistake!
+you are not obliged to marry Celeste because you accidentally proposed
+to her!"
+
+Quimby shook his head hopelessly.
+
+"She--she--would sue me for breach of promise you know, and take
+all--all my little property! And her terrific father--I don't know what
+he would not do to me! Only one thing could make me brave all!--If Miss
+Rogers--Nattie, would say it might have been, had not this fearful
+mistake occurred, I would face even old Fishblate and break all bonds."
+
+"Dear old fellow, I am afraid she--Nattie would have rejected you, in
+any case. She is--a flirt!" said Clem, somewhat savagely. "She leads
+people on, for the sake of dropping them, when it suits her
+convenience!"
+
+"I--now really, I--I cannot think that; even though she had rejected me,
+I could not think _that!_" said Quimby, loyally; then with sudden
+decision, "I will settle it now! If I had not put it off before, as I
+did, I might not have blundered into this awful fix, you know! I hear
+them in Cyn's room now; Cyn and Nattie; come with me! I--I will have
+witnesses, and no mistakes this time, you know!"
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Clem, following his excited friend,
+rather reluctantly.
+
+"I am going to find out if she--Nattie--likes me, you know! if she does,
+I will brave Celeste--her fierce father--the law! if not--why then, I
+must be a martyr anyway, you know, and I don't care how big a one I am!"
+
+So saying, Quimby went across to Cyn's room, Clem, not exactly liking
+the position thrust upon him, but unwilling to refuse, accompanying him.
+
+Meanwhile, Nattie had pounced upon Cyn, the moment she returned,
+exclaiming,
+
+"Oh! Cyn! such a dreadful thing has happened!"
+
+"What? how? when?" asked Cyn, while, from the effects of the melodrama
+she had just been witnessing, visions of Clem, with a dozen bullets in
+his head, danced before her eyes.
+
+"Quimby! poor Quimby! I have ruined him!" was Nattie's remorseful and
+unintelligible answer.
+
+"Well, my dear, if you could possibly be a trifle lucid, perhaps I could
+understand the plot of the piece," said Cyn, decidedly relieved of her
+first surmise.
+
+Upon which Nattie, half laughing and half crying, explained. But the
+ludicrous side was too much for Cyn, and she could only laugh.
+
+"What a farce it would make!" she said, as soon as she could speak.
+
+"Oh, Cyn!" Nattie said, reproachfully. "Think how dreadful it is for
+Quimby, and for me, the un-meaning instrument of it all!"
+
+"Nonsense, my dear," said Cyn, more seriously, and bringing her
+philosophy to bear on the subject, "It was not your fault! she was
+determined to have him in any case! Had it been you, as he supposed, you
+would of course have declined the proffered honor, and she would have
+caught him in the rebound! If he has spirit enough, he can get out of
+marrying her in some way. If not--she will make him a good wife enough.
+Men, you know, as she says, prefer to marry women who don't know too
+much; so it is all right!"
+
+And with this Nattie was fain to be content. But she felt great pity for
+the poor fellow; perhaps because of the unhappiness in her own heart.
+
+It is only from the depths of our own sorrows that we learn to feel for
+that of others.
+
+As Quimby and Clem entered, both Nattie and Cyn looked surprised and
+curious, but Quimby, so excited now that his usual nervous bashfulness
+was forgotten, said immediately,
+
+"I--I beg pardon, I am sure, for calling so late, but my business will
+not wait, and I wanted Clem as witness--he and Cyn--so as to make no
+mistake now!" then turning to the astonished Nattie, he went on,
+
+"Nattie, I--I--my feelings for you have long been of--of adoration--no,
+please, hear me--" as she made a gesture to interrupt him. "To-night, in
+this room, I addressed another--Celeste--" here he groaned, but
+recovered himself and went on, "in the dark, you know, with words
+intended for you. I want to know now, what, had I not been so deceived,
+you would have said?"
+
+"But what difference can it make now?" asked Nattie, hesitating, and
+wishing to spare him, as he paused for a reply.
+
+"Every difference!" said Quimby, wildly. "I beg you to--to answer me
+truly, in order that I may know what course to take!"
+
+"Then since you wish," replied Nattie, with a pitying glance, "I will
+tell you that as a friend I think very highly of you, and always shall.
+But, that is all."
+
+"Then come on, Celeste!" exclaimed Quimby, in a burst of despair.
+"She--she says, she loves me, and I--I may get used to it in time! all
+but her teeth," he added, in his strict honesty, "to those I never can!"
+
+Cyn felt a mischievous desire to hint that time might relieve him of his
+objection, but restrained herself and said,
+
+"But you can explain the matter to her, you know!"
+
+"Just what I have been telling him," said Clem. "No woman would force
+herself on a man under such circumstances!"
+
+"She would, I feel it!" answered the unconvinced Quimby. "Miss
+Rogers--Nattie, I--I thank you, I--I shall always remember you as
+something unattainable and dear, and hope somebody more worthy may be to
+you what I would have been if I could. But I--I was born to make
+mistakes, you know, and I--I am used to it--and ought to be thankful it
+was not Miss Kling!"
+
+"I am very, very sorry!" murmured Nattie, and Clem saw there were tears
+in her eyes.
+
+"Moral--never make love in the dark!" said Cyn, looking with solemn
+warning at Clem.
+
+"Be sure that all--all the gas in the room is lighted if ever you
+propose!" added Quimby, miserably, to his friend.
+
+"I will remember," said Clem, glancing at Nattie. "There are worse
+mistakes made in the dark than on the wire, it seems!"
+
+"Far--far worse!" groaned Quimby, as Nattie hastily turned her head
+aside.
+
+"But now, really, Quimby!" urged Cyn, seriously, "do be sensible. Do not
+be foolish enough to marry a woman you do not want, because you cannot
+have the one you do!"
+
+But Quimby, with the fear of old Fishblate, and a breach of promise
+suit, and a dread of explanations in his mind--moreover, having firmly
+decided that a little more or less of misery did not matter, could not
+be persuaded to take any steps himself, or allow them to be taken, to
+free himself from the result of his latest mistake.
+
+Therefore, it came about, to the surprise of those not in the secret,
+and the unconcealed exultation of one of the parties immediately
+concerned, that the engagement of Quimby and Celeste was announced.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+ONE SUMMER DAY.
+
+
+The week that decided Quimby's fate so unexpectedly and brought him so
+much woe, to Cyn brought good tidings. Her success at the concert had
+been so decided that she was the recipient of many offers for the coming
+season, and was enabled to accept those that promised most
+advantageously. No one was more honestly glad than was Nattie in her
+congratulations; Nattie, who had fought and overcome that selfish pain
+and bitter wonder of hers, why Cyn should have everything and she
+nothing.
+
+Since the approach of summer, a much-talked of project among them had
+been a little picnic party in the woods, and as Clem now proposed to get
+it up in honor of Cyn's success, the plan was immediately carried out.
+Mrs. Simonson, with a feeble protest, because Miss Kling was not
+invited, accompanied them. The "them," of course, consisted of Cyn,
+Nattie, Clem, Jo, and the newly betrothed ones.
+
+Nature was kind to these seekers of her solitudes, and gave them a
+perfect day; one of those that occur in our uncertain climate less often
+than might be wished, but that penetrate everywhere with their sunshine,
+when they do come, even into hearts where sunshine seldom glances. So,
+for the nonce, our friends forgot all their little troubles; even Quimby
+brightening up, and ceasing to think of his engagement, as they stood
+underneath the green trees, by the banks of a small river; sunshine
+everywhere, and the music of birds in the air.
+
+"Is it not glorious?" cried Cyn, like a child, in her exuberance.
+
+"Why not camp out here, and stay all summer?" ecstatically suggested
+Clem, as he fondled his fishing tackle.
+
+"But it might not always be pleasant like this," said practical Mrs.
+Simonson.
+
+"When the sun shines we forget it may ever storm," said Jo, and looking
+admiringly at Cyn as he spoke.
+
+"Is our artist a philosopher, as well as all the rest we know he is?"
+asked Cyn, laughing.
+
+"A very little one; five feet six!" replied Jo.
+
+"Well, we will have no shadows to-day," said Cyn.
+
+"No shadows to-day!" echoed Jo; then turning to Mrs. Simonson, asked, "I
+hope you do not still regret Miss Kling!"
+
+"I suppose she would spoil it all!" that good lady committed herself
+enough to say.
+
+"Well, really, I must say," remarked Celeste, who now gave herself many
+airs, and evidently looked upon Cyn and Nattie as commonplace creatures,
+_not_ engaged!--"I must say, now that you are speaking of her, that she
+does _Kling_ in a way that is not pleasant sometimes. She actually annoys
+pa!"
+
+"I thought she entertained a high regard for The Tor--for your father,"
+said mischievous Cyn.
+
+"That is exactly it!" replied Celeste. "_Too_ high a regard! Truly, she
+behaves very ridiculously! Why, she positively waylays pa! so indelicate
+in a woman, you know!" with sublime unconsciousness of ever having
+indulged in the pastime of waylaying herself! "Such an old creature,
+too! she is always coming and wanting to mend his old clothes and
+stockings! Poor pa actually has to lock himself in his room sometimes!"
+
+The vision of "poor pa" thus pursued was too much for the gravity of
+the company, and there was a general laugh.
+
+"It is true," asserted Celeste. "Now; isn't it, Ralfy?" appealing to her
+betrothed with appropriate bashfulness.
+
+Everybody stared at this. No one before ever really knew that Quimby
+possessed a front door to his name, and he, as surprised as any one at
+the cognomen Love had discovered, fell back on a rolling log, and
+clutched his legs to that extent that they must have been black and blue
+for a week afterwards.
+
+Clem saved the discomfited "Ralfy" the necessity of replying, by
+interposing with,
+
+"Come! come! let us not talk on such incongruous subjects this lovely
+day! let us rather talk sentiment!" and he gave a prodigious wink in
+Jo's direction.
+
+"I fear we are not a very sentimental party!" laughed Cyn; adding
+mischievously, "except, of course, Quimby and Celeste!"
+
+"Oh! I--I am not, I assure you! I am not in the least, you know!"
+protested Quimby, taking a roll on the log; "never felt less so in my
+life."
+
+"Why, Ralfy!" exclaimed Celeste, reproachfully, and to his distress went
+up close to him, and would have sat down by his side, but for the
+uncontrollable rolling propensity of that log, which made it impossible.
+
+"How is it with you, Jo?" queried Cyn; "can you not for once, forget
+your horrible hobby, and be a little sentimental, in honor of the day?"
+
+Jo, who was throwing sticks into the water, to the great disturbance of
+the bugs, and plainly-shown annoyance of a big frog, made a somewhat
+surprising reply. Decidedly seriously, he said,
+
+"I fear if I should attempt it, I might get too much in earnest!"
+
+"Oh! we will risk that, so please begin!" said Cyn, but staring at him a
+little as she spoke. "Jo, sentimental! Just imagine it!"
+
+"Will you risk it?" he asked still seriously, and with so peculiar an
+expression that she could reply only by another astonished stare.
+
+"But really, it does not pay to be sentimental, as you all ought to have
+found out long ago! as Jo and I have!" Nattie said, jestingly, yet with
+an undertone of earnestness.
+
+"Then," said Clem, dryly, "since it is so with us, let us fish!" and he
+threw his line into the stream.
+
+Cyn, Jo, and Mrs. Simonson followed his example. Quimby declined joining
+in the sport, and perhaps, likening himself to the fish, balanced
+himself on the log, and looked on with a pathetic face. Celeste, as in
+duty bound, remained by his side. Nattie, too, was an observer only, and
+from the expression off her face was decidedly not amused.
+
+"I think it is cruel!" she exclaimed, as Jo took a fish off Cyn's hook.
+
+"I--I quite agree with you!" Quimby replied quickly, in answer to
+Nattie's observation. "It is cruel!"
+
+"But perhaps the fish were made for people to catch," suggested the
+pacific Mrs. Simonson, who had not yet been able to get a bite.
+
+"Yes," acquiesced Clem, pulling up a skinny little fish. "They are no
+worse off than we poor mortals after all. We must each fulfill our
+destiny, whether man or fish."
+
+"Yes! it is all fate!" exclaimed Quimby vehemently. "We cannot help
+ourselves!"
+
+"You believe in fate then? I don't think I do!" said Cyn, with a glance
+half-humorous, half-pitying, at its victim on the log; "what incentive
+would we have to any effort, if we were sure everything was marked out
+for us in advance?"
+
+"That is a question requiring too much effort for us to discuss on a
+warm day," said Nattie.
+
+"Certain circumstances must bring about certain results, you will
+acknowledge," Clem gravely remarked.
+
+"But, it is said that every soul that is born has a twin somewhere; and
+if so, that must be fate!" said Mrs. Simonson.
+
+"Miss Kling's theory, I believe!" laughed Nattie.
+
+"If it is so, the right ones don't often come together," said Quimby
+gloomily.
+
+"_We_ are an exception, then, to the general rule!" simpered Celeste.
+
+Quimby groaned, and then murmured something about the toothache.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Cyn, in a low voice, to Nattie.
+
+"After all, there _is_ something in fate," Nattie sighed.
+
+"Perhaps so," she said.
+
+"Well, we will not get solemn over fate," said Jo, cheerily; then, in a
+lower voice, as he glanced at Cyn, he added--"yet."
+
+"And do not frighten away what few fish there are here, with your
+theories," commanded Clem.
+
+Although this mandate was obeyed, and for a time silence reigned, it was
+not long before they were all singing a gay song, started by Clem
+himself, even Quimby joining in the chorus with a feeble tenor. But they
+were tired of fishing by that time, and began to feel as if a little
+refreshment would not be out of place, and would indeed enhance the
+loveliness of Nature, so a fire was made, and lunch-baskets unpacked.
+
+"It will take a good many of those fish for a mouthful," declared Clem,
+who was cook.
+
+"You may have my share, I can't eat creatures I have seen squirm," said
+Nattie.
+
+"Ah, you fastidious young woman! what shall I ever do with you, if you
+are cast away on a desert island with me?" exclaimed Clem, in mock
+despair.
+
+"Set up a telegraph wire, and then she would need nothing more,"
+insinuated Cyn.
+
+"And get snubbed for my pains!" muttered Clem, _sotto voce_. But Nattie
+caught the words, and an expression of distress passed over her face.
+
+"This reminds me of that feast!" Cyn declared, as they sealed themselves
+wherever convenient, with a dish of whatever was handy.
+
+"Only more so," added Clem.
+
+"What feast?" asked Celeste, curiously.
+
+"One we had once," Cyn replied evasively, glad there was something
+Celeste did not know about. In fact, in the matter of curiosity, Celeste
+was an embryo Miss Kling.
+
+"I am sorry we have no _Charlotte Russes_ to-day, Quimby," remarked Clem,
+with an expression of transparent innocence.
+
+Quimby could only reply with a groan. The recollections awakened were
+too much.
+
+"What is the matter now, Ralfy?" asked the loving Celeste.
+
+Again Quimby muttered something about "that tooth."
+
+"Oh!" said Celeste, tenderly, "you really must have it out, Ralfy!"
+
+The possibility of being obliged to part with a sound tooth in
+self-defense, restored him for the time being. But he was not the only
+one to whom the retrospect brought a momentary pain. Nattie sighed as
+she looked back to the day that had brought Clem, but not restored as
+she then supposed, but taken away, her "C."
+
+"The salubrious air and the invigorating odor of the forest adds
+immeasurably to the natural capacity of the appetite!" commented Jo,
+gravely, as he passed his plate for the seventh fish.
+
+"Ah!" sighed Celeste, who prided herself on her delicacy, "I never
+could eat more than would satisfy a mouse, and since my engagement,"
+simpering, "I cannot swallow enough to scarce keep me alive!"
+
+Quimby looked up eagerly.
+
+"I--I beg pardon, but if the--if the engagement weighs upon you, I--I am
+willing to release you, you know!" he exclaimed, hopefully.
+
+"You jealous creature!" replied Celeste, archly. "You know, Ralfy, that
+no consideration could make me release you!"
+
+Quimby knew it only too well, and sighed as he picked a chicken bone.
+
+"A great objection to dining in the woods is that one is apt to find his
+food unexpectedly seasoned!" said Clem, as he captured a six-legged bug
+of an adventurous spirit, that had sought to investigate the contents of
+his plate.
+
+"Isn't it strange that bugs don't seem half so bad in our food here as
+they would at home!" said Mrs. Simonson.
+
+"Oh! we can get used to anything, if we only think so!" said Cyn,
+bringing her cheery philosophy to the front.
+
+"Yes!" assented Quimby, mournfully, "I--I am used to it, you know!"
+
+Cyn laughed, and then proposed the health of the betrothed pair, which
+was drank in lager beer, and to which Quimby, bolstered up by Celeste,
+attempted to respond, but collapsed in the middle of the third sentence,
+and with the words,
+
+"Thank you! and I--I am used to it, you know!" sat down, wiped his
+forehead on his napkin, and looked intensely miserable.
+
+After that they toasted Cyn, and then "Dots and Dashes," and last, Jo
+with mock solemnity proposed "Fate."
+
+And just then Quimby met with a fresh mishap, and came near ending his
+sufferings in a watery grave, only the water did not happen to be quite
+deep enough. Arising from the sharp-pointed rock that had served him for
+a pivot on which to eat his dinner, he stumbled, fell and rolled over
+and over down the bank, and into the river, with a tremendous splash.
+
+Every one jumped up in consternation.
+
+"Oh, Clem! Jo!" shrieked Celeste, wringing her hands, and rushing down
+to the water's edge. "Save him! Save my darling Ralfy!"
+
+"Ralfy," however, was equal to saving his own life this time. The water
+was only up to his waist, and he had already picked himself up and was
+wading ashore.
+
+"I--I am all right!" he said looking up at his anxious friends with a
+reassuring smile. "I--I am used to it, you know!"
+
+As Clem assisted him up the bank, the thought came into Cyn's head, why
+would it not be a good idea to push Nat--accidentally--into the river,
+so Clem might rescue her, and thus bring about that much to be desired
+crisis? But remembering that water would run the colors of her dress,
+and farther, how dreadfully unbecoming it was to be wet--a fact fully
+demonstrated by the present appearance of Quimby--Cyn rejected the idea
+as not exactly feasible.
+
+They left Quimby drying on a sunny bank, with Celeste as guardian angel,
+love, and the remains of the repast to cheer her, and the consciousness
+that his clothes were shrinking on him as they dried, to divert _him_, and
+wandered off through the woods, and over the hills, gathering on the way
+so many flowers and green things, that Cyn declared they looked like
+Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane.
+
+At first they were all together, then straggled apart; Mrs. Simonson
+being the first dereliction, as she was not quite equal to climbing as
+fast as the young people. Thus it came about that Nattie found herself
+alone with Clem, and suddenly stopping, with some embarrassment, but
+steadily, said,
+
+"There is something I wish to say to you. You have spoken several times
+of late about my 'snubbing' you. I want to say, I have not intentionally
+done so; that I have the same--the same friendship for you as always,
+and that I wish you every happiness. What may have appeared to you as
+strange or cold in my conduct of late, is due to secrets of my own."
+
+Clem look at her scrutinizingly, as she spoke, and the flowers he had
+gathered fell unheeded from his hands.
+
+"It has never been _my_ wish that any coldness should come between us; you
+know that, Nattie," he replied earnestly. "From our first acquaintance,
+the old acquaintance over the wire, you have held the same place in my
+heart!"
+
+"The place next to Cyn!" was Nattie's involuntary bitter thought, but
+she instantly stifled the feeling, and answered,
+
+"Thank you, Clem; and I hope we may always be the same friends."
+
+At this Clem took an impetuous step towards her, and would have
+said--who can tell what?--had not at the same moment Mrs. Simonson, very
+much out of breath, come up with them. Nattie was not sorry. She had
+wished to say to him what she had, that he might not think her changed
+manner of late had been caused by any feeling of dislike, and might
+understand she wished him success with Cyn. But she had no desire to
+prolong the interview, and gladly walked on by the side of the puffing
+Mrs. Simonson.
+
+Clem, however, looked displeased, and followed with a thoughtful face;
+so thoughtful that Mrs. Simonson noticed and wondered at his
+preoccupation.
+
+Meanwhile, Cyn, with Jo, were far in advance, and had turned into a
+by-path that led toward a slight rising, sauntering on, Cyn talking
+merrily, Jo unusually quiet, until suddenly stopping, she exclaimed,
+
+"Dear me! we have lost sight of every one! Had we not better return?"
+
+"No! I do not want to!" answered Jo, bluntly.
+
+"Do you not? As you say, only we must not lose them. Possibly they may
+stroll this way; shall we sit down?" and without waiting for a response
+Cyn seated herself on a big rock by the side of the pathway.
+
+Although Jo was not romantic, he had an artist-eye, and could not but
+note the beauty of the scene before him, a scene he did not need to
+reproduce on canvas to remember ever after;--the mountains in the
+background, the narrow path sloping down from the near hill to where, on
+the gray and moss-covered rock, Cyn sat, her dark eyes mellow with the
+summer sunshine, and the cherry ribbons of her hat giving the requisite
+touch of color to make the picture perfect.
+
+For a moment he stood in silent admiration, then, taking off his hat,
+and smoothing down his shaven locks, he said,
+
+"To tell the truth, Cyn, I do hope they will not stroll this way. They
+are around altogether too much. I never can have a quiet talk with you!"
+
+"I declare, I believe in addition to your being unsentimental, and all
+that, you are becoming a confirmed grumbler!" exclaimed Cyn, as she
+caught one of the boughs of the tree overhead and turned a
+merrily-protesting face towards him.
+
+Jo looked at her, and a queer expression came over his face.
+
+"Am I?" he said, slowly. "Well--would you like to see me sentimental?
+Would you like to see me make a fool of myself?"
+
+"Nothing would give me greater pleasure!" cried Cyn.
+
+"Then," exclaimed Jo, planting himself directly in front of her, "here
+goes! now I am going to astonish you very much, Cyn!"
+
+"Very well! I am all impatience! Go on!"
+
+"But it is no joke!" he replied, in protest to her laughing face. "If I
+am to make a fool of myself I am going to do it in dead earnest!"
+
+"That is the way, of course," responded Cyn, but beginning to look a
+little surprised.
+
+For Jo seemed very much excited, and his manner indicated anything but a
+jest. Extraordinary creature, that Jo! His next proceeding was even more
+strange; that was to ask the apparently irrelevant question,
+
+"Do you remember what we were all saying a short time ago, about Fate?"
+
+"Certainly; but are you going to favor me with a dissertation on Fate,
+instead of making a fool of yourself?"
+
+"No!" was the solemn reply, "have a little patience, Cyn. The fact is,
+you are my Fate--there is no mistake about it!--and must be either cruel
+or kind, and there's no alternative!"
+
+Cyn's surprise increased visibly.
+
+"I am sure, I do not understand you at all! how queer you are to-day,
+Jo!"
+
+"Of course I am queer! when a man throws his theories and hobbies to the
+winds, and confesses himself conquered, he is apt to be queer, is he
+not? Can you not understand, that I, Jo Norton, who have always scoffed
+at sentiment, and proudly declared myself incapable of being the victim
+of love, am ready--yes, and longing!--to make as big a fool of myself as
+the veriest spooniest youth in existence, and all for love of you, Cyn?"
+
+To this exceedingly novel declaration of love, Cyn responded by
+releasing the bough she held, and staring at him with distended eyes and
+a perfectly blank face; for once in her life, speechless.
+
+"I told you I was going to astonish you," said Jo, quaintly, in answer
+to her prolonged stare, "and I do not wonder that you cannot believe I
+really love you! I did not myself, for a long time, and I would not
+after I knew it! But it is a fact. No joke--no mistake, but a sober,
+serious fact! I love you, love you, love you!"
+
+Jo's voice grew very fervent, as he uttered these last words, and was in
+such striking contrast to his ordinary manner, that Cyn could but see
+that this was indeed, "no joke."
+
+"You--you love--and _love me!_" she gasped.
+
+"Yes, I could not help it! I have only known it within a few days, but I
+think I have loved you ever since we first met, only those confounded
+theories of mine blinded me."
+
+"Well--but what are you going to do about it?" questioned Cyn, unable
+yet to recover from her bewilderment.
+
+Jo looked at her, wistfully.
+
+"I know I am homely, Cyn, and I am poor; I have nothing to offer you but
+an honest, loving and true heart. I suppose a man who is in love is
+naturally unreasonable--I never was in love before, you know--but an
+extravagant hope will whisper to me, that even this little might not be
+unappreciated by you."
+
+And as he spoke, Jo's face was so transfigured that it could no longer
+be called plain. Cyn gazed at him in wonder, and recovering partly from
+her first surprise, an unusual seriousness came over her own handsome
+face, as she answered earnestly,
+
+"It is not unappreciated! oh, no, Jo! Nothing to offer me but an honest,
+loving and true heart, you say? why, that is everything!"
+
+"Then will you accept it? May I try and win your love?" he asked
+eagerly, advancing close to her. "I will work very hard to make myself
+worthy of it, and to win a name you need not be ashamed to bear. I lay
+myself, my life at your feet, Cyn."
+
+"And this is unsentimental Jo!" Cyn exclaimed involuntarily.
+
+"This is unsentimental Jo," he answered, in all humility. "Do with him
+what you will; he is all yours."
+
+Into Cyn's expressive eyes came some deeply-stirred emotion.
+
+"I am so sorry;" she said, sadly, "so very, very sorry! what shall I
+say? what shall I do? I like you so much as a friend! But what you ask,
+Jo, could never be!"
+
+The sun sank behind the distant hills, and a shadow, such as had fallen
+over the woods behind them, settled on Jo's face.
+
+"The idea is new to you. At least, think it over. Do not leave me
+without a little hope," he entreated.
+
+"Jo, I wish--yes! I _do_ wish that I could love you as you deserve to be
+loved," said Cyn, earnestly. "But it cannot be! it never could be! Do
+not deceive yourself with false hopes. Friends always, Jo, but lovers
+never!"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Jo, bitterly, unable to restrain his jealousy, "it is
+Clem who stands between us!"
+
+"_Clem_ who stands between us!" echoed Cyn, astounded for the second time
+that day.
+
+"There--now I have lowered myself in your estimation; I am but a
+blundering fool, Cyn. You see I am selfish in my love; and I have not
+yet become sentimental enough to be willing to see another fellow win
+what is all the world to me!"
+
+Cyn's face grew red as was the sky when the sun had gone down.
+
+"Do you mean to insinuate that I am in love with Clem?" she asked,
+angrily.
+
+"I would not insinuate it for all the world, if you are not," was Jo's
+eager reply; "I am not experienced in love matters, but I am quite sure
+he loves you--and he is very handsome," he added ruefully.
+
+"What a dreadful combination of circumstances!" cried Cyn, distractedly.
+"But, pshaw! It's impossible!"
+
+"Impossible? No, indeed! Why, it was by being so jealous of him that I
+first awoke to the fact that I was in love with you myself. Besides,
+every one has noticed his fondness for you."
+
+"They have?" vehemently, and smiting the rock where she sat with her
+hand, as she spoke. "But this is truly awful!"
+
+"Then you do not care for him?" questioned Jo, joyfully.
+
+"Care for him?" repeated Cyn, irritably. "Of course I care for him! Is
+it not my pet scheme that he should marry Nattie? Certainly it is, and
+has been from the first! And now, if he has gone and fallen in love with
+_me_, a nice predicament we will all be in. But you must be mistaken! I
+cannot believe him capable of such a thing! The only reason I have to
+fear it is that I would not have credited it of _you_ yesterday!"
+
+"But you see I do love you. You believe I do, do you not, Cyn?" asked
+Jo, too eager to press his own suit to give much thought to Nattie and
+Clem. "Why will you not try and love me, as you do not love Clem? Am I
+so homely as to be repulsive to you?"
+
+"Homely? Nonsense!" replied Cyn, momentarily putting aside her newest
+anxiety for the previous one, "now I come to think of it, I had rather
+marry you than any man I know!"
+
+"Would you? Would you really?" seizing her hand hopefully. "Then why
+will you not?"
+
+Cyn allowed her hand to remain in his as she said slowly and
+impressively,
+
+"I cannot marry. That is entirely out of the question for me. Of my
+life, love can form no part!"
+
+"But I thought you believed in love?" said Jo, looking perplexed, but
+clinging to her hand as a sort of anchor.
+
+"I do. I believe it is the best happiness of life. But it cannot be for
+me. Why, I will tell you. I owe this much in return for what you have
+given me; what I prize even though I am compelled to refuse it. What
+stands between us is the memory of a love--gone forever."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jo, astounded in his turn. "You do not mean to say
+that you--that you--_you_, the gayest of the gay--that _you_--" Jo stopped,
+unable to proceed.
+
+"You hardly expected to find me in the _role_ of the victim of a broken
+heart, did you?" questioned Cyn, with a half-sad, half-humorous smile.
+"I admit I do not exactly answer to the average description, and my
+heart is not broken--there is only a blank in it--something dead that
+can never live again. Once I loved a man with all my heart"--Jo
+sighed--"with all the illusion of youth, and he loved me. The difference
+between his love and mine was, that mine was forever, and his was for a
+day."
+
+"Impossible!" interrupted Jo. "No man who once loved you could ever
+change."
+
+"He happened to be one of the kind who _could_. I never really knew the
+cause--it might have been another woman. You know there always _is_
+another woman."
+
+"Or another man," added Jo gloomily.
+
+"Yes," assented Cyn, and continued. "He was one of the kind, I think
+now, who are incapable of appreciating a woman's love, and consequently
+unworthy of it. But unfortunately, I did not know this, and wasted mine
+on him. So he and love, went out of my life forever. But," with a proud
+raising of her head, "I would not be weak enough to allow all my life to
+be ruined because one part of it was wrecked; with so much gone, there
+still remained something, and of that I made the most. This is why my
+art is everything to me, and why I cannot marry you."
+
+"But it seems to me unreasonable, that because you loved one man who was
+unworthy, you should refuse the love of another who would try very hard
+to make you forget that first sad experience," argued Jo. "Give me what
+you have left, Cyn! If it be but dead ashes, I will thank God for the
+gift, and perhaps, at some future day, in response to my devotion, even
+from those ashes shall arise another love, so strong, so intense, that,
+in comparison, the old shall be but as some half-forgotten trouble of
+childhood, whose remembrance cannot awaken even a passing pain."
+
+The fervor of an honest affection made Jo truly eloquent, and his true
+blue eyes met the dark ones of Cyn, glowing with earnestness and love,
+and for a moment she looked at him and hesitated. Then she arose, saying
+resolutely,
+
+"No! Jo! no! Do not tempt me! The experiment would be too dangerous! To
+give you a warmed-over affection in return for your whole heart, would
+only be misery for us both--more misery than I am bringing to you now. I
+respect and esteem you, as I said before--we will be
+friends--comrades--always--no more!"
+
+As she spoke, she extended her hand to him, in farewell to all his
+hopes.
+
+And so understanding he clasped it, a sadness on his face she had never
+seen there before.
+
+"As you will, Cyn," he replied, brokenly, "but I shall love
+you--forever!"
+
+As he spoke, from below came the cry,
+
+"Cyn Jo! where are you? we are going!"
+
+"Coming!" Cyn's clear voice answered back.
+
+"One moment," Jo said, detaining her, "may I--may I kiss you once, Cyn?
+Once, and for the last time?"
+
+There were tears in Cyn's eyes. She bent her handsome head, their lips
+met, then, without a word, they went on together to join those who
+awaited them.
+
+And it was thus Fate decreed for these two.
+
+Love brings the most intense sorrows, the keenest joys of life. But
+there must always be some lives, into which comes only the sadness, and
+none of the bliss, of loving.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+O. K.
+
+
+Leaving Clem, on their arrival at the hotel, to bear the burden of the
+green stuff they had brought from the woods, Cyn, with a trace of
+melancholy on her sunny face, followed Nattie to her room. For Cyn's
+joyous picnic, with its gay beginning, had ended sadly enough for her.
+
+"I want to ask you something," Cyn said, with frank directness, as she
+carefully closed the door behind them. "And that is, are you, can you be
+foolish enough to imagine, that Clem and I are in love with each other?"
+
+The small basket Nattie held in her hand fell to the floor, at this
+unexpected question. Had Cyn drawn forth a bowie-knife, and playfully
+clipped off her nose, she could not have been more astounded.
+
+"If you can possibly reduce your eyes to their ordinary size, and give
+me a candid yes or no, I will be obliged," Cyn said, rather petulantly,
+after waiting in vain for an answer. The events of the day had sorely
+tried her usually even temper.
+
+A little tremulously, while a burning flush covered her face, Nattie
+answered her,
+
+"I--I have heard it intimated!"
+
+"You have heard it intimated! That means yes, to my question," said Cyn;
+then sinking despairingly on the lounge, she added, "here is a crisis of
+which I never dreamed!"
+
+Not understanding very well, and moreover much agitated by the subject,
+Nattie knew not what to say.
+
+"This is awful!" went on Cyn, savagely beating the pillow with her fist;
+"what contrary things love affairs are!"
+
+Fearful of having in some way betrayed her secret--the only conclusion
+she could draw from Cyn's extraordinary outburst--Nattie stood looking
+guiltily at the floor a few moments, then recovering herself, she went
+to Cyn, and said, in a voice full of emotion,
+
+"I do not just comprehend your meaning, dear, but it may be you think I
+might not quite like the idea, on account of that--that first affair on
+the wire. If so, dismiss the thought. You and Clem are suited to each
+other, and--" Nattie stopped, unable to continue.
+
+Cyn, who had been beating the innocent pillow, as if it was the cause of
+all this, while Nattie was speaking, now threw it across the room, as
+she exclaimed.
+
+"Oh! the perversity of human nature! Oh! you degenerate girl! As if I
+cared for Clem in that way! Have I not from the first set my heart on
+this real-life romance ending in the only way it could rightfully end?"
+
+A sudden light came into Nattie's face, but it died away in a moment.
+
+"Then you do not care for him? Poor Clem!" she said, in a low voice.
+
+"Poor Clem, indeed!" cried Cyn, pacing the floor excitedly. "I
+cannot--no, I cannot--believe it of him! He certainly has sagacity
+enough not to run his head against a beam in broad daylight, even--"
+
+"If Jo had not," she was about to add, but checked herself suddenly. Not
+for the world would she betray Jo's confidence. What had passed between
+them to-day should be a secret always, never again to be mentioned--but
+never forgotten in the friendship and companionship of after years.
+
+"You must be very difficult to suit, dear, if you do not like Clem!"
+said Nattie, with unconscious significance, after waiting in vain for
+Cyn to finish her sentence.
+
+"It is not that," replied Cyn, somewhat sadly. "Do you not know I have
+only one love,--music?"
+
+"Poor Clem!" again said Nattie, from the depths of her tender heart.
+"For I know he loves you, dear. He could not help it, who could?"
+
+Such words would have been sweet to the vanity of an ordinary woman. But
+on Cyn they had a very opposite effect.
+
+"Things have come to a pretty pass if one can not laugh and joke, and
+enjoy one's self with friends without being made love to!" she said,
+annoyed. Then looking scrutinizingly at Nattie, she asked,
+
+"And you--did you really wish Clem and I might love each other?"
+
+Nattie played nervously with the fringe of her dress, hesitated, then
+replied in a low tone,
+
+"I fear I did not, Cyn!"
+
+"Then it may come right yet!" exclaimed Cyn, hopefully.
+
+Nattie shook her head.
+
+"And he loving you? Oh, no!" she said. "I shall never be able to say
+O.K. to what you term your romance of the dots and dashes, Cyn. In fact,
+I have made up my mind that there are some people born to go through
+life missing both its best and its worst, and that I am one!"
+
+"Pray, do not say that!" urged Cyn, too disturbed to bring her easy
+philosophy to bear on the situation. "Of all things, do not get morbid."
+
+"But it is the truth!" persisted Nattie. "Even my name, for instance,
+proves it! I was christened Nathalie, a very fine poetic name. But, in
+all my life no one ever called me by it! I was always mediocre Nattie!"
+
+"And _I_ have curtailed you down to Nat!" said Cyn, with whimsical
+remorse. "But what a tangle we are in! First it was the man of musk and
+bear's grease, who came between you! Then, when he was explained away,
+came blundering I! Why did you not lock me out of sight somewhere? I
+would have done it myself had I known--" ironically-- "what an
+extremely fascinating and dangerous person I was!"
+
+At this Nattie could not help smiling.
+
+"Is was not your fault; it was Fate!" she said, her smile becoming a
+sigh, that Cyn echoed, for she thought of Jo. But yet unconvinced, she
+said,
+
+"Fate! No; it cannot be! I think better of Clem than to believe he, too,
+has made a mistake, like Quimby, and fallen in love with the wrong
+woman!" then starting up, she exclaimed, tragically, "Who? ah! who
+shall cut the Gordian knot and bring about a crisis that shall cause
+this 'wired love' to terminate in 'O. K.'?"
+
+As if invoked by Cyn's words, there came a sneeze from outside, and Miss
+Kling pushed open the door unceremoniously.
+
+"I wish to have some conversation with you, Miss Rogers," she said in a
+tone of severity.
+
+"Some other time, if you please," Nattie replied, impatiently, for her
+talk with Cyn had unnerved her; "just now I am engaged."
+
+Miss Kling drew herself up and said, with even more austerity,
+
+"There is no time like the present, and since Miss Archer is here, it
+may not be amiss for her to hear what I have to say."
+
+Nattie frowned, but Cyn, not unwilling to be diverted even by Miss Kling
+from the topic that was so annoying her, said,
+
+"Very well. We are listening, Miss Kling."
+
+"Miss Rogers," proceeded Miss Kling solemnly, after a preparatory
+sneeze, "I know _all_."
+
+The emphasis on the last word was truly tremendous, and Nattie started
+astonished, while Cyn looked up with awakened curiosity.
+
+"May I inquire what you mean by all?" inquired Nattie stiffly.
+
+"Yes," repeated Miss Kling, without heeding the question. "I know ALL. I
+have for some time suspected that something underhanded was going on.
+Now I know what it is that has been so carefully concealed from me! I
+have long objected to your associates, Miss Rogers, but--"
+
+"Pardon me, but that certainly does not concern you!" interrupted Cyn
+disdainfully.
+
+Miss Kling looked at her and sneezed a sinister sneeze.
+
+"It concerns me to know what kind of people I have in my house!" she
+replied, "and since you force me to speak out, Miss Archer, I will say
+that in my opinion no truly modest and proper girl would become intimate
+with those who pad their legs and paint their faces, and show themselves
+to the public"--this insinuation struck Cyn so comically that she could
+hardly suppress a laugh. "My suspicions, to return to what I was about
+to say, Miss Rogers, were first awakened by hearing that--that
+instrument"--Cyn and Nattie exchanged looks of intelligence--"you have
+here going, when I knew you were not in the room. And now, as I said, I
+know _all_! I pass over the audacity of such proceedings on _my_ premises,
+but their utter immorality is too much for me to bear! Yes! I found a
+wire, and know where it leads! Into the room of two young men! That any
+young woman should so immodest as to establish telegraphic communication
+between her bed-room and the bed-room of two young men is beyond my
+comprehension!"
+
+Cyn felt a mischievous desire to inquire how it would have struck her,
+had it been the bed-room of _one_ young man? Nattie, who had flushed
+crimson at the first knowledge of Miss Kling's discovery, now drew
+herself up and replied with dignity,
+
+"Really, Miss Kling, I think this extravagance of language utterly
+uncalled for! I admit it was not exactly correct for me to allow the
+wire to be run without consulting you, but beyond that, there was
+nothing reprehensible in my conduct."
+
+Miss Kling held up her hands in horror.
+
+"Nothing reprehensible in being connected by a telegraph wire with two
+young men!" she exclaimed. "Nothing--"
+
+"Excuse my intrusion; but, Cyn, will you please inform me if I am to
+stand all night loaded with green stuff, like a farmer on a market day?"
+at this point the merry voice of Clem interrupted, as he came hastily
+in, still bearing the burden Cyn had piled upon him. Then becoming aware
+of Miss Kling's presence, he added to her, "I beg pardon for my abrupt
+entrance, but the outer door being open, I made bold to enter;" then
+explanatory to Cyn, "Your door was locked, as also was mine, of which
+Quimby has the key; and as Celeste has not yet been able to part with
+him, there I have been standing in the hall, like patience with a load
+of dandelions!"
+
+"We were having such an interesting conversation," Cyn answered, with a
+scornful glance in Miss Kling's direction, "that I quite forgot you and
+the lapse of time."
+
+Clem instantly became aware of something amiss in the atmosphere, and
+glanced around inquiringly. Miss Kling immediately enlightened him.
+
+"There are many things you make bold to do, young man!" she said.
+"Putting telegraph apparatus in my house, for instance!"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Clem, comprehensively.
+
+"Yes;" went on the aggrieved Miss Kling, "you and that Quimby, I
+suppose, did it. The idea originated with you, of course. _He_ hasn't
+brains enough; if he had he would not marry Celeste!" and Miss Kling
+sniffed in utter contempt of poor Quimby.
+
+"Thanks for the compliment to _my_ intellectual abilities!" said Clem with
+a mischievous look; then advancing towards her, he answered in his own
+frank, manly way, "And so you have found us out? But I trust you will
+not be offended with us? It is, after all, a trifle, and we said nothing
+about it merely because we wished to have a little mystery of our own!
+It was, as the newsboys would say, a lark of ours!"
+
+"Lark!" repeated Miss Kling, drawing herself up stiffly; "young man, you
+will oblige me by not using slang in my presence!"
+
+"Pardon me," said Clem, good humoredly; "and in regard to the wire,
+blame me, if you must blame any one. As you say, it was all my doing,
+and I induced Miss Rogers to allow the wire to come into her room."
+
+"And I, too," added Cyn, propitiatingly, for Nattie's sake, "I wished to
+learn the business, you know!"
+
+But Miss Kling would not propitiate.
+
+"Miss Rogers, I have no doubt, was very ready to be induced!" she said,
+with an effort at sarcasm. "I have heard of young females so much in
+love that they would run after and pursue young men, but never before of
+one so carried away and so lost to every sense of decorum, as to be
+obliged to have a wire run from her room to his, in order to communicate
+with him at improper times!"
+
+This accusation, far-fetched and ridiculous as it was, yet being uttered
+in the presence of Clem, overwhelmed poor Nattie, and she sank on the
+lounge, burying her face in her hands, at which Clem made a hasty
+motion, and then, as if aware any interference of his would only make
+matters worse, checked himself. But Cyn came to the front with striking
+effect.
+
+"You ought, certainly, to be well informed on the subject of _old_
+females who run after _old_ men!" she said, witheringly. "If one may
+believe what the Tor--what Mr. Fishblate says!"
+
+This shot told. Miss Kling turned livid with rage and mortification, and
+burst into a terrific spasm of sneezing.
+
+"Miss Rogers," she said, wrathfully, as soon as she recovered
+sufficiently to speak, "your conduct and that of your associates is such,
+that I can no longer allow you to remain on my premises.
+
+"Miss Kling, this is--is very unjust,", said the agitated Nattie.
+
+"It is against the wishes of her friends that she has remained as long
+as she has," cried Cyn, hotly.
+
+"Miss Kling, your proceedings are infamous!" exclaimed Clem, not able to
+contain himself longer.
+
+Rather afraid to draw out Cyn any more, Miss Kling gladly seized this
+opportunity to attack Clem.
+
+"Young man, what right have you to interfere?" she inquired,
+majestically.
+
+Clem bit his lip. Sure enough, what right had he?
+
+He glanced at Nattie where she sat, pale and disturbed, at the scene
+that threatened to end seriously for her, and then, obeying a sudden
+impulse, seized the key at his side, and called,
+
+"N--N--N!"
+
+Nattie looked up quickly, and while Miss Kling, who supposed he was
+wantonly drumming on the obnoxious instrument to exasperate her, vented
+her indignation, and also the outraged feelings caused by the
+Torpedo-wound inflicted by Cyn, still rankling, in a wrathful homily to
+which no one listened, for Cyn was watching Clem curiously, he wrote
+rapidly, his eyes on the sounder,
+
+"She says I have no right to interfere. If you had not so changed
+towards me--if I could hope you loved me as I have ever loved you, I
+would ask you to give me the right, and let me put this pernicious
+discredit to her sex on the other side of that door!"
+
+As these words in dots and dashes came to her ears, Nattie, forgetting
+Miss Kling, forgetting everything, except that she loved Clem, and Clem
+declared--could it be possible--that he loved her, arose hastily, with a
+quick joy suffusing her face, and then their eyes met, and neither words
+or dots and dashes were needed. Love, more potent than electricity,
+required no interpreter, and that most powerful of all magnets drew them
+together. Before the face and eyes of the amazed Miss Kling, who had
+just delivered herself of a sentence intended to be crushing, and could
+not conceive why her victim should suddenly look so happy over it, he
+advanced to Nattie's side, clasped her hand eagerly and tenderly, then
+turning to Miss Kling, said, while Cyn, surmising the truth of the
+matter, embraced herself fervently,
+
+"Miss Kling, any farther observations you may have to make, you will be
+good enough to say to me, hereafter; and now, will you oblige me by
+leaving the room?" and he politely held open the door.
+
+"What?" gasped Miss Kling, hardly believing her own ears.
+
+"I cannot allow you to annoy Miss Rogers, the lady who is to be my
+wife!" Clem added; "and if she and I choose to have twelve telegraph
+wires, we will. Let me bid you good-evening!" and he pointed
+significantly at the open door.
+
+"Your wife! Miss Rogers!" echoed the discomfited Miss Kling, and glanced
+at the blushing Nattie, at Cyn, undisguisedly exultant, and at Clem,
+determinedly waiting for her to go out. This was something she had not
+expected, and it took her aback. So, with a sneeze, she drew herself up,
+gave a spiteful parting shot,
+
+"Well, she has worked hard enough to get you--had to bring the telegraph
+to her assistance!" and then retreated, before Cyn could retaliate with
+the Torpedo. Retreated to her own room, to nurse her wrath and envy, and
+to dream hopelessly, forever more, of that other self, never to come
+nearer than now!
+
+The discreet Cyn, comprehending that Miss Kling had brought about that,
+"crisis," and that something had been said on the wire to the right
+purpose, followed her out, and left them alone. It is hardly necessary
+to mention, that as soon as the door closed behind Cyn, Clem took Nattie
+in his arms and kissed her. It was an inevitable consequence.
+
+"And now explain why you have treated me so, you contrary little girl?"
+he queried, tenderly.
+
+"I thought," Nattie replied, raising her gray eyes, from which the
+shadows were all gone now, to his, "that you loved Cyn."
+
+"You did!" he said, surprised and reproachful; "and that is why you have
+been so cold and distant! How could you?"
+
+"But Cyn is so handsome, and--I do not see how you could help it!"
+pleaded Nattie in self-extenuation.
+
+"Of course she is handsome, talented, brilliant fascinating, everything
+that is nice," Clem answered, "but," in a low voice, "Cyn was not my
+little girl at B m!"
+
+Of course, after this there was another inevitable consequence, and then
+Clem asked,
+
+"And did you care because you imagined--you naughty, jealous girl--that
+I loved Cyn?"
+
+"Yes," Nattie answered, blushing, but honestly, "I was very unhappy,
+indeed I was, Clem! I think I loved you from the first--when you were
+invisible, you know!"
+
+"And I," said Clem, "should have given myself up a victim to despair,
+like Quimby, if it had not been for one thing. Jo made me a duplicate of
+that picture you destroyed, and the fact that you never even mentioned
+the Cupid overhead gave me hope!" and his own roguish look was in his
+eyes as he saw Nattie's confusion, and laughing his merry laugh, he
+clasped her in his arms.
+
+"I beg pardon," said Cyn tapping, and entering after a cautious
+interval, "But I come to inquire if Nat--I mean Nathalie--still thinks,
+as she did an hour ago, that Clem and I are just suited to each other?"
+
+Nattie laughed and blushed.
+
+"You see I set my heart on this from the beginning," said Cyn to Clem,
+not thinking it necessary to define to what "this" referred. "It was
+such a perfect romance, you know! and she has been frightening me by
+declaring that you were in love with me, and was so positive that she
+almost made me believe it, notwithstanding my natural sagacity!"
+
+"As I certainly should have been," replied Clem gallantly, "only for a
+prior attachment. You see, I loved Nattie before ever I saw you! Why, I
+used to pass the most of my time when at X n in wondering what she was
+like, and wishing--I was as near her as I am now, for instance. And how
+miserable I was, when she dropped me so suddenly! and how happy I was
+when I came upon her at that blessed feast, and the red hair was all
+explained away. And then came another cross on the circuit of my true
+love."
+
+"And had it not been for that _dear_ Betsey Kling with her invectives we
+should have been mixed, and not had a cue now!" exclaimed Cyn. "I
+declare, I could hug her!"
+
+But Betsey Kling not being available just then, she substituted Nattie,
+and gave her a most emphatic squeeze.
+
+"It was your shot about the Torpedo that finished her, Cyn," laughed
+Clem.
+
+"It _was_ effective, I flatter myself," Cyn confessed. "And that reminds
+me, you must not stay here now, Nat, you know; so I have seen Mrs.
+Simonson, and you are going to live with me--for the present"--glancing
+archly at her, "until that book is written, for instance."
+
+"And it _will_ be written, now, I know!" said Nattie, earnestly, her eyes
+shining. "You remember what you once said, Cyn? I see now you were
+right."
+
+"Yes;" said Cyn, seriously, "and thank Heaven that it was love, and not
+disappointment, that came!"
+
+"Love shall not come in vain!" Nattie said, as seriously. "I will be
+worthy of it!"
+
+The after years only could prove her words. But in Clem's face the
+belief in them was written as plainly as if those future possibilities
+were acknowledged results.
+
+"We must have another feast to celebrate events!" Cyn said then, gayly.
+"You are happy; my romance is O. K.; Celeste is ecstatic; Quimby as
+joyful as circumstances permit the victim of mistake to be; Jo and I are
+hopeful of future fame--and we certainly must have a feast!"
+
+"With plenty of dishes this time," laughed Clem, "and there shall be no
+more crosses on the wire!"
+
+"But bless my heart!" ejaculated Cyn, "here you two are making love
+like ordinary mortals"--at this Nattie hastily withdrew the hand Clem
+had taken-- "Quimby and Celeste, for instance! This will never do! We
+must end this romance of dots and dashes as it commenced, to make it
+truly 'Wired Love!'"
+
+"True enough! so we must!" answered Clem merrily, and rising, he went to
+the "key," with his eyes looking straight into Nattie's, and wrote
+something that made her blush and seize his hand in shy and unnecessary
+alarm, saying,
+
+"Suppose Jo should be over in your room! He might be able to read it!"
+
+"Very well," replied Clem, as he laughed and kissed her, regardless of
+the spectator. "I am quite content to make love like common mortals,
+Cyn, and I hope, my darling Nattie, that we are done now with all
+'breaks' and 'crosses,' as we are with Wired Love. Henceforth ours shall
+be the pure, unalloyed article, genuine love!"
+
+And Nattie, half-laughing, half-serious, but wholly glad, took the key
+and wrote, "O. K."
+
+If any one is anxious to know what Clem wrote when Nattie stopped him,
+here it is.
+
+MY LITTLE
+DARLING
+MY WIFE
+
+[Transcriber's Note. The concluding three lines were printed in the
+American Railroad dialect of Morse. It cannot easily be represented
+in ASCII as it requires dashes of different lengths]
+
+THE END
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 24353 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #24353 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24353)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wired Love, by Ella Cheever Thayer
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Wired Love
+       A Romance of Dots and Dashes
+
+
+Author: Ella Cheever Thayer
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 18, 2008  [eBook #24353]
+[Last updated: August 4, 2013]
+[Last updated: August 12, 2013]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIRED LOVE***
+
+
+This book was transcribed from the 1880 edition by Andrew Katz.
+
+
+
+WIRED LOVE:
+
+A ROMANCE
+
+OF
+
+DOTS AND DASHES
+
+
+
+BY
+
+ELLA CHEEVER THAYER.
+
+
+"The old, old story,"--in a new, new way.
+
+
+
+DEDICATION.
+
+DEDICATED
+TO
+THE MEMORY
+OF A DEAR
+FRIEND BUT FOR WHOM THIS LITTLE
+WORK HAD NEVER BEEN
+
+[Transcriber's Note. The dedication was printed in American Railroad
+dialect of Morse. It cannot easily be represented in ASCII as it
+requires dashes of different lengths]
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+    I. Sounds from a Distant "C."
+   II. At the Hotel Norman
+  III. Visible and Invisible Friends
+   IV. Neighborly Calls
+    V. Quimby Bursts Forth in Eloquence
+   VI. Collapse of the Romance
+  VII. "Good-By"
+ VIII. The Feast
+   IX. Unexpected Visitors
+    X. The Broken Circuit Reunited
+   XI. Miss Kling Telegraphically Baffled
+  XII. Crosses on the Line
+ XIII. The Wrong Woman
+  XIV. Quimby Accepts the Situation
+   XV. One Summer Day
+  XVI. O. K.
+
+
+
+WIRED LOVE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+SOUNDS FROM A DISTANT "C."
+
+
+-... -- .-.. -.
+
+Just a noise, that is all.
+
+But a very significant noise to Miss Nathalie Rogers, or Nattie, as she
+was usually abbreviated; a noise that caused her to lay aside her book,
+and jump up hastily, exclaiming, with a gesture of impatience:--
+
+"Somebody always 'calls' me in the middle of every entertaining
+chapter!"
+
+For that noise, that little clatter, like, and yet too irregular to be
+the ticking of a clock, expressed to Nattie these four mystic letters:--
+
+"B m--X n;"
+
+which same four mystic letters, interpreted, meant that the
+name, or, to use the technical word, "call," of the telegraph office
+over which she was present sole presiding genius, was "B m," and that "B
+m" was wanted by another office on the wire, designated as "X n."
+
+A little, out-of-the-way, country office, some fifty miles down the
+line, was "X n," and, as Nattie signaled in reply to the "call" her
+readiness to receive any communications therefrom, she was conscious of
+holding in some slight contempt the possible abilities of the human
+portion of its machinery.
+
+For who but an operator very green in the profession would stay _there_?
+
+Consequently, she was quite unprepared for the velocity with which the
+telegraph alphabet of sounds in dots and dashes rattled over the
+instrument, appropriately termed a "sounder," upon which messages are
+received, and found herself wholly unable to write down the words as
+fast as they came.
+
+"Dear me!" she thought, rather nervously, "the country is certainly
+ahead of the city this time! I wonder if this smart operator is a lady
+or gentleman!"
+
+And, notwithstanding all her efforts, she was compelled to "break"--that
+is, open her "key," thereby breaking the circuit, and interrupting "X n"
+with the request,
+
+"Please repeat."
+
+"X n" took the interruption very good-naturedly--it was after
+dinner--and obeyed without expressing any impatience.
+
+But, alas! Nattie was even now unable to keep up with this too expert
+individual of uncertain sex, and was obliged again to "break," with the
+humiliating petition,
+
+"Please send slower!"
+
+"Oh!" responded "X n."
+
+For a small one, "Oh!" is a very expressive word. But whether this
+particular one signified impatience, or, as Nattie sensitively feared,
+contempt for her abilities, she could not tell. But certain it was that
+"X n" sent along the letters now, in such a slow, funereal procession
+that she was driven half frantic with nervousness in the attempt to
+piece them together into words. They had not proceeded far, however,
+before a small, thin voice fell upon the ears of the agitated Nattie.
+
+"Are you taking a message now?" it asked.
+
+Nattie glanced over her shoulder, and saw a sharp, inquisitive nose, a
+green veil, a pair of eye-glasses, and a strained smile, sticking
+through her little window.
+
+Nodding a hasty answer to the question, she wrote down another word of
+the message, that she had been able to catch, notwithstanding the
+interruption. As she did so the voice again queried,
+
+"Do you take them entirely by sound?"
+
+With a determined endeavor not to "break," Nattie replied only with a
+frown. But fate was evidently against her establishing a reputation for
+being a good operator with "X n."
+
+"Here, please attend to this quick!" exclaimed a new voice, and a tall
+gentleman pounded impatiently on the shelf outside the little window
+with one hand, and with the other held forth a message.
+
+With despair in her heart, once more Nattie interrupted "X n," took the
+impatient gentleman's message, studied out its illegible characters, and
+changed a bill, the owner of the nose looking on attentively meanwhile;
+this done, she bade the really much-abused "X n" to proceed, or in
+telegraphic terms, to
+
+"G. A.--the."
+
+"G. A." being the telegraphic abbreviation for "go ahead," and "the" the
+last word she had received of the message.
+
+And this time not even the fact of its being after dinner restrained "X
+n's" feelings, and "X n" made the sarcastic inquiry,
+
+"Had you not better go home and send down some one who is capable of
+receiving this message?"
+
+Now it would seem as if two persons sixty or seventy miles apart might
+severally fly into a rage and nurse their wrath comfortably without
+particularly annoying each other at the moment. But not under present
+conditions; and Nattie turned red and bit her nails excitedly under the
+displeasure of the distant person of unknown sex, at "X n." But no
+instrument had yet been invented by which she could see the expression
+on the face of this operator at "X n," as she retorted, and her fingers
+formed the letters very sharply;
+
+"Do you think it will help the matter at all for you to make a display
+of your charming disposition? G. A.--the--."
+
+"I am happy to be able to return the compliment implied!" was "X n's"
+preface to the continuation of the message.
+
+And now indeed Nattie might have recovered some of her fallen glories,
+being angry enough to be fiercely determined, had not the owner of the
+nose again made her presence manifest by the sudden question:
+
+"Do you have a different sound for every word, or syllable, or what?"
+
+And, turning quickly around to scowl this persevering questioner into
+silence, Nattie's elbow hit and knocked over the inkstand, its contents
+pouring over her hands, dress, the desk and floor, and proving beyond a
+doubt, as it descended, the truth of its label--
+
+"Superior Black Ink!"
+
+And then, save for the clatter of the "sounder," there was silence.
+
+For a moment Nattie gazed blankly at her besmeared hands and ruined
+dress, at the "sounder," and at the owner of the nose, who returned her
+look with that expression of serene amusement often noticeable in those
+who contemplate from afar the mishaps of their fellow beings; then with
+the courage of despair, she for the fourth time "broke" "X n," saying,
+with inky impression on the instrument,
+
+"Excuse me, but you will have to wait! I am all ink, and I am being
+cross-examined!"
+
+Having thus delivered herself, she turned a deliberately deaf ear to "X
+n's" response, which, judging from the way the movable portion of the
+"sounder" danced, was emphatic.
+
+"A little new milk will take that out!" complacently said the owner of
+the nose, watching Nattie's efforts to remove the ink from her dress
+with blotting-paper.
+
+"Unfortunately I do not keep a cow here!" Nattie replied, tartly.
+
+Not quite polite in Nattie, this. But do not the circumstances plead
+strongly in her excuse? For, remember, she was not one of those
+impossible, angelic young ladies of whom we read, but one of the
+ordinary human beings we meet every day.
+
+The owner of the nose, however, was not charitable, and drew herself up
+loftily, as she said in imperative accents,
+
+"You did not answer my question! Do you have to learn the sound of each
+letter so as to distinguish them from each other?"
+
+Nattie constrained herself to reply, very shortly,
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Can you take a message and talk to me at the same time?" pursued the
+investigator.
+
+"No!" was Nattie's emphatic answer, as she looked ruefully at her dress.
+
+"But your instrument there is going it now. Ain't they sending you a
+message?" went on the relentless owner of the nose.
+
+At this Nattie turned her attention a moment to what was being done "on
+the wire," and breathed a sigh of relief. For "X n" had given place to
+another office and she replied,
+
+"No! Some office on the wire is sending to some other office."
+
+The nose elevated itself in surprise.
+
+"Can you hear everything that is sent from every other office?"
+
+"Yes," was the weary reply, as Nattie rubbed her dress.
+
+"What!" exclaimed the owner of the nose, in accents of incredulous
+wonder. "All over the world?"
+
+"Certainly not! only the offices on this wire; there are about twenty,"
+was the impatient reply.
+
+"Ah!" evidently relieved. "But," considering, "supposing you do not
+catch all the sounds, what do you do then?"
+
+"Break."
+
+"Break! Break what? The instruments?" queried the owner of the nose,
+perplexedly, and looking as if that must be a very expensive habit.
+
+"Break the circuit--the connection,--open the key and ask the sending
+office to repeat from the last word I have been able to catch!"
+
+Then seeing unmistakable evidence of more questions in the nose, Nattie
+threw the ink-soaked blotting-paper and her last remnant of patience
+into the waste basket, and added,
+
+"But you must excuse me, I am too busy to be annoy--interrupted longer,
+and there are books that will give you all the information that you
+require!"
+
+So saying, Nattie turned her back, and the owner of the nose withdrew
+it, its tip glistening with indignation as she walked away. As it
+vanished, Nattie gave a sigh of relief, and sat down to mourn her ruined
+dress. Whatever may have been her previous opinion, she was positive now
+that this was the prettiest, the most becoming dress she had ever
+possessed, or might ever possess! Only the old, old story! We prize most
+what is gone forever!
+
+"And all that dreadful man's--or woman's--fault at X n!" cried Nattie,
+savagely. Unjustly too, for if any one was responsible for the accident,
+it was the owner of the nose.
+
+But not long did Nattie dare give way to her misery. That fatal message
+was not yet received.
+
+Glancing over the few words she had of it, she read; "Send the hearse,"
+and then she began anxiously "calling" "X n."
+
+"Hearse," looked too serious for trifling. But either "X n's"
+attention was now occupied in some other direction, or else he--or
+she--was too much out of humor to reply, for it was full twenty minutes
+before came the answering,
+
+"X n."
+
+At which Nattie said as fiercely as fingers could, "I have been after
+you nearly half an hour!"
+
+"Have you?" came coolly back from "X n." "Well, you're not alone, many
+are after me--my landlord among others--not to mention a washerwoman or
+two!"
+
+Then followed the figure "4," which means, "When shall I go ahead?"
+
+"Waxing jocose, are you?" Nattie murmured to herself, as she replied:
+
+"G. A.--hearse--"
+
+"G. A.--_what?_"
+
+"Hearse," repeated Nattie, in firm, clear characters.
+
+To her surprise and displeasure "X n" laughed--the circumstance being
+conveyed to her understanding in the usual way, by the two letters "H
+a!"
+
+"What are you laughing at?" she asked.
+
+"At your grave mistake!" was "X n's" answer, accompanied by another "Ha!
+To convert a _horse_ into a hearse is really an idea that merits a smile!"
+
+As the consciousness of her blunder dawned upon her, Nattie would gladly
+have sank into oblivion. But as that was impossible, she took a fresh
+blank, and very meekly said,
+
+"G. A.--horse--!"
+
+With another laugh, "X n" complied, and Nattie now succeeded in
+receiving the message without further mishap.
+
+"What did you sign?" she asked, as she thankfully wrote the last word.
+Every operator is obliged to sign his own private "call," as well as the
+office "call," and "O. K." at the close of each message.
+
+"C." was replied to Nattie's question.
+
+"O. K. N. B m," she then said, and added, perhaps trying to drown the
+memory of her ludicrous error in politeness, "I hope another time I
+shall not cause you so much trouble."
+
+"C" at "X n" was evidently not to be exceeded in little speeches of
+this kind, for he--or she--responded immediately,
+
+"On the contrary, it was I who gave you trouble. I know I must certainly
+have done so, or you never could have effected such a transformation as
+you did. Imagine the feelings of the sender of that message, had he
+found a hearse awaiting his arrival instead of a horse!"
+
+Biting her lip with secret mortification, but determined to make the
+best of the matter outwardly, Nattie replied,
+
+"I suppose I never shall hear the last of that hearse! But at all events
+it took the surliness out of you."
+
+"Yes, when people come to a hearse they are not apt to have any more
+kinks in their disposition! I confess, though," "C" went on frankly, "I
+was unpardonably cross; not surly, that is out of my line, but cross. In
+truth, I was all out of sorts. Will you forgive me if I will never do so
+again?"
+
+"Certainly," Nattie replied readily. "I am sure we are far enough apart
+to get on without quarreling, if, as they say, distance lends
+enchantment!"
+
+"Particularly when I pride myself upon my sweet disposition!" said "C."
+
+At which Nattie smiled to herself, to the surprise of a passing
+gentleman, on whom her unconscious gaze rested, and who thought, of
+course, that she was smiling at him.
+
+Appearances are deceitful!
+
+"I fear you will have to prove your sweetness before I shall believe in
+it," Nattie responded to "C," all unaware of what she had done, or that
+the strange young gentleman went on his way with the firm resolve to
+pass by that office again and obtain another smile!
+
+"It shall be my sole aim hereafter," "C" replied; and then asked, "Have
+you a pleasant office there?"
+
+"I regret to say no." Then looking around, and describing what she
+saw--"a long, dark little room, into which the sun never shines, a crazy
+and a wooden chair, a high stool, desk, instruments--that is all--Oh!
+And me!"
+
+"Last but not least," said "C;" "but what a contrast to my office! Mine
+is all windows, and in cold days like this the wind whistles in until my
+very bones rattle! The outward view is fine. As I sit I see a stable, a
+carpenter's shop, the roof of the new Town Hall that has ruined the
+town, and--"
+
+"Excuse me,"--some one at another office on the line here broke in--and
+with more politeness than is sometimes shown in interrupting
+conversations on the wire--"I have a message to send," and forthwith
+began calling.
+
+At this Nattie resumed her interrupted occupation of bewailing her
+spoiled dress, but at the same time she had a feeling of pleased
+surprise at the affability of "C" at "X n."
+
+"I wonder," she thought, as she took up her book again, and tried to
+bury the remembrance of her accident therein, "I do wonder if this 'C'
+is _he_ or _she!_"
+
+Soon, however, she heard "X n" "call" once more, and this time she laid
+her book aside very readily.
+
+"You did not describe the principal part of your office--yourself!" "C"
+said, when she answered the "call."
+
+"How can I describe myself?" replied Nattie. "How can anyone--properly?
+One sees that same old face in the glass day after day, and becomes so
+used to it that it is almost impossible to notice even the changes in
+it; so I am sure I do not see how one can tell how it really does
+look--unless one's nose is broken--or one's eyes crossed--and mine are
+not--or one should not see a looking-glass for a year! I can only say I
+am very inky just now!"
+
+"Oh! that is too bad!" "C" said; then, with a laugh, "It has always been
+a source of great wonder to me how certain very plain people of my
+acquaintance could possibly think themselves handsome. But I see it all
+now! Can you not, however, leave the beauty out, and give me some sort
+of an idea-about yourself for my imagination to work upon?"
+
+"Certainly!" replied Nattie, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye that
+"C" knew not of. "Imagine, if you please, a tall young man, with--"
+
+"C" "broke" quickly, saying,
+
+"Oh, no! You cannot deceive me in that way! Under protest I accept the
+height, but spurn the sex!"
+
+"Why, you do not suppose I am a lady, do you?" queried Nattie.
+
+"I am quite positive you are. There is a certain difference in the
+'sending,' of a lady and gentleman, that I have learned to distinguish.
+Can you truly say I am wrong?"
+
+Nattie evaded a direct reply, by saying,
+
+"People who think they know so much are often deceived; now I make no
+surmises about you, but ask, fairly and squarely, shall I call you Mr.,
+Miss, or Mrs. 'C'?"
+
+"Call me neither. Call me plain 'C', or picture, if you like, in place
+of your sounder, a blonde, fairy-like girl talking to you, with pensive
+cheeks and sunny--"
+
+"Don't you believe a word of it!"--some one on the wire here broke in,
+wishing, probably, to have a finger in the pie; "picture a hippopotamus,
+an elephant, but picture no fairy!"
+
+"Judge not others by yourself, and learn to speak when spoken to!" "C"
+replied to the unknown; then "To N.--You know the more mystery there is
+about anything, the more interesting it becomes. Therefore, if I envelop
+myself in all the mystery possible, I will cherish hopes that you may
+dream of me!"
+
+"But I am quite sure you can, with propriety be called _Mr._ 'C '--plain,
+as you say, I doubt not," replied Nattie. "Now, as it is time for me to
+go home, I shall have to say good-night."
+
+"To be continued in our next?" queried "C."
+
+"If you are not in a cross mood," replied Nattie.
+
+"Now that is a very unkind suggestion, after my abject apology. But,
+although our acquaintance had a _grave re-hearse_-al, I trust it will have
+a happy ending!"
+
+Nattie frowned.
+
+"If you will promise never to say '_grave_,' '_hearse,_' or anything in the
+undertaking line, I will agree never to say 'cross!'" she said.
+
+"The _undertaking_ will not be difficult; with all my heart!" "C"
+answered, and with this mutual understanding they bade each other
+"good-night."
+
+"There certainly is something romantic in talking to a mysterious
+person, unseen, and miles away!" thought Nattie, as she put on her hat.
+"But I would really like to know whether my new friend employs a tailor
+or a dressmaker!".
+
+Was Nattie conscious of a feeling that it would add to the zest of the
+romantic acquaintance should the distant "C" be entitled to the use of
+the masculine pronoun?
+
+Perhaps so! For Nattie was human, and was only nineteen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+AT THE HOTEL NORMAN.
+
+
+Miss Nattie Rogers, telegraph operator, lived, as it were, in two
+worlds. The one her office, dingy and curtailed as to proportions, but
+from whence she could wander away through the medium of that slender
+telegraph wire, on a sort of electric wings, to distant cities and
+towns; where, although alone all day, she did not lack social
+intercourse, and where she could amuse herself if she chose, by
+listening to and speculating upon the many messages of joy or of sorrow,
+of business and of pleasure, constantly going over the wire. But the
+other world in which Miss Rogers lived was very different; the world
+bounded by the four walls of a back room at Miss Betsey Kling's. It must
+be confessed that there are more pleasing views than sheds in greater or
+less degrees of dilapidation, a sickly grape-vine, a line of flapping
+sheets, an overflowing ash barrel; sweeter sounds than the dulcet notes
+of old rag-men, the serenades of musical cats, or the strains of a
+cornet played upon at intervals from nine P. M. to twelve, with the
+evident purpose of exhausting superfluous air in the performer's lungs.
+Perhaps, too, there was more agreeable company possible than Miss Betsey
+Kling.
+
+Therefore, in the evening, Sunday and holiday, if not in the telegraphic
+world of Miss Rogers, loneliness, and the unpleasant sensation known as
+"blues" are not uncommon.
+
+Miss Betsey Kling, who, although in reduced circumstances, boasted of
+certain "blue blood," inherited from dead and gone ancestors--who
+perhaps would have been surprised could they have known at this late day
+how very genteel they were in life,--rented a flat in Hotel Norman, on
+the second floor, of which she let one room; not on account of the
+weekly emolument received therefrom, ah, no! but "for the sake of having
+some one for company." In this respect she was truly a contrast to Mrs.
+Simonson, a hundred and seventy-five pound widow, who lived in the
+remaining suite of that floor, and who let every room she possibly
+could, in order, as she frankly confessed, to "make both ends meet." For
+a constant struggle with the "ways and means" whereby to live had quite
+annihilated any superfluous gentility Mrs. Simonson might have had,
+excepting only one lingering remnant, that would never allow her to hang
+in the window one of those cheaply conspicuous placards, announcing:
+
+"Rooms to Let."
+
+Miss Betsey Kling was a spinster--not because she liked it, but on
+account of circumstances over which she had no control,--and her
+principal object in life, outside of the never-expressed, but much
+thought-of one of finding her other self, like her, astray, was to keep
+watch and ward over the affairs of the occupants of neighboring flats,
+and see that they conducted themselves with the propriety becoming the
+neighbors of so very genteel and unexceptionable a person as Miss Betsey
+Kling. In pursuit of this occupation she was addicted to sudden and
+silent appearances, much after the manner of materialized spirits, at
+windows opening into the hall, and doors carelessly left ajar. She was,
+however, afflicted with a chronic cold, that somewhat interfered with
+her ability to become a first-class listener, on account of its
+producing an incessant sniffle and spasms of violent sneezing.
+
+Miss Rogers going home to that back room of hers, found herself still
+pondering upon the probable sex of "C." Rather to her own chagrin, when
+she caught her thoughts thus straying, too; for she had a certain scorn
+of anything pertaining to trivial sentiment. A little scorn of herself
+she also had some-times. In fact, her desires reached beyond the
+obtaining of the every-day commonplaces with which so many are content
+to fill their lives, and she possessed an ambition too dominant to allow
+her to be content with the dead level of life. Therefore it was that any
+happy hours of forgetfulness of all but the present, that sometimes came
+in her way, were often followed by others of unrest and dissatisfaction.
+There were certain dreams she indulged in of the future, now hopefully,
+now utterly disheartened, that she was so far away from their
+realization. These dreams were of fame, of fame as an authoress. Whether
+it was the true genius stirring within her, or that most unfortunate of
+all things, an unconquerable desire without the talent to rise above
+mediocrity, time alone could tell.
+
+Compelled by the failure and subsequent death of her father to support
+herself, or become a burden upon her mother, whose now scanty means
+barely sufficed for herself and two younger children, Nattie chose the
+more independent, but harder course. For she was not the kind of girl to
+sit down and wait for some one to come along and marry her, and relieve
+her of the burden of self-support. So, from a telegraph office in the
+country, where she learned the profession, she drifted to her present
+one in the city.
+
+To her, as yet, there was a certain fascination about telegraphy. But
+she had a presentiment that in time the charm would give place to
+monotony, more especially as, beyond a certain point, there was
+positively no advancement in the profession. Although knowing she could
+not be content to always be merely a telegraph operator, she resolved to
+like it as well and as long as she could, since it was the best for the
+present.
+
+As she lighted the gas in her room, she thought not of these things that
+were so often in her mind, but of "C," and then scolded herself for
+caring whether that distant individual was man or woman. What mattered
+it to a young lady who felt herself above flirtations?
+
+So there was a little scowl on her face as she turned around, that did
+not lessen when she beheld Miss Kling standing in her door-way. For Miss
+Rogers did not, to speak candidly, find her landlady a congenial spirit,
+and only remained upon her premises because being there was a lesser
+evil than living in that most unhomelike of all places, a
+boarding-house.
+
+"I thought I would make you a call," the unwelcome visitor remarked,
+rubbing her nose, that from constant friction had become red and
+shining; "I have been lonesome to-day. I usually run into Mrs.
+Simonson's in the afternoon, but she has been out since twelve o'clock.
+I can't make out--" musingly, "where she can have gone! not that she is
+just the company I desire. She has never been used to anything above the
+common, poor soul, and will say 'them rooms,' but she is better than no
+one, and at least can appreciate in others the culture and standing she
+has never attained," and Miss Kling sneezed, and glanced at Nattie with
+an expression that plainly said her lodger would do well to imitate, in
+this last respect, the lady in question.
+
+"I am very little acquainted with Mrs. Simonson," Nattie replied, with a
+tinge of scorn curling her lip, for, in truth, she had little reverence
+for Miss Kling's blue blood. "Her lodgers like her very much, I believe;
+at least, Quimby speaks of her in the highest terms."
+
+"Quimby!" repeated Miss Kling, with a sniffle of contempt. "A
+blundering, awkward creature, who is always doing or saying some
+shocking thing!"
+
+"I know that he is neither elegant nor talented, and is often very
+awkward, but he is honest and kind-hearted, and one is willing to
+overlook other deficiencies for such rare qualities," Nattie replied, a
+little warmly, "and so Mrs. Simonson feels, I am confident."
+
+Miss Kling eyed her sharply.
+
+"Not at all! Allow me, Miss Rogers, to know! Mrs. Simonson endures his
+blunders, because, as she says, he can live on the interest of his
+money, 'on a pinch,' and she thinks such a lodger something of which to
+boast. On a pinch, indeed!" added Miss Kling, with a sneeze, and giving
+the principal feature in her face something very like the exclamation,
+"a very tight pinch it would be, I am thinking!" Then somewhat
+spitefully she continued, "But I was not aware, Miss Rogers, that you
+and this Quimby were so intimate! The admiration is mutual, I suppose?"
+
+"There is no admiration," replied Nattie, with a flash of her gray eyes,
+inwardly indignant that any one should insinuate she admired
+Quimby--honest, blundering Quimby, whom no one ever allowed a handle to
+his name, and who was so clever, but like all clever people, such a
+dreadful bore. "I have only met him two or three times since that
+evening you introduced us in the hall, so there has hardly been an
+opportunity for anything of that kind."
+
+"You spoke so warmly!" Miss Kling remarked. "However," conciliatingly,
+"I don't suppose by any means that you are in love with Quimby! You are
+much too sensible a young lady for such folly!"
+
+Nattie shrugged her shoulders, as if tired of the subject, and after a
+spasm of sneezing, Miss Kling continued:
+
+"As you intimate, he means all right, poor fellow! and that is more than
+I should be willing to acknowledge regarding Mrs. Simonson's _other_
+lodger, that Mr. Norton, who calls himself an artist. I am sure I never
+saw any one except a convict wear such short hair!" and Miss Kling shook
+her head insinuatingly.
+
+From this beginning, to Nattie's dismay, Miss Kling proceeded to the
+dissection of their neighbors who lived in the suite above, Celeste
+Fishblate and her father. The former, Miss Kling declared, was setting
+her cap for Quimby. Mr. Fishblate being an unquestionably disagreeable
+specimen of the _genus homo_, with a somewhat startling habit of exploding
+in short, but expressive sentences--never using more than three
+consecutive words--Nattie naturally expected to hear him even more
+severely anathematized than any one else. But to her surprise, the lady
+conducting the conversation declared him a "fine sensible man!" At which
+Nattie first stared, and then smiled, as it occurred to her that Mr.
+Fishblate was a widower, and might it not be that Miss Kling
+contemplated the possibility of _his_ becoming that other self not yet
+attained?
+
+Fortunately Miss Kling did not observe her lodger's looks, so intent was
+she in admiration of Mr. Fishblate's fine points, and soon took her
+leave.
+
+After her departure, Nattie changed her inky dress, and put on her hat
+to go out for something forgotten until now. As she stepped into the
+hall, a tall young man, with extremely long arms and legs, and mouth,
+that, although shaded by a faint outline of a mustache, invariably
+suggested an alligator, opened the door of Mrs. Simonson's rooms,
+opposite, and seeing Nattie, started back in a sort of nervous
+bashfulness. Recovering himself, he then darted out with such
+impetuosity that his foot caught in a rug, he fell, and went headlong
+down stairs, dragging with him a fire-bucket, at which he clutched in a
+vain effort to save himself, the two jointly making a noise that echoed
+through the silent halls, and brought out the inhabitants of the rooms
+in alarm.
+
+"What is it? Is any one killed?" shrieked from above, a voice,
+recognizable as that of Celeste Fishblate--two names that could never by
+any possibility sound harmonious.
+
+"What _is_ the matter now?" screamed Miss Kling, appearing at her door
+with the query.
+
+"Have you hurt yourself?" Nattie asked, as she went down to where the
+hero of the catastrophe sat on the bottom stair, ruefully rubbing his
+elbow, but who now picked up his hat and the fire-bucket, and rose to
+explain.
+
+"It's nothing--nothing at all, you know!" he said, looking upward, and
+bowing to the voices; "I caught my foot in the rug, and--"
+
+"Did you tear the rug?" here anxiously interrupted the listening Mrs.
+Simonson, suddenly appearing at the banisters; not that she felt for her
+lodger less, but for the rug more, a distinction arising from that
+constant struggle with the "ways and means."
+
+"Oh, no! I assure you, there was no damage done to the rug--or
+fire-bucket," the victim responded, reassuringly, and in perfect good
+faith. "Or myself," he added modestly, as if the latter was scarce worth
+speaking of. "I--I am used to it, you know," reverting to his usual
+expression in accidents of all descriptions.
+
+"I declare I don't know what you will do next!" muttered Mrs. Simonson,
+retreating to examine the rug.
+
+"I think you must be in love, Quimby!" giggled Celeste; an assertion
+that caused Miss Kling to give vent to a contemptuous "Humph" and
+awakened in its subject the most excruciating embarrassment. The poor
+fellow glanced at Nattie, blushed, perspired, and frantically clutching
+at the fire-bucket, stammered a protest,--
+
+"Now really--I--now!--you are mistaken, you know!"
+
+"But people who are in love are always absent-minded," persisted
+Celeste, with another giggle. "So it is useless to--"
+
+But exactly what was useless did not appear, as at this point a
+stentorian voice, the voice of Miss Kling's "fine, sensible man,"
+roared,
+
+"Enough!"
+
+At which, to Quimby's relief, Celeste, always in mortal fear of her
+father, hastily withdrew. Not so Miss Kling. She silently waited to see
+if Nattie and Quimby would go out together, and was rewarded by hearing
+the latter ask, as Nattie made a movement towards the door,--
+
+"May I--might I be so bold as to--as to ask to be your escort?"
+
+"I should be pleased," Nattie answered, adding with a mischievous
+glance, but in a low tone, aware of the listening ears above,--
+
+"That is, if you will consent to dispense with the fire-bucket!"
+
+Quimby started, and dropping the article in question, as if it had
+suddenly turned red-hot, ejaculated,--
+
+"Bless my soul! really I--I beg pardon, I am sure!" then bashfully
+offering his arm, they went out, while Miss Kling balefully shook her
+head.
+
+"So, Celeste will insist upon it that you are in love, because you
+tripped and fell down stairs!" Nattie said, by way of opening a
+conversation as they walked along--a remark that did not tend to lessen
+his evident disquietude. And having now no fire-bucket, he clutched at
+his necktie, twirling it all awry, not at all to the improvement of his
+personal appearance, as he replied,--
+
+"Oh! really, you know! its no matter! I--I am used to it, you know!"
+
+"Used to falling in love?" queried Nattie, with raised eyebrows.
+
+"No--no--the other, you know, that is--" gasped Quimby, hopelessly lost
+for a substantive. "I mean, it's a mistake, you know" then with a
+desperate rush away from the embarrassing subject, "Did you know
+we--that is, Mrs. Simonson, was going to have a new lodger?"
+
+"No, is she?" asked Nattie.
+
+"Yes, a young lady coming to-morrow, a--a sort of an actress--no, a
+prima donna, you know. A Miss Archer. If you and she should happen to
+like each other, it would be pleasant for you, now wouldn't it?" asked
+Quimby eagerly, with a devout hope that such might be, for then should
+he not be a gainer by seeing more often the young lady by his side,
+whose gray eyes had already made havoc in his honest and susceptible
+heart.
+
+"It would be pleasant," acquiesced Nattie, in utter unconsciousness of
+Quimby's selfish hidden thought; "for I am lonely sometimes. Miss Kling
+is not--not--"
+
+"Oh, certainly! of course not!" Quimby responded sympathetically and
+understandingly, as Nattie hesitated for a word that would express her
+meaning. "They never are very adaptable--old maids, you know!"
+
+"But it isn't because they are unmarried," said Nattie, perhaps feeling
+called upon to defend her future self, "but because they were born so!"
+
+"Exactly, you know, that's why no fellow ever marries them!" said
+Quimby, with a glance of bashful admiration at his companion.
+
+Nattie laughed.
+
+"And this Miss Archer. Did you say she was a prima donna?" she
+questioned.
+
+"Yes--that is, a sort of a kind of a one, or going to be, or some way
+musical or theatrical, you know," was Quimby's lucid reply. "I'll make
+it a point to--to introduce you if you will allow me that pleasure?"
+
+"Certainly," responded Nattie, and added, "I shall be quite rich, for
+me, in acquaintances soon, if I continue as I have begun. I made a new
+one on the wire to-day."
+
+"On the--I beg pardon--on the what?" asked Quimby, with visions of
+tight-ropes flashing through his mind.
+
+"On the wire," repeated Nattie, to whom the phrase was so common, that
+it never occurred to her as needing any explanation.
+
+"Oh!" said the puzzled Quimby, not at all comprehending, but unwilling
+to confess his ignorance.
+
+"The worst of it is, I don't know the sex of my new friend, which makes
+it a little awkward," continued Nattie.
+
+Quimby stared.
+
+"Don't--I beg pardon--don't know her--his--sex?" he repeated, with
+wide-open eyes.
+
+"No, it was on the wire, you know!" again explained Nattie, privately
+thinking him unusually stupid; "about seventy miles away. We first
+quarreled and then had a pleasant talk."
+
+"Talk--seventy miles--" faltered the perplexed Quimby; then brightening,
+"Oh! I see! a telephone, you know!"
+
+"No indeed!" replied Nattie, laughing at his incomprehensibility. "We
+don't need telephones. We can talk without--did you not know that? And
+what is better, no one but those who understand our language can know
+what we say!"
+
+"Exactly!" answered Quimby, relapsing again into wonder. "Exactly--on
+the wire!"
+
+"Yes, we talk in a language of dots and dashes, that even Miss Kling
+might listen to in vain. And do you know," she went on confidentially,
+"somehow, I am very much interested in my new friend. I wish I knew--its
+so awkward, as I said--but I really think it's a gentleman!"
+
+"Exactly--exactly so!" responded Quimby, somewhat dejectedly. And during
+the remainder of their walk he was very much harassed in his mind over
+this interest Nattie confessed in her new friend--"on the wire,"--who
+_would_ appear as a tight-rope performer to his perturbed imagination.
+And he felt in his inmost heart that it would be a great relief to his
+mind if this mysterious person should prove a lady, even though, if a
+gentleman, he _was_ many miles away. For Quimby, with all his obtusity,
+had an inkling of the power of mystery, and was already far enough on
+the road to love to be jealous.
+
+Of these thoughts Nattie was of course wholly unaware, and chatted
+gayly, now of the distant "C" and now of the coming Miss Archer, to
+her somewhat abstracted, but always devoted companion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE FRIENDS.
+
+
+With perhaps one or two less frowns than usual at the destiny that
+compelled her to forego any morning naps, and be up and stirring at the
+early hour of six o'clock, Nattie arose next morning, aware of a more
+than accustomed willingness to go to the office. And immediately on her
+arrival there, she opened the key, and said, without calling, just to
+ascertain if her far-away acquaintance would notice it,--
+
+"G. M. (good morning) C!"
+
+Apparently "C" had his or her ears on the alert, for immediately came
+the response,
+
+"G. M., my dear!"
+
+A form of expression rather familiar for so short an acquaintance, that
+is, supposing "C" to be a gentleman. "But then, people talk for the sake
+of talking, and never say what they mean on the wire," thought Nattie.
+Besides, did not the distance in any case annul the familiarity?
+Therefore, without taking offense, even without comment, she asked:
+
+"Are we to get along to-day without quarreling?"
+
+"Oh! it is you, is it, 'N'?" responded "C," "I thought so, but wasn't
+quite sure. Yes, you, may 'break' at every word, and I will still be
+amiable."
+
+"I should be afraid to put you to the test," replied Nattie, with a
+laugh.
+
+"Do you then think me such a hopelessly ill-natured fellow?" inquired
+"C."
+
+"Fellow!" triumphantly repeated Nattie. "Be careful, or you will betray
+yourself!"
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed "C." "Stupid enough of me, wasn't it? But it only
+proves the old adage about giving a man rope enough to hang himself."
+
+"Don't mention old adages, for I detest them!" said Nattie. "Especially
+that one about the early bird and the worm. But I fear, as a _mys_tery,
+you are not a success, _Mr._ 'C'."
+
+"A very bad attempt at a pun," said "C." "I trust, however, you will not
+desert me, now your curiosity is satisfied, Miss 'N.'?"
+
+"Don't be in such a hurry to _miss_ me. I have said nothing yet to give
+you that right," Nattie replied.
+
+"Nevertheless, it's utterly impossible not to miss you. I missed you
+last night after you had gone home, for instance. "But _you_, a great,
+hulking fellow! No, indeed! In my mind's eye--"
+
+But what was in "C's" mind's eye did not just then appear, for at this
+interesting point some one at Nattie's window, saying. "I would like to
+send a message," obliged her reluctantly to interrupt him with,
+
+"Excuse me a moment, a customer is waiting."
+
+She then turned as much of her attention as she could separate from "C"
+to the customer, enabled, perhaps, to answer the volley of miscellaneous
+questions poured upon her with unusual affability, on account of the
+settlement--and in the right direction!--of that vexed question of "C's"
+sex.
+
+But she could not help thinking, as she glanced at the message finally
+written, and handed to her that had the writer attended a little more to
+the spelling-book, and a little less to the accumulation of diamond
+rings, it might have been a very wise proceeding. But perhaps
+
+"Meat me at the train," was sufficiently intelligible for all purposes.
+
+"What was it about your mind's eye?" Nattie asked over the wire, at the
+first opportunity.
+
+"C" was again on the alert, without being called, for the answer came,
+after a moment, just long enough for him to cross the room, perhaps.
+
+"As I was saying, in the eye aforesaid, me thinks I see a tall slim
+young lady with blue eyes and light hair, and dimples that come into her
+cheeks when I stupidly betray my sex."
+
+As "C" said this, Nattie glanced into the glass just over her head at
+the reflection of her face. A face whose expression was its charm; that
+never could be called pretty, but that nevertheless suggested a
+possibility--only a possibility, of being handsome. For there is a vast
+difference between pretty and handsome. Pretty people seldom know very
+much; but to be handsome, a person must have brains; an inner as well as
+an outer beauty.
+
+"How fortunate it is you are not near enough to be disenchanted!" Nattie
+replied to "C." "Your mind's eye is very unreliable. Tall! why, I'm
+only five feet! never was guilty of a dimple, and my eyes are of some
+dreadfully nondescript color."
+
+"If you are only five feet, you never can look down on me, which is a
+great consolation," "C" responded. "And for the rest imagination will
+clothe the unseen with all possible beauty and grace."
+
+"I am sure I am perfectly willing you should imagine me as beautiful as
+you please," replied Nattie, "As long as we don't come face to face,
+which in all probability we never shall, you will not know how different
+from the real was the ideal."
+
+"Please don't discourage me so soon, for I hope sometime we may clasp
+hands bodily as we do now spiritually, on the wire--for we do, don't
+we?" said "C" asserting before he questioned.
+
+"Certainly--here is mine, spiritually!" responded Nattie, without the
+least hesitation, as she thought, of the miles of safe distance between.
+"Now may I ask--"
+
+"Oh! come, come! this will never do! You are getting on altogether too
+fast for people who were quarreling so yesterday!" broke in a third
+party, who signed, "Em." and was a young lady wire-acquaintance of
+Nattie's, some twenty miles distant.
+
+"You think the circuit of our friendship ought to be broken?" queried
+Nattie.
+
+"Ah! leave that to time and change, by which all circuits are broken,"
+remarked "C."
+
+"Yes, but such a sudden friendship is sure to come to a violent end,"
+Em. said. "Suppose now I should report you for talking so much--not to
+say flirting--on the wire, which is against the rules you know?"
+
+"In that event I should know how to be revenged", replied "C." "I should
+put on my 'ground' wire and cut off communication between you and that
+little fellow at Z!"
+
+Em. laughed, and perhaps feeling herself rather weak on that point,
+subsided, and Nattie began, "Sentiment--"
+
+But the pretty little speech on that subject she had all ready was
+spoiled by an operator--who evidently had none of it in his
+soul--usurping the wire with the prefaced remark,
+
+"Get out!"
+
+The wire being unusually busy, this was all the conversation Nattie and
+"C" had during the day, but Just before six o'clock came the call,
+
+"B m--B m--B m--X n."
+
+"B m," immediately responded Nattie.
+
+"I merely want to ask for my character before saying g. n. (good night).
+Haven't I been amiable to-day?" was asked from X n.
+
+"Very, but there is no merit in it, as Mark Tapley would say," replied
+Nattie. "You had no provocation."
+
+"Now I flattered myself I had 'come out strong!' Alas! what a hard thing
+it is to establish one's reputation," said "C," sagely; "but I trust to
+Time, who, after all, is a pretty good fellow to right matters,
+notwithstanding a dreadful careless way he has of strewing crow's feet
+and wrinkles."
+
+"Has he dropped any down your way?" asked Nattie.
+
+"Hinting to know my age now, are you? Oh! curiosity! curiosity! Yes, I
+think he has implanted a perceptible crow's foot or two; but he has
+spared the hairs of my head, and for that I am thankful! Did you ever
+see an aged operator? I never did, and don't know whether it's because
+electricity acts as a sort of antidote, or whether they grow wise as
+they grow old, and leave the business. The case is respectfully
+submitted."
+
+"Your organs of discernment must be very fully developed," Nattie
+replied. "It is fortunate I am too far away to be analyzed personally;
+but I don't think I will stay after hours to discuss these things to
+night. I am tired, for I have had a run of disagreeable people to-day.
+So g. n."
+
+"G. n., my dear," said the gallant "C," in whose composition bashfulness
+seemed certainly to have no part. But then--as Nattie previously had
+thought--he was along way off.
+
+It must be confessed "C" could hardly fail to have been flattered had he
+known how full Nattie's thoughts were of him, as she went home that
+night. A little foolish in the young lady, who rather prided herself on
+being strong-minded, this deep interest; but hers was a lonely life,
+poor girl, and "C" was certainly entertaining "over the wire," whatever
+he might be in a personal interview--of course, not very likely to
+occur. No! it was all "over the wire!"
+
+As she reached her own door, absorbed in these meditations, she heard
+the sound of a merry laugh over in Mrs. Simonson's, and saw a large
+trunk in the hall. From this she inferred that Miss Archer had arrived,
+a fact Miss Kling confirmed, with uplifted eyebrows, and the remark,
+
+"There must be something wrong about a young woman who has _three_ immense
+trunks!"
+
+Although Nattie felt a desire to make this newcomer's acquaintance, it
+was less strong than it might have been had she arrived a week sooner;
+for it was undoubtedly true that the interest she had in her new,
+invisible friend far exceeded that towards a possible visible one. Such
+is the power of mystery!
+
+The office now possessed a new charm for her. To the surprise of an idle
+clerk in an office over the way, who had always noted how particular she
+was to arrive at exactly eight A. M., and to leave precisely at six P.
+M., she suddenly began to appear before hours in the morning, and to
+stay after hours at night. Of course this benighted person was not aware
+that by so doing she secured quiet chats with "C," uninterrupted, and
+without being told in the middle of some pretty speech to "Shut up!"
+or to " Keep out!" by some soured and inelegant operator on the line, to
+whom the romance of telegraphy had long ago given place to the
+monotonous, poorly-paid, everyday reality.
+
+And it came to pass that "C" soon shared all her daily life, thoughts
+and troubles. Annoyances became lighter because she told him, and he
+sympathized. Any funny incident that occurred was doubly funny, because
+they laughed over it together, and so it went on.
+
+That "good-night, dear," previously unchallenged, became a regular
+institution and still, on account of those long miles between them,
+Nattie made only a faint remonstrance when his usual morning salutation
+grew into "Good-morning, little five-foot girl at B m!" then was
+shortened to "Good-morning, little girl!"
+
+And all this time it never occurred to them that excepting "N" was for
+Nattie, and "C" for Clem, they knew really nothing about each other, not
+even their names.
+
+Thus the acquaintance went on, amid much banter from the
+before-mentioned "Em.," and interruptions from disgusted old settlers.
+
+It was by no means to the satisfaction of Quimby, that Miss Rogers
+should thus allow the telegraphic world to supersede the one in which he
+had a part. That intimacy with Miss Archer, of which he had dreamed, as
+a means of improving his own acquaintance with her towards whom his
+susceptible heart yearned, did not make even a beginning. In fact, what
+with Nattie being engaged all day, and stopping after hours for a quiet
+talk with "C," and Miss Archer having many evening engagements, the two
+had never even met. And how a young man was to make himself agreeable in
+the eyes of a young lady he only caught a glimpse of occasionally, was a
+problem quite beyond solution by the brain of Quimby.
+
+Two or three times, in his distraction of mind, he had stood in very
+light clothing, about Nattie's hour of returning home, full twenty-five
+minutes at the outer door of the hotel, with a cold wind blowing on him.
+But Nattie, utterly unconscious of this devotion, was enjoying the
+conversation of "C;" and so at last, half frozen, poor Quimby was
+compelled to retreat, his object unaccomplished. He would willingly have
+wandered about the halls for hours, and waylaid her, had it not been
+that the fear of those two terrific ones, Miss Kling and Mr. Fishblate,
+"catching him at it," prevailed over all other considerations. As for
+going to her office, Quimby, in his bashfulness, dared not even walk
+through the street containing it, lest she should penetrate his motives,
+and be offended at his presumption. Under these circumstances he began
+to despair of ever having the opportunity, to say nothing of the
+ability, of making an impression, when one afternoon he chanced to meet
+Miss Archer in the vicinity of Nattie's office, and was instantly
+overwhelmed by a brilliant idea; that was to ask Miss Archer--to whom he
+had talked much of Nattie during their short acquaintance--if she would
+call on her with him, omitting the fact that he dared not go alone.
+
+Miss Archer, a little curious to see the lady with whom, she was
+secretly convinced, Quimbv was in love, readily consented to the
+proposition; and so it came to pass that Nattie was interrupted in an
+account she was giving "C" of a man who wanted to send a message to his
+wife, and seemed to think "My wife, in Providence," all the address
+necessary, by the unexpected apparition of Quimby, accompanied by a
+stylish and handsome young lady.
+
+"I--I beg pardon, if I--if I intrude, you know," he stammered, beginning
+to wish he had not done it, as Nattie, with an "Excuse me, visitors," to
+"C," rose and came forward. "But I--I brought Miss Archer! To make you
+acquainted, you know."
+
+"I am indebted to you for that pleasure," Nattie said, with a smile, as
+she took the hand Miss Archer extended, saying,
+
+"I have heard Quimby speak about you so much, I already feel
+acquainted."
+
+Quimby blushed, and nervously fingered his necktie.
+
+"Such near neighbors--so lonesome--thought you ought to know each
+other," he said confusedly.
+
+"Yes, I began to fear we were destined never to meet," Nattie replied,
+as she held the private door open for her visitors to enter, a
+proceeding contrary to rules, but she preferred rather to transgress in
+this way, than in manners, and leave her callers standing out in the
+cold.
+
+"I don't know as we ever should, had it not been for Quimby," said Miss
+Archer, glancing curiously around the office. "I believe I never was in
+a telegraph office before. Don't you find the confinement rather
+irksome?"
+
+"Sometimes," Nattie replied; "but then there always is some one to talk
+with on the wire,' and in that way a good deal of the time passes."
+
+"Talk with--on the wire?" queried Miss Archer, with uplifted eyebrows.
+"What does that mean? Do tell me. I am as ignorant as a Hottentot about
+anything appertaining to telegraphy. Nearly all I know is, you write a
+message, pay for it, and it goes."
+
+Nattie smiled and explained, and then turning to Quimby, asked,
+
+"You remember my speaking about 'C' and wondering whether a gentleman or
+lady?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" Quimby remembered, and fidgeted on his chair.
+
+"He proved to be a gentleman."
+
+"Oh, yes; exactly, you know!" responded Quimby, looking anything but
+elated.
+
+"It must be very romantic and fascinating to talk with some one so far
+away, a mysterious stranger too, that one has never seen," Miss Archer
+said, her black eyes sparkling. "I should get up a nice little
+sentimental affair immediately, I know I should, there is something so
+nice about anything with a mystery to it."
+
+"Yes, telegraphy has its romantic side--it would be dreadfully dull if
+it did not," Nattie answered.
+
+"But--now really," said Quimby, who sat on the extreme edge of the
+chair, with his feet some two yards apart from each other; "really, you
+know, now suppose--just suppose, your mysterious invisible shouldn't
+be--just what you think, you know. You see, I remember one or two young
+men in telegraph offices, whose collars and cuffs are always soiled, you
+know!"
+
+"I have great faith in my 'C,'" laughed Nattie.
+
+"It would be dreadfully unromantic to fall in love with a soiled
+invisible, wouldn't it," said Miss Archer, with an expressive shrug of
+her shoulders.
+
+Nattie colored a little, and answered hastily:
+
+"Oh! it's only fun, you know;" at which Quimby brightened, and Miss
+Archer inquired gayly,
+
+"_Pour passer le temps?_"
+
+Nattie nodded in reply, as she took a message from a lady, who had only
+a few words to send, but found it necessary to ask about fifteen
+questions, and relate all her recent family history, concluding with the
+birth of twins, before being satisfied her message would go all
+right,--a proceeding that made Quimby stare, and afforded Miss Archer
+much amusement.
+
+"Oh! that is nothing!" Nattie said, in answer to the latter's
+significant laugh, when the customer had retired. "Some very ludicrous
+incidents occur almost daily, I assure you. Truly, the ignorance of
+people in regard to telegraphy is surprising; aggravating too,
+sometimes. Just imagine a person thinking a telegraph office is managed
+on the same principle as those stores where they at first charge double
+the value of the goods, for the sake of giving people the pleasure of
+beating them down! It was only yesterday that a woman tried to coax me
+to take off ten cents, and then snarled at me because I wouldn't, and
+declared she would patronize some other office next time, as if it
+mattered to me, except to wish she might! And there was some one calling
+on the wire with a rush message all the time she was detaining me!"
+
+"They think you ought to be harnessed with a punch, like a horse-car
+conductor," said Miss Archer, laughing, and added,
+
+"I wish I knew how to telegraph, I would have a chat with your 'C.' I am
+getting very much interested in him!"
+
+Quimby twirled his hat uneasily.
+
+"But--I beg pardon, but he may be a soiled invisible, you know!" he
+hinted, seemingly determined to keep this possibility uppermost.
+
+Before Nattie could again defend her "C" a woman, covered with cheap
+finery, thrust her head into the window.
+
+"How much does it cost to telegram?" she asked.
+
+"To what place did you wish to send?" Nattie inquired.
+
+With a look, as if she considered this a very impertinent question, the
+woman replied, with a slight toss of her head,
+
+"It's no matter about the place, I only want to know what it costs to
+telegram!"
+
+"That depends entirely on where the message is going," answered Nattie,
+with a glance at Miss Archer.
+
+"Oh, does it?" said the woman, looking surprised. "Well, to Chicago,
+then."
+
+Nattie told her the tariff to that city.
+
+"Is that the cheapest?" she then asked. "I only want to send a few
+words, about six."
+
+"The price is the same for one or ten words," said Nattie rather
+impatiently.
+
+The woman gave another surprised stare.
+
+"That's strange!" she said incredulously. "Well"--moving away--"I'll
+write then; I am not going to pay for ten words when I want to send
+six."
+
+"That is a specimen of the ignorance you were just speaking of, I
+presume," laughed Miss Archer, as soon as the would-be sender was out of
+hearing.
+
+"Yes," replied Nattie, "it's hard to make them believe sometimes that
+everything less than ten words is a stated price, and that we only
+charge per word after that number. And, speaking of ignorance, do you
+know I once actually had a letter brought me, all sealed, to be sent
+that way by telegraph."
+
+Miss Archer laughed again, and Quimby inquired,
+
+"I--I beg pardon, but did I understand that the last came within your
+experience?"
+
+"Yes," Nattie replied, "and I had a young woman come in here once, who
+asked me to write the message for her, and after I had done so, in a
+somewhat hasty scrawl, she took it, looked it all over critically,
+dotted some 'i's,' and crossed some 't's,' I all the time staring,
+amazed, and wondering if she supposed I could not read my own
+hand-writing, then scowled and threw it down disgustedly saying, 'John
+never can read _that!_ I shall have to write it myself. He knows my
+writing!'"
+
+"Can such things be!" cried Miss Archer.
+
+"But," asked Quimby, from his uncomfortable perch on the edge of the
+chair, "Isn't there a--a something--a _fac-simile_ arrangement?"
+
+"I believe there is, but it is not yet perfected," replied Nattie.
+
+"Ah, well! then the young woman was only in advance of the age," said
+Miss Archer; "and what with that and the telephone, and that dreadful
+phonograph that bottles up all one says and disgorges at inconvenient
+times, we will soon be able to do everything by electricity; who knows
+but some genius will invent something for the especial use of lovers?
+something, for instance, to carry in their pockets, so when they are far
+away from each other, and pine for a sound of 'that beloved voice,' they
+will have only to take up this electrical apparatus, put it to their
+ears, and be happy. Ah! blissful lovers of the future!"
+
+"Yes!--I--yes, that would be a good idea!" cried Quimby eagerly; then
+instantly fearing he had betrayed himself, turned red, and clutched at
+the mustache that eluded his grasp. Miss Archer looked at him and
+smiled, and Nattie was about to expound further when she heard "C"
+asking on the wire,
+
+"N, haven't your visitors gone yet? Tell them to hurry!"
+
+"You wouldn't say so," Nattie responded to him, "if you knew what a
+handsome young lady one of my two visitors is. We have been talking
+about you, too."
+
+"Introduce me, please do," said "C."
+
+"What are you doing, now?" asked Miss Archer, watchful of Nattie's
+smiling face.
+
+Leaving the key open, Nattie explained, to Quimby's unconcealed
+dissatisfaction; but Miss Archer was delighted.
+
+"Oh! do introduce me! Can you any way?" she said.
+
+Nattie nodded affirmatively, and taking hold of the key, wrote, "She is
+as anxious as you are. So allow me to make you acquainted with Miss
+Archer, a young lady with the prettiest black eyes I ever saw!"
+
+"Is she an operator?" asked "C."
+
+"Doesn't know a dot from a dash," Nattie answered him.
+
+"Then tell her in plain language, that this is the happiest moment of my
+life, and also that black eyes are my especial adoration!"
+
+"What have you been telling him about me, you dreadful girl?" queried
+Miss Archer, shaking her head remonstratingly when this was repeated to
+her. "But you may inform him I am delighted to make his acquaintance,
+and hope he has curly hair, because it's so nice to pull!"
+
+"With the hope of such a happy occurrence, I will hereafter do up my
+hair in papers," "C" replied when Nattie had repeated this to him. "But
+do not slight your other visitor."
+
+"Shall I introduce you?" asked Nattie holding the key open, and turning
+to Quimby, who had betrayed various symptoms of uneasiness while this
+conversation was going on, and who now grasped his hat firmly, as if to
+throw it at the little sounder that represented the offending "C," and
+answered,
+
+"Oh, no! I--really I--I beg pardon, but it's really no matter about
+me--you know!"
+
+"He says he is of no consequence," Nattie said to "C."
+
+"He!" repeated "C," "a he, is it? Ought I to be jealous? Is it you, or
+our black-eyed friend who is the attraction?"
+
+Nattie replied only with a ha!
+
+"Is he talking now?" asked Miss Archer, mindful of Nattie's smile, and
+nodding towards the clattering sounder, at which Quimby was scowling.
+
+"No, some other office is sending business now, so our conversation is
+suspended," answered Nattie, as much to Quimby's relief as to Miss
+Archer's regret.
+
+"I shall improve the acquaintance, however," the latter said. "I am very
+curious to know how he looks, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, but I do not suppose I ever shall," Nattie answered.
+
+"Then you--I beg pardon, but you never expect to see him?" queried
+Quimby, with great earnestness.
+
+"In all probability we never shall meet. I think I should be dreadfully
+embarrassed if we should," Nattie replied, as she handed the day's cash
+to the boy who just then came after it. "Face to face we would really be
+strangers to each other."
+
+Quimby evinced more satisfaction at this than the occasion seemed to
+warrant, as Nattie noticed, with some surprise, but several customers
+claiming her attention, all at once, and all in a hurry, she was kept
+too busy for some time, to think upon the cause.
+
+As soon as she was at leisure, Miss Archer, with the remark that they
+had made an unpardonably long call, arose to go.
+
+But you must certainly come again, "Nattie said, cordially, already
+feeling her to be an old friend.
+
+"Indeed I shall," she answered, in the genial way peculiar to her. "You
+have a double attraction here, you know. Can I say good-by to 'C?'"
+
+"I fear not, as the wire is busy," replied Nattie. "But I will say it
+for you as soon as possible."
+
+"Yes, tell him, please, that I will see him--I mean, hear the clatter he
+makes again soon: You, I shall see at the hotel, I hope, now we have
+met."
+
+"Oh, yes!" Nattie replied. "I am very much indebted to Quimby for making
+us acquainted."
+
+"Oh! really now, do you mean it?" exclaimed Quimby, with sudden delight.
+"I am so glad I've done something right at last, you know! Always doing
+something wrong, you know!" then hugging his hat to his breast, and
+speaking in a confidential whisper, he added, to the great amusement of
+the two girls, "I have a presentiment--a horrible presentiment--I'm
+always making mistakes, you see. I'm used to it, but I couldn't get used
+to _that_, you know--that some day I shall marry the wrong woman!"
+
+So saying, and with a last glance of implacable dislike at the sounder,
+Quimby bowed awkwardly, and departed with the laughing Miss Archer.
+
+Soon after their departure, "C" asked,
+
+"Has Black-Eyed Susan gone?"
+
+"Yes," responded Nattie. "She left a good-by for you, and means to
+improve your acquaintance."
+
+"Thrice happy I! But about this he? Who is this he? I want to know all
+about him. Is he a hated rival?"
+
+"Ha! I never heard him say so, but I will ask him if you wish. He lives
+in the same building with me, and brought Miss Archer, a fellow-lodger,
+down to introduce her."
+
+"Do you ever go to balls, concerts, theaters, or to ride with him?"
+asked "C," who seemed determined to make a thorough investigation of
+matters.
+
+"Dear me! No! He never asked me!"
+
+"Do you wish he would?" persisted "C."
+
+"Of course I do!" replied Nattie, somewhat regardless of truth.
+
+"It is my opinion I shall be obliged to come and look after you," "C"
+replied, at this admission.
+
+"But you wouldn't know whether you were looking after the right person
+or not, when you were here!" Nattie said, with a smiling face and
+sparkling eyes turned in the direction of an urchin,' flattening his
+nose against her window-glass, who immediately fled, overwhelmed with
+astonishment, at being, as he supposed, so smiled upon.
+
+"And why wouldn't I?" questioned "C."
+
+"Because I should recognize you immediately, and should pretend it was
+not I, but some substitute," replied Nattie.
+
+"You seem to be very positive about recognizing me. Is your intuitive
+bump so well-developed as all that?" asked "C."
+
+"Yes," Nattie responded. "And then you know there would be a twinkle in
+your eye that would betray you at once."
+
+"Indeed! We will see about that, young lady. But now, as a customer has
+been drumming on my shelf for the past five minutes, in a frantic
+endeavor to attract my attention, and has by this time worked himself
+into a fine irascible temper, because I will not even glance at him, I
+must bid you good-night, with the advice, watch for that _twinkle_, and be
+sure you discover it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+NEIGHBORLY CALLS.
+
+
+In the opinion of Miss Betsey Kling, a lone young woman, who possessed
+three large trunks, a more than average share of good looks, and who
+went out and came in at irregular and unheard-of hours, was a person to
+be looked after and inquired about; accordingly, while Miss Archer was
+making the acquaintance of Nattie, and of the invisible "C," Miss Kling
+descended upon Mrs. Simonson, with the object of dragging from that lady
+all possible information she might be possessed of, regarding her latest
+lodger. As a result, Miss Kling learned that Miss Archer was studying to
+become an opera singer, that she occasionally now sang at concerts,
+meeting with encouraging success, and further, that she possessed the
+best of references. But Miss Kling gave a sniffle of distrust.
+
+"Public characters are not to be trusted. Do you remember," she asked
+solemnly, "do you remember the young man you once had here, who ran away
+with your teaspoons and your toothbrush?"
+
+Ah, yes! Mrs. Simonson remembered him perfectly. Was she likely to
+forget him? But he, Mrs. Simonson respectfully submitted, was not a
+singer, but a commercial traveler.
+
+Miss Kling shook her head.
+
+"That experience should be a warning! You cannot deny that no young
+woman of a modest and retiring disposition would seek to place herself
+in a public position. Can you imagine _me_ upon the stage?" concluded Miss
+Kling with great dignity.
+
+Mrs. Simonson was free to admit that her imagination could contemplate
+no such possibility, and then, neither desirous of criticising a good
+paying lodger, or of offending Miss Kling--that struggle with the ways
+and means having taught her to, offend no one if it could possibly be
+avoided--she changed the subject by expatiating at length upon a topic
+she always found safe--the weather. But Miss Celeste Fishblate coming
+in, Miss Kling left the weather to take care of itself, and returned to
+the more interesting discussion, to her, of Miss Archer.
+
+Celeste, a young lady favored with a countenance that impressed the
+beholder as being principally nose and teeth, and possessing a large
+share of the commodity known as _gush_, was ready enough to be the
+recipient of her neighbor's collection of gossip. But, to Miss Kling's
+no small disgust, she was rather lukewarm in pre-judging the new-comer.
+In truth, although somewhat alarmed at the "three trunks," lest she
+should be out-dressed, she was already debating within herself whether
+Miss Archer, as a medium by which more frequent access to Mrs.
+Simonson's gentlemen lodgers could be obtained, was not a person whose
+acquaintance it was desirable to cultivate. Moreover, the words opera
+singer raised ecstatic visions of a possible future introduction to some
+"ravishing tenor," the remote idea of which caused her to be so visibly
+preoccupied, that Miss Kling took her leave with angry sniffles, and
+returned home to ponder over what she had heard.
+
+A few days after, Nattie, who had quite paralyzed Miss Kling by refusing
+to listen to what she boldly termed unfounded gossip about her new
+friend, went to spend an evening with her.
+
+Miss Archer occupied a suite of rooms, consisting of a parlor and a very
+small bed-room that had been Mrs. Simonson's own, but which on account
+of the "ways and means" she had given up now, confining herself
+exclusively to the kitchen, fitted up to look as much like a parlor as a
+kitchen could.
+
+"And how is 'C'?" asked Miss Archer as she warmly welcomed her visitor.
+
+"Still as agreeable as ever," Nattie replied. "I told him I was coming
+to see you this evening and he sent his regards, and wished he could be
+of the party."
+
+"I wish he might. But that would spoil the mystery," rejoined Miss
+Archer. "Do you know what the 'C' is for?"
+
+"'Clem,' he says. His other name I don't know. He would give me some
+outlandish cognomen if I should ask. But it isn't of much consequence."
+
+"It might be if you should really fall in love with him," laughed Miss
+Archer.
+
+"Fall in love! Over the wire! That is absurd, especially as I am not
+susceptible," Nattie answered, coloring a trifle, however, as she
+remembered how utterly disconsolate she had been all that morning,
+because a "cross" on the wire had for several hours cut off
+communication between her office and "X n."
+
+"You think it would be too romantic for real life? Doubtless you are
+right. And the funny incidents--have you anything new in your
+note-book?"
+
+"Only that a man to-day, who had perhaps just dined, wanted to know the
+tariff to the U--nited St--at--ates," answered Nattie, glancing at some
+autumn leaves tastefully arranged on the walls and curtains. "But 'C'
+was telling me about a mistake that was lately made--not by him, he
+vehemently asserts, although I am inclined to think it message as
+originally sent was, 'John is dead, be at home at three,' when it was
+delivered it read, 'John is dead _beat_; home at three.'"
+
+"How was that possible?" asked Miss Archer, laughing,
+
+"I suppose the sending operator did not leave space enough between the
+words; we leave a small space between letters, and a longer one between
+words," explained Nattie.
+
+"The operator who received it must have been rather stupid not to have
+seen the mistake," Miss Archer said. "I have too good an opinion of your
+'C' to believe it was he. But every profession has its comic side as
+well as its tricks, I suppose; mine, I am sure, does. But I am learning
+something every day, and I am determined," energetically, "to fight my
+way up!"
+
+Stirred by Miss Archer's earnestness, there came to Nattie an uneasy
+consciousness that she herself was making no progress towards her only
+dreamed of ambition, and a shade crossed her face; but without observing
+it, Miss Archer continued,
+
+"I always had a passion for the lyric stage, and now there is nothing to
+prevent--" did a slight shadow here darken also her sunny eyes, gone
+instantly?-- "I shall make music my life's aim. Fortunately I have money
+of my own to enable me to study, and--"
+
+Miss Archer's speech was here interrupted in a somewhat startling
+manner, by the door suddenly flying open, banging against the piano with
+a prodigious crash, and disclosing Quimby, red and abashed, outside.
+
+Nattie jumped, Miss Archer gave a little scream, and the Duchess, Mrs.
+Simonson's handsome tortoise-shell cat, so named from her extreme
+dignity, who lay at full length upon a rug, drew herself up in haughty
+displeasure.
+
+"I--I beg pardon, I am sure!" stammered the more agitated intruder.
+"Really, I--I am so ashamed I--I can hardly speak! I was unfortunate
+enough to stumble--I'm used to it, you know,--and I give you my word of
+honor I never saw such a--such an extremely lively door!"
+
+"It is of no consequence," Miss Archer assured him. "Will you come in?"
+
+"Thank you, I--I fear I intrude," answered Quimby, clutching his
+watch-chain, and glancing at Nattie, guiltily conscious of the strong
+desire to do so that had taken possession of him since the sound of her
+voice had penetrated to his apartment, and in perfect agony lest she
+should surmise it. However, upon Miss Archer's assuring him that they
+would be very glad of his company, he ventured to enter. But the door
+still weighed upon his mind, for after carefully closing it, he stood
+and stared at it with a very perplexed face.
+
+"Never saw such a lively door, you know!" he repeated, finally sitting
+down on the piano-stool, and folding both arms across one knee, letting
+a hand droop dismally on either side, while he looked alternately at
+Miss Archer, Nattie, and the part of the room mentioned, at which the
+former laughed, and then, with the kind intention of drawing his mind
+from the subject of his forced appearance, suggested a game of cards.
+
+"Then we shall have to have one more person, shall we not?" Nattie
+asked, at this proposition.
+
+"It would be better," replied Miss Archer. "Let me see--Mrs. Simonson
+does not play--"
+
+"Mr. Norton does!" interrupted Quimby, forgetting the door, in his
+eagerness to be of service. "I--I would willingly ask him to join us, if
+you will allow me!"
+
+"That queer young artist who lodges here, you mean?" inquired Miss
+Archer.
+
+"Oh! But he is a dreadful Bohemian!" commented Nattie, distrustfully,
+before Quimby could reply.
+
+"Is he?" laughed Miss Archer. "Then ask him in by all means! I am
+something of a Bohemian myself, and shall be delighted to meet a kindred
+soul! I do not know as I have ever observed the gentleman particularly,
+but if I remember rightly, he wears his hair very closely cropped, and
+is not a model of beauty?"
+
+"But he is just as nice a fellow as if he was handsome outside!" said
+Quimby earnestly, doubtless aware of his own shortcomings in the Adonis
+line. "He is a little queer to be sure, doesn't believe in love or
+sentiment or anything of that sort, you know, and he says he wears his
+hair cropped close because people have a general idea that artists are
+long-haired, lackadaisical fellows,--not to say untidy, you know,--and
+he is determined that no one shall be able to say it of him!"
+
+Miss Archer was much amused at this description.
+
+"He certainly is an odd genius, and decidedly worth knowing. Bring him
+in, I beg of you," she said.
+
+But Quimby hesitated and glanced at Nattie.
+
+"He is not very unconventional, I--I do not think he will shock you very
+much if you do not get him at it, you know!" he said to her
+apologetically.
+
+"Oh! I am not at all alarmed!" said Nattie, adding, as her thoughts
+reverted to Miss Kling, "I think, after all, a Bohemian is better than a
+perfect model of conventionalism!"
+
+Miss Archer heartily indorsed this sentiment, and Quimby went in quest
+of Mr. Norton, with whom he soon returned.
+
+Unlike enough to the melancholy artist of romantic fame was Mr. Norton.
+Short, rather stout, inclined to be red in the face, large-nosed,
+scrupulously neat in dress, clean shaven, and closely-cropped hair--all
+this the observing Miss Archer saw at a glance as she bowed to him in
+response to Quimby's introduction. But the second glance showed her that
+the expression of his face was so jovial that its plainness vanished as
+if by magic on his first smile.
+
+If Nattie, possibly a trifle prejudiced in his disfavor, expected him to
+outrage common propriety in some way, such as keeping on his hat,
+smoking a black pipe, or turning up his pantaloons leg, she was
+utterly--shall we say disappointed? Truth to tell, before ten minutes
+had elapsed from the time of his arrival, she was wishing she knew more
+"Bohemians," and even hoping "C" was one!
+
+At home as soon as he entered the room, in a very short time the
+strangers of a moment ago were his life-long friends. Full of anecdotes
+and quaint remarks, he was the life of the little party. Miss Archer,
+however, was a very able backer--Cyn, as they all found themselves
+calling her soon after Jo Norton's advent, and forevermore.
+
+"Cyn was," as its owner said, "short" for the samewhat lofty name of
+Cynthia.
+
+Doubtless, the fact of these two, who were partners, beating nearly
+every game they played, was not without its effect in promoting their
+most genial feelings. A result brought about, not so much by their
+skill, as by Quimby's perpetually forgetting what was trumps,
+confounding the right and left bowers, and disregarding the power of the
+joker.
+
+And in truth Quimby's mind was more on his partner than on the game, and
+he was becoming more and more awake to the fact that his heart was fast
+filling with admiration and adoration of which she was the object, and
+inevitably must soon overflow! For Nattie was really looking her very
+best this evening. It was excitement and animation that her face
+depended upon for its beauty. Miss Archer's companionship, too, was
+doing much towards promoting the cheerfulness that brought so clear a
+light to her eyes--the light that was now dazzling Quimby. For Cyn was
+one of those people who live always in the sunshine, and seem to carry
+its own brightness around with them, while Nattie, on the contrary,
+oftentimes dwelt among the shadows, and a touch of their somberness hung
+over her, and showed itself upon her face.
+
+But none of these lurking shadows were there to-night, and as a
+consequence, Quimby was unable to keep his eyes off her, and sighed, and
+made misdeals, and became generally mixed. His embarrassment was not
+lessened when Cyn mischievously informed him he had certainly found
+favor in the eyes of Miss Fishblate--who had called upon her the day
+before. He dropped the pack of cards he happened to have in his hand at
+the moment, all over the floor, and then dived so hastily to pick them
+up that his head came in violent contact with the edge of the table, and
+for a moment he was almost stunned.
+
+But in answer to Cyn's anxious inquiry if he was hurt, he replied,
+
+"It's nothing! I--I am used to it, you know!" Notwithstanding which
+assertion his forehead developed such a sudden and terrific bump of
+benevolence, that Cyn insisted upon binding her handkerchief over it.
+Thus, with his head tied up, and secretly lamenting the unornamental
+figure he now presented to the eyes of his partner and charmer, Quimby
+resumed the game. But what with this cause of uneasiness, and a latent
+fear that Cyn's jesting remark about Celeste might be true, a fear he
+had privately been conscious of previously, although the least conceited
+of mortals, Quimby played so badly--and indeed would undoubtedly have
+answered "checkers," had he been asked suddenly what game he was
+playing, on account of his meditations on a checkered existence--that
+the cards were soon abandoned, and Cyn delighted them with several
+songs, and a recitation of "Lady Clara Vere de Vere."
+
+While Cyn was singing, Nattie happened to glance at Mr. Norton, and
+suddenly remembering a sentence in a lately-read novel about some one
+looking with "his soul in his eyes," wondered if that was not exactly
+what Mr. Norton was doing now? She did not notice, however, that it was
+certainly what Quimby was trying not to do! She wondered too, if the
+young artist was paying Cyn some private compliments, for they seemed to
+be talking together apart, as all were bidding each other good-night. If
+so, she could not understand why Cyn should look so mischievous over it.
+It was but a momentary thought, however, forgotten as they all mutually
+agreed that the pleasant evening just passed should be but the beginning
+of many. The circumstance was recalled to her mind, however, and
+explained the next day, for on returning from the office she found under
+her door a pen and ink sketch, of which she knew at once Cyn was the
+designer, and Mr. Norton the executor. It represented two rooms, one on
+each side of a partition; in one was a table, containing the ordinary
+telegraphic apparatus, before which sat a young lady strangely
+resembling Miss Nattie Rogers, with her face beaming with smiles, and
+her hand grasping the key. In the other, a young man with a very
+battered hat knelt before the sounder on his table, while behind him an
+urchin with a message in his hand stared unnoticed, open-mouthed and
+unheard; far above was Cupid, connecting the wires that ran from the
+gentleman to the lady.
+
+"What nonsense!" murmured Nattie, laughing to herself; but' she put the
+picture away in her writing desk as carefully as she might some
+cherished memento.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+QUIMBY BURSTS FORTH IN ELOQUENCE.
+
+
+"That young lady over there acts very strangely. She is not crazy, is
+she?" inquired a gentleman who stood leaning against the counter over
+the way, and looking across at Nattie.
+
+"I don't know what to make of her," the previously mentioned clerk, to
+whom this question was addressed, answered, "I have been observing her
+for some weeks; she sits half the time as you see her now, laughing to
+herself and gesticulating. Sometimes she will lean back in her chair and
+absolutely shake with laughter, and she smiles at vacancy continually.
+She seems all right enough with the ex-ception of these vagaries. But
+she is a perfect conundrum to me."
+
+"A bit luny, I think," said the gentleman, who had asked the question.
+
+Just then, Nattie, who, of course, was talking to "C," and telling him
+about that sketch--with the slight reservation of the Cupid,--happened
+to look up, with her gaze seventy miles away; but becoming aware of the
+curious stares of the two gentlemen opposite, her vision shortened
+itself to near objects, and rightly surmising from their looks the tenor
+of their thoughts, she colored, and straightway turned her back, at the
+same time informing "C" of what she termed their impertinence. But "C"
+answered, with a laugh,
+
+"It cannot but look strange, you know, to outsiders, to see a person
+making such an ado apparently over nothing. Put yourself, if you can, in
+the place of the uninitiated; you come along, see an operator quietly
+seated, reading the newspaper, with his feet elevated on a chair or
+table, the picture of repose. Suddenly up he jumps, down goes the paper,
+he seizes a pencil, hurriedly writes a few words, frowns violently,
+pounds frantically on the table, stares savagely at nothing, bursts
+suddenly into a broad smile, and then quietly resumes his first
+position. Wouldn't these seem like rather eccentric gambols to you, if
+you didn't know their solution?"
+
+"Ha! Doubtless," answered Nattie. "So I suppose I must forgive my
+observers, and be more careful what I do in future. I have no doubt I
+often make myself ridiculous to chance beholders, when I am talking with
+you."
+
+"I wonder if that is complimentary to me?" queried "C."
+
+"Certainly, as it is because you make me laugh so much," Nattie replied.
+
+"Then I am not such a disagreeable fellow as I might be?" demanded "C,"
+evidently attempting to extort flattery.
+
+But before Nattie could answer, some one else opened their key, and
+said,
+
+"Oh, yes you are!"
+
+"That was not I," Nattie explained, as quickly as possible. "Some of
+those unpleasant people that can't mind their own business. I was about
+to say I should not know how to get through the days now, if I hadn't
+you to talk with."
+
+"Do you really mean it?" questioned "C," delightedly, it is reasonable
+to suppose. "Truly, I was thinking only last night how unbearable would
+have been the solitude of my office, had I not been blessed with your
+company. I was lonesome enough before I knew you, but I never am now."
+
+It was a pity that no telegraphic instrument had yet been invented that
+could carry the blush on Nattie's cheeks for his eyes to see, because it
+was so very becoming. She commenced a reply, expressing her pleasure,
+but was unable to finish it, on account of that unknown and disagreeable
+operator somewhere on the line, who kept breaking the circuit after
+every letter she made. Nor was "C" allowed to write anything either.
+This was a trick by which they had often been annoyed of late.
+
+For, on the wire in the telegraphic world, as well as elsewhere, are
+idle, mischief-making people, who cannot endure to see others enjoying
+themselves, if they also have no share.
+
+Thus, unable to talk farther at present with her indefatigable
+conversationalist, Nattie took up a pencil and began entering the day's
+business in her books, when a shadow darkened the doorway, and she
+looked up to see Quimby.
+
+Since the evening of the card party, when he had become so fully
+conscious of the condition of things inside his heart, Quimby had been
+in a really pitiable state of unrest. Too bashful, or too deficient in
+self-confidence to seek the society of her who was the cause of all his
+uneasiness, as his inclinations directed, and not knowing how to make
+himself as charming to her as she was to him, he wandered past the
+building containing her, two or three times a day, sometimes receiving
+the pleasure of a bow as he passed her window, but never before to-day
+being able to raise the necessary courage to go in and speak.
+
+Nattie, who could not but begin to surmise something of the state of his
+feelings, but without dreaming of their intensity, now smiled on him,
+and asked him inside the office. No man or woman can be quite
+indifferent to one, whom they know has set them on a pedestal, apart
+from the rest of the world.
+
+"I--really I--I beg pardon, I'm sure," the agitated Quimby, trembling at
+his own daring, responded to her invitation. "I--I was passing--quite
+accidentally, you know,--thought I would just step in, you know. Really,
+I--I must ask pardon for the liberty."
+
+"We are too old acquaintances now for you to consider it a liberty,"
+Nattie replied, and the words made his perturbed heart jump with joy.
+"Business being quite dull to-day, I shall be glad to be entertained. Of
+course," archly, "you came to entertain me?"
+
+Poor Quimby was decidedly taken aback by this question.
+
+"I--I--yes certainly--no--that is--I mean I am afraid I am not much of
+an entertainer," he stammered, his hands flying to his necktie and
+nervously untying it as he spoke. Certainly, the wear and tear on his
+neckties and watch chain while he was in his present condition of love
+must have been terrific.
+
+"Aren't you?" queried Nattie without gainsaying his assertion.
+
+"No--really you know I--I'm always making mistakes--but I'm used to it,
+you know--and I am not--possibly I might be a trifle better than
+nobody--but that's all."
+
+And having given this honest, and certainly not conceited opinion of
+himself, he entered the office, sat down, and proceeded to make
+compasses of his legs.
+
+"Have you seen Cyn to-day? she paid me a flying visit yesterday, and
+talked a little to 'C,' but I haven't seen her since."
+
+"She went away to sing out of town, let me see--I forget where, and she
+will not return until to-morrow;" then, uneasily, "I--I beg pardon, but
+you--you mentioned the Invisible. Do you--I beg pardon--but do you
+converse as much as ever with him?"
+
+"Yes indeed!" Nattie replied with an ardor that did not produce exactly
+an enlivening effect upon her caller; "we talk together nearly all the
+time."
+
+"What--I beg pardon--but really--what do you find to talk about so
+much?" he inquired jealously.
+
+"Oh, everything! of the books we read, and the good things in the
+magazines and papers, and the adventures we have--telegraphically; in
+short, of all the topics of the day. We agree very well too, except on
+candy, that I like and he doesn't," replied Nattie.
+
+Quimby suppressed a groan, and hastened to assure her that he himself
+possessed a great passion for sweetmeats.
+
+"But don't you--I beg pardon--but don't you find this sort of
+thing--'C,' I mean--ghostly, you know?"
+
+"Ghostly!" echoed the astonished Nattie.
+
+"Yes," he replied, with a gesture of his arm that produced an impression
+as if that member had leaped out of its socket. "Yes, talking with the
+unseen, you know; I--I beg pardon, but it strikes me as ghostly."
+
+Nattie stared.
+
+"What a strange fancy!" she exclaimed. "'C' is very real, and of the
+earth, earthy to me, I assure you!"
+
+Quimby's face lengthened some three inches. "Is he?" he said ruefully.
+"I--I beg pardon, but you haven't--you don't mean to say that--you have
+not taken a--bless my soul! how warm it is here!" and he mopped his face
+with a red silk handkerchief--a color very unbecoming to his complexion.
+
+"Warm!" repeated Nattie, her lips curving in an amused smile, for she
+had a shawl over her shoulders, and was nevertheless slightly chilly. "I
+don't perceive it, I am sure."
+
+"I--I beg pardon--but I've been walking, you know," Quimby said
+nervously. "But I--I was about to ask--I--I beg pardon--but you have
+not--not" desperately, "really fallen in love with him, have you?"
+
+Nattie's eyes danced with amusement, but her color deepened slightly
+too, as she replied,
+
+"How could one fall in love with an invisible? why, that would be even
+less satisfactory than an ideal!"
+
+Quimby's face brightened, and he recovered himself sufficiently to put
+away the red silk handkerchief.
+
+"I don't think--really, I should not think there could be much
+satisfaction in it!" then stealing a bashful but adoring glance at her,
+he added,
+
+"I--I prefer a--a visible, as being something more substantial, you
+know!"
+
+"Indeed?" said Nattie, demurely; then thinking perhaps he was drifting
+on to grounds that had best be avoided, she changed the subject, by
+saying,
+
+"Do you not think Cyn a very charming young lady?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I--I--yes, very charming!" Quimby answered, but not so
+enthusiastically as perhaps Mr. Norton might have done. For Quimby's
+heart was of the old-fashioned kind, and his fancy was not fickle;
+besides, being now, in a measure, launched upon the subject, of love, so
+awful to approach, he was unwilling thus soon to leave a theme so sweet,
+yet so formidable. Therefore, crossing his legs, and bracing up against
+the chair-back; he determined, now or never, to give her an inkling of
+his feelings, an intention so very palpable, that Nattie was glad indeed
+to hear from the sounder,
+
+"B m--B m--B m--."
+
+"Excuse me," she said, hastily. "They are calling me on the wire," and
+immediately answered, and began taking a message.
+
+Meanwhile, to him had come a reaction, and he was in a state of total
+collapse. Before she had finished receiving that message of only ten
+words, he had drawn himself dejectedly to his feet, and was looking for
+his hat.
+
+"I--I really--I must go, you know!" he faltered, blushing, as Nattie
+glanced up at him. "I--I fear I have intruded now--but I--I--" he
+stopped short, unable to find an ending to his sentence.
+
+"I'm always glad of company," Nattie said, but a little distantly, as
+she gave "O. K." on the wire.
+
+"I--I--really, you are very kind, you know," stammered Quimby. "I--I
+pass here on the way to dinner, you see--from the office, you know,"--he
+eked out his meagre income by writing in a lawyer's office--"where, 'pon
+my word, I ought to have been now. But it's--it's such a pleasure to see
+you--you know that--where can my hat be?"
+
+All this time he had been looking around for his hat, and now Nattie
+fished it out of the waste basket, into which he had unwittingly dropped
+it. Taking it with many apologies, he bowed himself confusedly and
+ungracefully out, and went away, wondering if he would ever be able to
+get himself up to such a pitch again, and resolving, if it proved
+possible, that it should not occur next time where there was one of
+those aggravating "sounders."
+
+"Now, I hope," thought Nattie, as she watched his retreating form, "that
+he is not going to make an idiot of himself! Not only because he is as
+good a fellow as he is a blundering one, and I wouldn't for the world
+hurt his feelings, but also because it would be dreadfully uncomfortable
+to have a rejected lover wandering around in the same house with one!"
+
+And Nattie, judging from his late conduct that the contingency referred
+to was likely to occur, resolved to be careful and not give him any
+opportunity to express his feelings, and furthermore, to kindly and
+cautiously teach him the meaning of the word Friendship, and
+particularly to define the broad distinction between that and Love.
+
+But circumstances are mulish things, and not to be governed at will, as
+Nattie was soon to discover.
+
+A few evenings after she called in to see Cyn, who happened to be out.
+But she was momentarily expected to return, as Mrs. Simonson said, so
+Nattie concluded to wait, and sat down at the piano. Not noticing she
+had left the door partly open, and never dreaming of approaching danger,
+she began to play, when suddenly, the hesitating voice of Quimby broke
+in upon the strains of the "First Kiss" waltz.
+
+"I--may I come in?" he asked. "I--I beg your pardon, but I knocked
+several times, you know, and you didn't hear at all."
+
+Nattie would gladly have refused the invitation he asked, but could
+think of no possible excuse for so doing, and was therefore compelled to
+say,
+
+"Yes--come in, I expect Cyn every moment."
+
+Availing himself of this permission, Quimby entered, balanced his hat on
+the edge of an album, and seating himself in a chair, seized a round on
+either side as if he was in danger of blowing away, and stared at her
+without a word.
+
+"It has been a lovely day, hasn't it?" Nattie said at last, beginning to
+find the silence embarrassing, and reverting to Mrs. Simonson's safe
+topic.
+
+"Yes--exactly so!" Quimby answered, strengthening his grasp on the chair
+in a vain endeavor to summon the requisite courage to avail himself of
+this rare opportunity of pouring out his feelings.
+
+Nattie tried him again on another safe topic.
+
+"Cyn and I dined together to-day."
+
+"I--I can't eat!" burst forth Quimby in accents of despair.
+
+"Can't you?" said Nattie, devoutly wishing Cyn would come. "I am very
+sorry, I hope you are not dyspeptic."
+
+"No, no!" he answered, his eyes almost starting from his head between
+his determination to wind himself up to the point, and the tightness of
+his grasp on the chair. "It's--it's my heart, you know!"
+
+"You don't mean to say you have heart disease?" said Nattie, seeing
+danger fast approaching, and taking refuge in obtusity.
+
+"No; I--I beg pardon--not a--not a bodily heart disease, you know, but a
+mental one!" and he relaxed his grasp on the chair with one hand to tug
+at his necktie as if being hung, and disliking the sensation.
+
+"That is something I never heard of," Nattie said dryly; then thinking,
+"I'll drown him in music," she asked hastily,
+
+"Do you like the First Kiss?"
+
+The bounce of an India rubber ball is no comparison to the agility with
+which Quimby jumped from his chair at this question.
+
+"Oh! Bless my soul! Wouldn't I?" he gasped.
+
+"I will play it to you," exclaimed Nattie instantly aware of the
+indiscretion of her question, and she thundered as loud as she could on
+the piano, while Quimby, with a very red face, subsided into the chair
+again. But not long did he remain subsided; whether it was the music
+that inspired im, or a desperate determination that nerved him, he
+suddenly sprang up, and with one stride was beside her, exclaiming
+excitedly,
+
+"No! That is--I beg pardon--but please do not play any more just now.
+There is something I must say to you! Oh! I can't express myself! It all
+comes upon me with a rush when I am alone, but now, at this supreme
+moment, I cannot tell you how I a--"
+
+"Excuse me, but I am afraid I cannot remain now," hastily interrupted
+Nattie, feeling that something must be done to stop him, and adopting
+the first expedient that suggested itself. "I just happened to recollect
+I left my gas burning in close proximity to the lace curtains, and I
+must go immediately and attend to it."
+
+With these words, Nattie rushed away, half amused and half annoyed,
+leaving him to stare after her with a blank and rueful face, to ask
+himself how any fellow could get on amid such drawbacks, to decide that
+proposing was a dreadful strain on the nerves, but to resolve his next
+attempt should be a success, if he had to inaugurate previously a series
+of private rehearsals. For although abashed and discomfited by his
+repeated failures to make his feelings understood, he was more in love
+than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+COLLAPSE OF THE ROMANCE.
+
+
+"B m--B m--B m--N--N--N--Oh! where are you, N? Where is the little girl at
+B m--B m--B m?"
+
+Such were the sounds that greeted Nattie's ears, as she entered the
+office the morning after her adventure with the love-lorn Quimby; and
+immediately she ceased to speculate on the probable embarrassment that
+must necessarily attend their not-to-be-avoided next meeting, and
+interrupted "C's" solitary conversation, by saying,
+
+"What is the matter with you this morning? Here I am, N."
+
+"G. M., my dear. I'm off, and wanted to say good-by before I went,"
+responded "C."
+
+"Off?" questioned Nattie, with a sudden fall in her mental temperature.
+
+"Yes, I am going to a station five miles below to substitute, to-day.
+The operator there is obliged to go away, and couldn't find any one
+competent to do his work, and as there was a fellow that could do mine,
+he comes here and I go there."
+
+"Oh, dear! what shall I do all day?" said Nattie, sinking into a chair,
+very much aggrieved.
+
+"I am very sorry, but I couldn't well avoid accommodating him. But what
+will you do when I leave entirely, if you can't get along without me one
+day? happy I, to be so necessary to your existence!"
+
+"But there is no prospect of your leaving at present, is there?" asked
+Nattie, forgetting in her alarm at such a possibility to challenge the
+last of his remark.
+
+"There is some probability of it now," "C" responded. "I will tell you
+all about it to-morrow. I may come nearer to you; near enough even for
+you to see that twinkle."
+
+"You don't mean you have a prospect of an office here in the city?"
+questioned Nattie, not knowing whether she would be glad or sorry if
+such were the case.
+
+"Not exactly," replied "C." "I haven't time to explain; train is coming,
+so--"
+
+"Where did you say you were going to-day?" broke in Nattie quickly.
+
+"B a--five miles down the line nearer you, but not on this wire. Used to
+be, you know, but switched on wire number twenty-seven last week," "C"
+responded so hurriedly, that Nattie could hardly read it, although so
+accustomed to his style of making his dots and dashes; for, with the
+key, as with the pen, all operators have their own peculiar manner of
+writing.
+
+"Ah, yes! I remember," responded Nattie quickly. "That hateful operator
+signing 'M' had it, that used to be fighting for the circuit always, and
+breaking in when we were talking. I wouldn't have gone for him."
+
+"Couldn't well avoid it. Here is train. Good-by; shall miss you
+terribly, but will be with you again to-morrow. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by. I am lonesome already," Nattie answered.
+
+As "C" made no reply, it was supposable he had gone, and probably had to
+run for the train, thought Nattie, as she took off her hat rather
+dejectedly.
+
+A broken companionship of any kind must ever leave a certain sense of
+loneliness, and this was none the less true now on account of the unique
+circumstances. Indeed, until to-day she had not fully realized how
+necessary "C" had become to her telegraphic life. Naturally, she had
+woven a sort of romance about him who was a friend "so near and yet so
+far." Perhaps too, a certain yearning for tenderness in her lonely
+heart, a feeling that every woman knows, found something, very pleasant
+in being always greeted with "Good morning, my dear," and hearing the
+last thing at night, "Good night, little girl at B m."
+
+Miss Kling undoubtedly would have been shocked at being thus addressed
+even on the wire, by a strange person--a person certainly, although
+unseen; but Nattie, used to the license that distance gave, whether
+wisely or unwisely, had never, thought it necessary to check the
+familiarity.
+
+Pondering over what he had hinted about leaving permanently, in the
+leisure usually devoted to chatting with him, but which that day she
+hardly knew how to fill, Nattie wondered if, should they ever come face
+to face, they would feel like the old friends they were, or if the
+nearness would bring a constraint now unknown? Yet she was fain to
+confess she would like to see him and ascertain the personal appearance
+of one who occupied so much of her thoughts. But how strange it would
+be, if, after all their friendly talks and gay confidences, he should
+pass out of the way that was both their ways now, and they never know
+anything more about each other than that one was "C" and one was "N!"
+something not impossible either, or even improbable; for fate is a sort
+of switch-board, and a slight move will switch two lives onto wires far
+asunder, even as the moving of a peg or two will alter everything on the
+board that shows its power so little.
+
+With such thoughts in her mind, Nattie was rather among the shadows that
+day, and presented no laughing face to the curious passers-by, much to
+that opposite clerk's relief, who came to the conclusion that she had
+once more recovered her senses.
+
+About an hour before the time for closing the office, as she was
+counting over her cash, and thinking how glad she was that "C" would be
+back to-morrow, she became conscious of some one waiting her attention
+outside, and went forward, scarcely looking at him, expecting, of
+course, a message. But instead, the individual, who filled the air with
+a suffocating odor of musk, asked,
+
+"You are the regular operator here, I suppose?"
+
+With a start Nattie looked up, expecting a complaint, an occurrence
+often prefaced by some like question, and scrutinizing him more
+particularly, saw a short, rather stout young man, possessing an air of
+cheap assurance, hair that insisted on being red, notwithstanding the
+bear's grease that covered it, teeth all at variance with each other,
+and seeming to rejoice obtrusively in the fact, and light blue eyes of a
+most insinuating expression, trimmed around with red.
+
+"Yes," Nattie replied as she took this survey. "I am."
+
+"You don't know me, I suppose?" was the next question.
+
+"No," Nattie replied with a glance at the large mock diamond pin, and
+immense imitation amethyst ring he wore; "I certainly do not."
+
+"I think you are mistaken about that," he rejoined, smiling at her in a
+most unpleasantly familiar manner.
+
+Surprised and offended, Nattie drew back haughtily. "I think, rather,
+you are mistaken," she said, stiffly. "May I inquire your business?"
+
+With an air of easy confidence and familiar remonstrance, he replied,
+
+"Come, now, don't freeze a fellow; why, I came to see you. That's my
+business and no other!"
+
+"He is drunk," thought Nattie, indignantly, but before she could reply
+he added,
+
+"I am an operator, you see."
+
+"Oh!" said Nattie, comprehensively, but not at all delightedly, for
+operator or no operator, and notwithstanding the sort of freemasonry
+between those of the craft, she preferred his room to his company. But
+constraining herself, she added as civilly as possible, "Did you wish to
+send a message, or speak to any one on the wire?"
+
+"No, thank you," he answered; then, with an insinuating smile,
+
+"Can't you guess who I am?"
+
+"I really can't," Nattie replied, coldly and indifferently; thinking,
+"some of the operators down town, I suppose, and a delightful set they
+are if he is a specimen! So impertinent of him!"
+
+"Can't you?" laughing and displaying his obtrusive teeth to their utmost
+advantage. "Now just think of some one you have been buzzing lately, and
+then guess, won't you, N?"
+
+Without the least suspicion Nattie shook her head impatiently, feeling
+very much disgusted, and longing for some interruption to occur. But his
+next words were startling. Leaning forward very confidentially, he asked
+with a smile of consciousness,
+
+"Do you see that twinkle, N?"
+
+"What!" ejaculated Nattie--so forcibly that a passing countryman stopped
+with a peanut half cracked, to stare--and clutching at an umbrella
+hanging by her side, for support, she turned a horror-stricken face to
+the questioner, who, looking as if he expected her to be enraptured,
+added,
+
+"You know a fellow that signs 'C,' don't you?"
+
+The bump of self-conceit must have largely overbalanced the perceptive
+faculties of this obnoxious young man, if he could possibly mistake the
+expression on Nattie's face for rapture, as, frantically grasping the
+umbrella, she gasped,
+
+"No--no--it can't be--you are not--not--"
+
+"Not C? Ain't I, though!" laughed the proprietor of the ring, pin,
+bear's-grease, et cetera.
+
+"But," said poor Nattie, clinging desperately to hope and the umbrella,
+"C said this morning he was going to B a--and--"
+
+"That was a trick to take you by surprise," he interrupted, with great
+enjoyment of his own words. "I knew I was coming here, all the time, but
+I wanted to give you a nice little surprise. Think I have, eh?" and he
+laughed again, and winked with almost vulgar assurance.
+
+Nattie let go of hope and the umbrella, and collapsed with her romance
+into a chair; and she thought of Quimby's warning about the "soiled
+invisible," and barely suppressed a groan. Involuntarily she stole a
+glance at this too-visible person, and shuddered. Could she reconcile
+"C," her visionary, interesting, witty and gentlemanly "C" of the wire,
+with this musk-scented being of greasy red hair, cheap jewelry and
+vulgar manners? Impossible!
+
+"It is the nightmare! it cannot be!" she thought, with the despairing
+refuge in dreams we often take when suddenly overwhelmed with terrible
+realities.
+
+As she made no reply to his last observation, her visitor, glancing at
+her as if slightly puzzled by her behavior, went on--
+
+"I did not think you would be so bashful, after all our talks. _I_ am
+not,"--a fact hardly necessary to mention. "We ought to be pretty good
+friends by this time. Say, do I look as you expected I would? and as if
+to give her a better view, he pushed his hat back on his head, a
+kindness wholly unappreciated, as Nattie had seen more than sufficient
+of him already.
+
+"Not--not exactly!" she stammered, in a sort of dazed way.
+
+"I believe you thought I was one of those slim fellows whose bones
+rattle when they walk, didn't you? I am no such a fellow, you see. But
+you ain't a bit as I imagined. May I be a plug [1] forever if you are!"
+
+[1] "Plug" is the common telegraphic expression for an incompetent
+operartor.
+
+Nattie was too wretched, too unable even yet to realize that her "C" and
+this odious creature were one and the same, to ask, as he evidently
+expected natural curiosity would induce her to do, in what way she so
+differed from the person of his imagination.
+
+"You go beyond all my calculations," he continued, flatteringly, after
+waiting in vain for a question from her; "Only you are more bashful than
+I supposed you would be, after the dots and dashes we have slung. But
+then it's easier to buzz on the wire than it is to talk, isn't it? For
+all a fellow has to do is to take up a book or a paper, pick things out
+to say, and go it without exercising his own brains!"
+
+At these words, that explained the previous incomprehensible difference
+between the distant "C" and present person, the realization of the
+companionship, the romance, the friendship gone to wreck on this reef of
+musk and bear's-grease came over Nattie with a rush, and for a moment
+so affected her that she could hardly restrain her tears. And yet, after
+all, was not "C," _her_ "C," the "C" whom she knew by his conversation
+only--"picked out of books!"--an unreal, intangible being, and not this
+so different person who claimed his identity?
+
+"I think we astonished some of them on the wire with all the stuff we
+had over!" went on with his monologue the knight of the collapsed
+romance, who, not being troubled with fine sensibilities, had no idea of
+the feelings under which she was laboring.
+
+"Yes--I--doubtless!" stammered Nattie, and turned very red, as, suddenly
+remembering the tenor of some of what he so elegantly termed "stuff,"
+the appalling thought, what if he should say "my dear?" presented itself
+in all its horrors, and the idea punished her for that girlish
+imprudence in allowing the familiarity from afar.
+
+Evidently he noticed the access of color, and attributed it to his own
+fascinations, for he smiled complacently as he said,
+
+"I wish I had longer to stay with you, but my train goes in five
+minutes." Nattie breathed a sigh of relief. "Too bad, isn't it? But I
+will come again some time! By the way," a cunning expression that seemed
+uncalled-for crossing over his face, "don't say anything on the wire
+about my being here to-day, will you? I don't want any one to know. Let
+them think I was at B a."
+
+"Certainly not!" replied Nattie, with an alacrity born of the knowledge
+that she should hold no further communication of any kind with him;
+then, in order to give a hint of her intentions, she added, bracing
+herself up to mention what was so difficult to speak of to this vampire
+who mocked her with her vanished "C."
+
+"Now that the--the mystery is solved, and I--and we have met, I don't
+think there will be much amusement in talking over the wire."
+
+Somewhat to her surprise, and not at all flattering to her vanity, he
+answered, without a remonstrance,
+
+"No! I don't know as there will!"
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't like my looks any better than I do his!" was
+Nattie's natural and indignant thought at this quiet reception of her
+hint. And if anything had been necessary--which it certainly was not--to
+her utter repudiation of him, this would have sufficed for the purpose.
+
+"You mentioned this morning you thought of leaving X n. Do you expect to
+go soon?" she asked, catching at the idea that a few hours ago had
+caused so much alarm, with a hope that he might be about to vanish from
+her world finally and forever. But even as she spoke, the difference of
+the now and then smote her like a pain.
+
+"Did I say that?" he said, with a look that she could not understand, as
+if for some secret reason, he was so well pleased with himself, he could
+hardly avoid laughing outright. "Oh! well! I was only fooling!"
+
+Nattie's face fell, but, catching at the opportunity to convey the
+impression that in her opinion they had not been very friendly, after
+all, she said,
+
+"I suppose no one really means what they say on the wire. I am sure _I_ do
+not!"
+
+"But we mean what we say now," he replied, with an insinuating smile.
+"Next time I come we will be more sociable. But we've have had a nice
+talk, ain't we?"
+
+For a moment the repulsive person before her overcame the remembrance of
+the lost "C," and Nattie replied, sarcastically,
+
+"I trust the talk has not been too much of an exercise for your brain!"
+
+He looked at her doubtfully, and then laughed. "You are sort of a queer
+girl, ain't you? I wish though, I could stay and buzz you longer, but I
+have only time to get my train, so good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said Nattie, betraying all her relief at his departure in the
+sudden animation of her voice, something so different from her preceding
+manner that he could but notice it, and he turned, looked at her, as if
+a suspicion of its true cause penetrated his mind at last, frowned, and
+then with that former look she did not understand crossing his face,
+nodded and ran for the depot, coming into violent collision with a fat
+Dutchman, looking perplexedly for a barber's shop. And thus the red
+hair, the bear's grease, the sham jewelry, and the obtrusive, fighting
+teeth disappeared forever from Nattie's sight, leaving her with a
+bewildered look on her face, as if, indeed, just awakened from that
+imagined nightmare.
+
+She looked around the office blankly. Everything was there just as
+usual, the little key and the sounder, over which had come all "C's"
+pleasant talk. "C!" That creature! The odor of his detestable musk
+hovered about her even now, but not yet could she realize that her "C"
+was no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"GOOD-BY."
+
+
+It was a very long face that Nattie carried to the Hotel Norman that
+night; so long that Miss Kling at once saw that something was amiss, and
+while curiously wondering as to the cause, took a grim satisfaction in
+the fact. For Miss Kling liked not to see cheerful faces; why should
+others be happy when she had not found her other self?
+
+Nattie's first act on gaining her own room was to drag forth that
+carefully-preserved pen and ink sketch, and tear it to atoms,
+annihilating the chubby Cupid with especial care.
+
+"And now," she thought to herself savagely, as she burned up the pieces,
+"I never will be interested in people again, unless I know all about
+them. Imagination is too dangerous a guide for me!"
+
+Having thus exterminated the illustrated edition of her romance, Nattie
+felt the necessity of unburdening her mind, her sorrow not being too
+deep for words, and with that object sought Cyn; a proceeding much
+disapproved of by Miss Kling, who, knowing well that weakness of human
+nature that seeks a friendly bosom wherein to repose its sorrows,
+rightly surmised her lodger's destination and design, and decidedly
+objected to any one knowing more than she herself did.
+
+Nattie found her friend at home, but to her vexation, not alone. With
+her was Quimby, who had called in the untold hope of gleaning tidings of
+the young lady who had--as he said to himself--floored him. His
+confusion at the sight of her, remembering as he did the somewhat
+unusual circumstances of their last meeting, was indescribable; indeed,
+his knees actually knocked together. Nattie, however, whose latest
+experience had effaced the effect, and almost the remembrance of that
+former one, bade him good-evening, without the least trace of
+consciousness or embarrassment, a composure of manner that astounded but
+at the same time filled him with admiration.
+
+As he did not take his departure, being, in fact, unable to tear himself
+away, Nattie, in her anxiety to tell Cyn all that was in her mind, and
+reflecting that he really was of no consequence--an argument not
+flattering to its object, but one that he probably would have been first
+to indorse had he known it--and, moreover, that he already knew the
+prologue, disregarded his presence and said,
+
+"The most incomprehensible thing has happened, Cyn! I cannot realize it
+even now!"
+
+Quimby quaked in his boots, and grew hot all over with the fear that she
+was going to relate their last evening's adventure. Could it be
+possible?
+
+"I knew that something was the matter the moment you entered the room,"
+said Cyn. "I cannot imagine, why you should look as if you were going
+into the grave-digging business!"
+
+"Ah, Cyn!" exclaimed Nattie, as if the words hurt her, "He--'C', called
+on me to-day!"
+
+Quimby gave a bounce, and then grew limp in all his joints.
+
+"Is it possible? Personally?" questioned Cyn, with great interest and
+animation; then glancing at Nattie's face, her tone changed as she
+added, "He was not what you thought! I understand, poor Nat!"
+
+Quimby straightened himself up. He fancied he saw a gleam of hope ahead.
+
+"Far enough from what I thought!" replied Nattie, with a mixture of
+pathos and disgust. "Why did he not remain invisible?" then, in a burst
+of disappointment-- "Cyn, he is simply awful! All red hair and grease,
+musk, cheap jewelry, and insolent assurance!"
+
+Quimby glanced in the opposite glass, and his face brightened all over.
+He felt like a new man!
+
+"Oh, dear! Is it as bad as that?" said Cyn, looking dismayed. "He was so
+entertaining on the wire, I can hardly believe it. Are you quite sure it
+was 'C'?"
+
+"I could not realize it myself, but it is a fact nevertheless," Nattie
+answered sorrowfully, and then related what she termed the "disgusting
+details." Cyn listened, vexed and sorry, for she too had become
+interested in the invisible "C," but Quimby found it impossible to
+restrain his joy at this complete overthrow of one whom he had ever
+considered a formidable rival.
+
+"It is no use to talk about romance in real life!" said the annoyed Cyn,
+yielding to the conviction that the obnoxious visitor really was "C," as
+Nattie concluded. "It is nice to read about and to enact on the stage,
+but it's altogether too unreliable for our solid, every-day world. Well,
+dear!" consolingly, "it's better to know the truth than to have gone on
+blindly talking to so undesirable an acquaintance!"
+
+"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," quoted Nattie, with a
+shrug of her shoulders. "But--yes--I suppose I--ought to be glad I know
+the worst."
+
+"I--I beg pardon, but I--I think I hinted it might be as it has proved,
+you know!" said Quimby, trying not to look triumphant, and failing
+signally.
+
+Not particularly pleased at having his superior discernment thus pointed
+out, Nattie replied rather shortly,
+
+"It was luck and chance anyway, and it was my luck to stumble on the
+most disagreeable specimen in the business. That is all."
+
+"Do you suppose he is aware of the impression he produced on you?" asked
+Cyn.
+
+"No, indeed!" Nattie replied scornfully. "Is there anything so blind as
+vulgar, ignorant, self-conceit? I have no doubt he thinks I was
+charmed!"
+
+"Then how will you manage when he wants to talk on the wire again?"
+asked Cyn.
+
+"I shall have to make excuses until he takes the hint. Oh, dear!" said
+Nattie with a sigh, "I believe it is impossible to get any comfort out
+of this world!"
+
+"Oh, no, it isn't!" said Cyn in her bright cheery manner. "The way to do
+is not to allow ourselves to fret over what we cannot help. I am almost
+as disappointed as you, dear, over this total collapse of what opened so
+interestingly; but the curtain has fallen on the ignominious last act of
+our little drama, so farewell--a long farewell to our wired romance!"
+
+As Cyn spoke, the somewhat unmusical voice of Jo Norton was heard in the
+hall, singing an air from a popular burlesque, followed by the
+appearance among them of Jo himself. Of course the whole story had to be
+related for his benefit, and very little sympathy did Nattie receive
+from him.
+
+"Let this teach you a lesson, young lady!" he said, with mock solemnity,
+"namely, Attend to your business and let romance alone!"
+
+"As you do!" said Cyn.
+
+"As I do," he echoed, "and consequently be happy as I am! I tell you,
+romance and sentiment and love, and all that bosh, are at the bottom of
+two-thirds of all the misery in the world!"
+
+Notwithstanding which sage remark, and the fact of the curtain having
+fallen on the end, as Cyn said, for a moment yesterday was as if it had
+never been, when Nattie entered her office the next morning and was
+greeted with the familiar,
+
+"B m--B m--B m--where is my little girl at B m, to say good-morning to
+me?" and she made an involuntary movement towards the key to respond in
+the usual way.
+
+The remembrance of the actual state of things checked her just in time,
+and then, with a rather uncertain and tremulous touch of the key she
+answered,
+
+"Good morning! wait--am busy!"
+
+"One untruth!" she thought to herself, as "C" became mute, "not the only
+one I shall have to tell, I fear, before I succeed in conveying my exact
+meaning to the understanding of--the person. I will pick a quarrel, if
+possible, and he persists in talking! Oh, dear! I could have endured the
+red hair, even those dreadful teeth, had it not been for the
+bear's-grease and general vulgarity of the creature. Well, it's all over
+now!" and she sighed, from which it may be inferred that Jo's
+admonitions had not been of much consolation to her.
+
+We do not take the lessons our experience teaches us, to heart
+immediately; first, their bitterness must be overcome.
+
+To Nattie's great relief, the wire happened to be very busy that
+morning, but whenever it was possible "C" called her, and called in
+vain.
+
+Immediately after her return from dinner, however, having just received
+and signed for a message, "C," the moment she closed her key, said,
+
+"Where have you been to-day? are you not glad to have me back again? it
+cannot be I am so soon forgotten?"
+
+Unable to avoid answering, Nattie responded on the wrong side of truth
+again. "Have been busy; wait, please, a customer here."
+
+"I cannot help saying, confound the luck!" "C" responded, savagely. To
+which anathema Nattie turned up her nose scornfully, and made no reply.
+
+The nervous dread of his "calling," that was upon her all day, caused
+her to make more blunders than she had ever done in all her telegraphic
+career. She gave wrong change continually, numbered her messages
+incorrectly, and "broke" so much that the operator who sent to her had a
+headache with ill-humor. Usually very quick at deciphering the illegible
+scrawls often handed her for transmission, she to-day was frowned at for
+her stupidity in making them out; and one lady to whom a message was
+sent through poor Nattie's office, was much exercised on receiving it,
+to learn over an unknown gentleman's signature, that he would be with
+her at midnight. He really was her husband, but Nattie had transmitted
+the name the writing looked most like, which was one very remote from
+the real one.
+
+All these mistakes she laid at "C's" door, and grew more disgusted with
+him, accordingly, especially when she counted her cash, and found
+herself a dollar short. She managed, however, by frequent excuses, to
+get along without holding any conversation with him until the latter
+part of the afternoon, when, the wire not being in use, and business
+slacking up, he called persistently, savagely, and entreatingly--all of
+which phases can be expressed in dots and dashes--interspersing the call
+with such expressions as,
+
+"Please answer, N! Where are you, N? Why will you treat thus a poor
+fellow who thinks so much of you?"
+
+"I should think he might take a hint! Must I tell him in plain words
+that a personal inspection leads me to decline the honor of farther
+acquaintance? when, too, he particularly requested me not to mention his
+visit, over the wire?" thought Nattie; and then, as he continued to
+call, she arose impatiently, and answered shortly,
+
+"B m!"
+
+"You naughty little girl!" immediately responded "C," "where have you
+been all day? Is it thus you treat me on my return, when I expected you
+would be glad to see me again?"
+
+"I have been busy," Nattie replied briefly, with a repetition of her
+platitude, and cringing at the same time over the first of his remark,
+as she recalled his _tout ensemble_.
+
+"So you have said every time I have called," "C" answered, apparently
+entirely unconscious of the possible reason. "What is the cause? You
+never used to be busy _always_, you know!"
+
+"How different he is on the wire from what he is in reality!" thought
+Nattie, with a return of her first disappointment, "and how hard it is
+to merge the two in one!" But she answered,
+
+"There is a first time for everything; besides, I have not felt like
+talking to-day."
+
+"Not with me?" queried "C."
+
+"No!" replied Nattie briefly, and to the point.
+
+"C" held his key open a moment.
+
+"I do not understand it," he said at last. "It isn't possible that I
+have done anything to offend you?"
+
+"Only offended me with the sight of you!" thought Nattie; but unwilling
+to be really impolite, replied, "Certainly not!"
+
+"You are not angry about yesterday, are you?" pursued "C."
+
+"Certainly not," repeated Nattie, adding to herself, "A faint idea that
+I did not exactly fall in love with you is creeping into your red head,
+is it?"
+
+"If I have done anything, I beg you to tell me what, for I am ignorant
+of it, and I assure you I am penitent, and that I forgive you!"
+continued "C," "only please don't be cross to me!"
+
+Nattie saw her opportunity for picking a quarrel, and seized it.
+
+"I do not know what you mean by my being cross!" she said. "I am sure I
+was not aware that I was obliged to talk to any one unless I felt like
+it. I am not in the mood to-day, and I will not be forced. You have no
+right to call me cross, and when I am in the humor to talk with you
+again I will let you know!"
+
+"Very well!" "C" replied promptly, undoubtedly angry himself now; "I
+will wait your pleasure!" and then was mute.
+
+"It has not been quite so gradual as I intended, but I think I have
+effectually settled the matter, and my mind is relieved," thought
+Nattie; yet she sighed, and her satisfaction was followed by depression,
+for with "C" departed the pleasantest part of her office life, a fact
+she could not disguise. In the week that followed, when "C," true to his
+word, waited, saying nothing, she missed continually the sympathy, the gay
+talk, the companionship that had made the constantly-occurring
+annoyances endurable, and the days that dragged so now seem short. The
+office business did not fill half her time, and the constant confinement
+began to be irksome to her, whose nature demanded activity; in
+consequence, she often grew impatient and answered unnecessary questions
+of customers with a shortness that gave considerable offence; and had it
+not been for Cyn, who brought her sunny presence quite often into the
+office, heedless of the "no admittance" on the door, the monotony that
+had now displaced the romantic side of telegraphy would have plunged
+Nattie among the shadows almost constantly.
+
+Of course the sudden cessation of the intimacy between "C" and "N" was a
+theme of much surprise and bantering comments along the line, especially
+from "Em." But these facetious remarks gradually became fewer as the
+wonder subsided. One day, nearly two weeks after the "collapse," Nattie
+was surprised to hear the old familiar "B m--B m--B m--X n." Wondering if
+he had grown tired of waiting and was about to attempt a renewal of
+their former friendship, Nattie rather impatiently answered. But it
+proved he had a message, an occurrence quite infrequent with him. This
+he sent without unnecessary words. But after she had given "O. K." and
+closed her key, he opened his to say,
+
+"Please, don't you want to make up, N?"
+
+"I have nothing to make up!" Nattie replied.
+
+"O. K." was "C's" response as he again subsided.
+
+"He snubs easily!" thought Nattie, much relieved.
+
+The following Saturday night, however, as she was taking in from the
+shelf outside the blanks, ink, and bad pens that excited the ire of
+irascible customers, preparatory to closing, "C" once more called. With
+a devout hope that he was not going to be annoying, Nattie answered.
+
+"Notwithstanding the late coolness between us, which was not my fault,
+and for which I cannot account" he began, and then some one with a rush
+message broke in.
+
+"What is he coming at now I wonder--he commenced with a great display of
+words," thought Nattie curiously; and then with a little curl of her
+lip, "a sentence out of some book, I suppose."
+
+But as soon as the wire was quiet she said,
+
+"To 'C' Please g a--account"
+
+"I could not leave, as I am about to do to-night, without saying
+good-by, in remembrance of our former pleasant intercourse," concluded
+"C."
+
+"You mean you are leaving permanently?" queried Nattie, surprised.
+
+"Yes, this is my last day here. Monday I leave town; and so, with much
+regret that anything unpleasant should have interrupted our
+acquaintance--although what it was I assure you I do not know, since you
+deign me no explanation--I will say, not as I would once, _au revoir_, but
+good-by."
+
+"Good-by," answered Nattie, forgetting for the moment everything but
+"C," the old "C," the "C" who had enlivened so many hours, and about
+whom had dwelt that romantic mystery. "Good-by. Believe me, I shall
+always remember the many social talks we have enjoyed."
+
+"Possibly we might enjoy them again, if you desired," "C" said then, as
+if he gave her a chance for explanation or to express such a wish.
+
+But Nattie, recalling now the bears-grease, the musk, the cheap jewelry
+and their obnoxious possessor, answered only, "Good-by."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE FEAST.
+
+
+Pondering discontentedly over the perplexities of life, a habit she had
+allowed herself to indulge in quite frequently of late, one day not long
+after the final exit of the once interesting but now obnoxious "C,"
+Nattie suddenly became aware of a pair of merry brown eyes, belonging to
+a fine-looking young gentleman, observing her critically, and with
+apparently no intention of discontinuing their scrutiny. At which, in
+her present state of temper, Nattie turned very red and very angry. "I
+am not on exhibition," she thought, indignantly, and rising
+majestically, went towards him with the curt inquiry,
+
+"Did you wish to send a message, sir?" The young gentleman hesitated,
+and appeared slightly embarrassed, but did not take his eyes from her
+face, nevertheless.
+
+"I merely wished to ask the tariff to Washington," he replied, at
+length.
+
+"Forty cents," Nattie answered, shortly.
+
+"Thank you," he said, but without moving, and after a moment, as if
+desirous of opening a conversation, he continued, smiling, "I hardly
+think I will send a message to-day; I presume you will not object to
+being spared the trouble?"
+
+Nattie, having been quarreling all day with intangible somethings, was
+rather glad than otherwise to find a real object upon which she could
+vent the unamiability resulting from her surplus discontent. The young
+man's evident desire to talk more than circumstances warranted, was
+displeasing to her, and she rejoined very stiffly,
+
+"It is a matter of perfect indifference to me," and turned away.
+
+With an amused smile, he looked at the back thus presented to his view,
+opened his lips to speak, hesitated, and finally walked away. Nattie,
+looking after him out of the corners of her eyes, saw him glance back as
+he opened the door, and had a remorseful feeling that perhaps she had
+been crosser to him than he really deserved, for he was certainly very
+fine-looking. But what was done could not be undone, and with no
+expectation of ever seeing him again, she dismissed the matter from her
+mind.
+
+The best, perhaps the only really pleasant part of Nattie's life now,
+was her evenings, passed almost invariably with Cyn. Indeed, Cyn seemed
+to be a magnet, around which all gathered--Quimby, although, of course,
+Cyn herself was not his chief attraction--Celeste Fishblate, who
+determinedly pushed herself into an intimacy, and Jo Norton, who, had it
+not been for the fact so loudly proclaimed by himself, of his having no
+sentiment in his soul, would have been suspected of being on the road to
+falling in love with Cyn, so strangely was he attracted to her company.
+But this, of course, was impossible for _him_!
+
+"That will not do, dear," Cyn remarked, when Nattie related her little
+adventure with the young gentleman. "Do you know you have been in a
+dreadful state of mind ever since 'C' intruded his personality?"
+
+Nattie colored a little as she replied, discontentedly, "Oh, it isn't
+_that_, I assure you; the truth is, I am ambitious, Cyn. I suppose I
+forgot it, slightly, while I was so interested in 'C;' but I cannot be
+content with a mere working on from day to day, in the same old routine,
+and nothing more."
+
+Cyn looked at her scrutinizingly, as she asked, "But in what particular
+way are you ambitious? to be rich, or what?"
+
+"Oh! not for money!" Nattie answered, with a slight contempt for that
+necessary and convenient article. "I am ambitious for fame! I want to be
+a writer; but when I think of the obstacles in my way to an opening,
+even, in that direction, I am daunted. I have attacks of energy, it is
+true, but I fear it is fitful; it comes and goes."
+
+"I understand," Cyn replied, with more than wonted seriousness. "Your
+ambition is great enough to render you useless and discontented, but you
+need something to stimulate your energy, else it will waste itself in
+idle dreams. Perhaps love may come to be that motive power; perhaps--"
+and a shade crossed her sunny face--"some great disappointment."
+
+There was a moment's silence, Nattie pondering thoughtfully on these
+words; and then Cyn continued,
+
+"But in the meantime, since you can at present accomplish nothing, why
+not get all the enjoyment you can out of life, as it goes? So, when the
+opportunity comes, and you seize it, you will not have to look back on
+years wasted in vain longings for the then unattainable. _That_ is my
+philosophy--and I, too, am ambitious."
+
+"Your philosophy is cheery, at least," said Nattie, smiling. "But I am
+afraid it is very hard for ambitious people to take life easy: and that
+is not all of my troubles," she continued, gayly, "I can't get anything
+good to eat!"
+
+"Poor child," said Cyn, with mock seriousness, "this _is_ coming from the
+sublime to the ridiculous. What is the cause of the lamentable fact?"
+
+"Oh! I am so tired of both boarding-houses and restaurants. In the
+former they never have what one likes--and ah! such steak!--while in
+the latter you have to pick out all the cheap dishes, or ruin yourself
+at a meal."
+
+Cyn laughed.
+
+"I assure you I can appreciate your feelings, from sad experience! I,
+myself, am positively longing for a nice sirloin steak." Then, a sudden
+thought striking her, "I will tell you what we will do, Nat, we will
+have a little feast!"
+
+"A feast?" repeated Nattie, not exactly comprehending.
+
+"Yes--I have a little gas stove--low be it said, lest Mrs. Simonson hear
+and bring in a terrific bill for extra gas!--I use it sometimes to cook
+my dinner, when I do not feel like going out, and why should we not have
+a feast all to ourselves some day? and the sirloin steak shall be
+forthcoming! and what do you say to Charlotte Russe? In short, we will
+have everything we can think of, and you shall be assistant cook!"
+
+"That would be splendid!" cried Nattie, delighted, "only it will have to
+be some Sunday, as that is my only leisure day, you know."
+
+"All the better, for then we will be less liable to intrusion,"
+responded Cyn, gayly. "So make a memorandum to that effect, for next
+week. We must not let Mrs. Simonson know, however, on account of the gas
+stove; I pay her too much rent now. I am afraid we shall have a little
+difficulty about dishes. The few I have are not exactly real Sevres
+china, or even decently conventional. But--"
+
+"Oh! never mind the dishes!" interrupted Nattie. "Anything will do! I
+have myself a cracked tumbler, and a spoon, that will perhaps be useful
+for something."
+
+Agreeing therefore to hold dishes in strict contempt, the following
+Sunday found the two girls with closed doors, in the midst of great
+preparations for a truly Bohemian feast, as Cyn termed it; Nattie with
+her crimps tied down in a blue handkerchief, and Cyn with her sleeves
+rolled up, and an old skirt of a dress doing duty as apron.
+
+"Let me see," said Nattie merrily, taking account of stock. "Two pounds
+of steak--the first cut of the sirloin, I think you said?--waiting,
+expectant of making glad our hearts, on the rocking-chair, potatoes in
+plebeian lowliness under the table, tomatoes and two pies on your trunk,
+Charlotte Russes--delicious Charlotte Russes--where? Ah!--on your
+bonnet-box, in a plate ordinarily used as a card receiver, and sugar,
+butter, et cetera, and et cetera lying around almost anywhere, and the
+figs, oranges and homely, but necessary bread, where are they? I see, on
+top of 'Dombey & Son!'"
+
+"And our dishes will not quarrel, because thev are none of them any
+relation to each other!" laughed Cyn, as she peeled the tomatoes. "I
+fear goblets will have to take upon themselves the duties of cups, and
+that cracked tumbler of yours must be used for something. I am sorry
+that saucepan is so dilapidated, but it is the best I own!"
+
+"And in that saucepan we must both boil the potatoes and stew the
+tomatoes. Won't one cool while the other is doing?" queried Nattie,
+hovering lovingly over the steak.
+
+"I think not;" Cyn answered. "You won't mind the coffee being boiled in
+a tin can, once the repository of preserved peaches, will you?"
+
+"Ah, no!" replied Nattie emphatically, and sawing at the steak with a
+very dull knife, without a handle. "It will be just as good when it's
+poured out."
+
+"I had a coffee-pot once, but I melted the nose off and forgot to buy
+another yesterday," Cyn said, putting on the potatoes.
+
+"We will call our contrivance a coffee-urn; it sounds aristocratic,"
+suggested Nattie, as she cleared the books from the least shaky table,
+and spread it with three towels, in lieu of a table-cloth. "But what
+shall we do for plates to put the pies on?"
+
+"Take those two wooden box covers in the closet," promptly responded
+Cyn. "That is right, and see, here is room also for the coffee--pardon
+me, I had almost said commonplace coffee-pot!"
+
+"But the tomato! what _can_ we pour that in?" suddenly exclaimed Nattie,
+with great concern.
+
+Cyn scanned every object in the room with dismay.
+
+"The--the wash-bowl!" she insinuated at last, determined not to be
+daunted.
+
+"Don't you think it rather large? to say nothing of its being too
+suggestive?" said Nattie, laughing.
+
+Cyn did not press the point, but shook her head, dubiously.
+
+"I have it!" cried Nattie, "there is a fruit-dish in my room."
+
+"Just the thing!" interrupted Cyn ecstatically, "I will run and bring
+it, if you will attend to the cooking."
+
+"Look out for Miss Kling," said Nattie, warningly; "if she catches a
+glimpse of you making off with my fruit-dish, she will never rest until
+she finds out everything."
+
+"Rely on me for secrecy and dispatch," said Cyn, going. "If she sees me,
+I will mention nuts and raisins; merely mention them, you know."
+
+But Miss Kling, for once, was napping; perhaps dreaming of him Cyn
+called the Torpedo--Celeste's father--and she obtained the dish, reached
+her own door again without being seen by any one except the Duchess, and
+was congratulating herself on her good luck, when suddenly, like an
+apparition, Quimby stood before her.
+
+Cyn started, murmured something about "oranges," slipped the soap-dish
+she had also confiscated into her pocket, and tried to make the big
+fruit-dish appear as small as possible.
+
+She might, however, have spared herself any uneasiness, for this always
+the most unobservant of mortals, was too much overburdened with some
+affair of his own, to notice even a two-quart dish.
+
+"Oh! I--I beg pardon, I--I was coming with a a--request to your room,"
+he said eagerly. "I--would it be too much to--to bring a friend, he
+knows no one here, and I am sure he and you would fraternize at once, if
+I might bring him, you know."
+
+"Certainly--yes!" replied Cyn, too anxious to get away to pay much
+attention to his words, particularly as an odor of steak reached her
+nostrils.
+
+"Thank you! I--I never knew any one who understood me as well as you!"
+he said with a grateful bow, and without more words, Cyn left him.
+
+"How long you have been gone!" Nattie remarked, looking up, her cheeks
+very red, and her nose embellished with a streak of smut, as Cyn
+entered. "Did you see any one?"
+
+"No one except Quimby, who stopped me to ask about bringing a friend to
+call some evening," Cyn replied, displaying the fruit, and producing the
+soap-dish.
+
+"Mercy on us!" Nattie said, looking rather aghast, "it is rather large,
+isn't it? and what did you bring-that soap-dish for?"
+
+"I thought it might come handy," laughed Cyn. "We will make a potato
+holder of it for the time. 'To what base uses may we come at
+last?'--Why--" in a tone of surprise, "here is the Duchess!"
+
+And sure enough, up by the window sat that sagacious animal, winking and
+blinking complacently, and evidently determined to be a third in the
+feast.
+
+"She came in unnoticed under the shadow that fruit-dish threw," said
+Nattie, teasingly.
+
+Cyn shook an oyster fork at her threateningly.
+
+"Say another such word and you shall have no steak!" she said
+tragically, "instead, a dungeon shall be your doom. We will let the
+Duchess remain as a receiver of odds and ends. I suppose her suspicions
+were excited by the sight of these articles. A rare cat! a learned cat!
+now please set the table, for our feast will soon be prepared!" and Cyn
+bent over the sizzling steak, that emitted a most appetizing odor.
+
+Setting that table was no such easy matter as might appear, for what
+with the big fruit-dish, wooden covers, different sizes of plates and
+other incongruous articles, considerable management was necessary.
+
+"I shall have to put the sugar on in the bag," Nattie said, incautiously
+backing to view the general effect, and so stumbling over the saucepan
+of potatoes that sat on the floor, but luckily doing no damage.
+
+"Ah, well! Eccentricity is quite the rage now, you know," responded the
+philosophical Cyn, "and certainly, a sugar-bowl so closely resembling a
+brown paper bag as not to be distinguishable from the real thing, is
+quite _recherche_. But my dear Nat, where am I to set the steak if you
+have that big fruit-dish in the center of the table, taking up all the
+room?"
+
+"I shall have to put it on the floor, then," Nattie answered,
+despairingly, "for I have tried it on all parts of the table! If you set
+it on the edge," she added hastily, seeing Cyn about to do so, "you will
+tip the whole thing over!"
+
+"Then we must have a side-board," Cyn announced, with a plate of steak
+in one hand, and the big fruit-dish in the other. "Put my writing-desk
+on a chair, please; spread a towel over it, and there you have it!"
+
+"But what a quantity of eatables we have! Two pounds of steak, ten big
+potatoes, a two-quart dish of tomatoes, two large pies, two Charlotte
+Russes, an urn of coffee, a dozen oranges and a box of figs--good
+gracious! Think of two people eating all that!" exclaimed Nattie,
+decidedly dismayed at the prospect.
+
+"It is considerable," Cyn confessed, surveying the array with a slightly
+daunted expression. "You see I am not used to buying for a family, and I
+was afraid of getting too little. But," brightening, "there isn't more
+than one quart of the tomatoes, and there are _three_ of us, you know--the
+Duchess!"
+
+"To be sure; I had forgotten her!" Nattie said, recovering her
+equanimity, and glancing at the purring animal, who was looking on
+approvingly, and evidently appreciated the difference between sirloin
+and her usual rations of round.
+
+"Then let the revels commence, at once!" cried Cyn, rolling down her
+sleeves, while Nattie wiped the smut from her face.
+
+But now another difficulty presented itself; the chairs were all too low
+to admit of feasting with the anticipated rapture; this was soon
+overcome, however, by piling a few books in the highest chair, and
+appropriating the music-stool.
+
+"Now for a feast," exclaimed Nattie, exultantly, as they sat down
+triumphant, and she brandished her very big knife and extremely small
+fork, while Cyn poured the coffee from the--urn; an undertaking attended
+with some difficulty, and requiring caution; and the Duchess looked on
+expectantly.
+
+And then--the goal almost reached--upon their startled ears came a
+dreadful sound--the sound of a knock at the door!
+
+Down to the ground went Nattie's knife and fork, the coffee-urn narrowly
+escaped a similar fate, up went the back of the Duchess, and two
+dismayed Bohemians and one impatient cat gazed at each other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+UNEXPECTED VISITORS.
+
+
+"It must be Miss Kling, overpowered by curiosity!" murmured Nattie.
+
+"No!" answered Cyn in a stage whisper, "the knock is too timid. Good
+gracious! there it is again! Stand in front of the gas stove, Nat, lest
+it be Mrs. Simonson, while I go and invent some excuse for not letting
+in whoever it is."
+
+And having given these hasty directions, Cyn opened the door the
+smallest possible crack. As she did so, and before she could speak, it
+was pushed back violently, almost knocking her over, and in burst
+Quimby. This, however, might not have much disconcerted them, as _he_
+could have been disposed of easily enough, had not at his heels came a
+tall, fine-looking young man, a perfect stranger to both Cyn and Nattie.
+
+"You see I keep my word!" was the enigmatical remark the smiling Quimby
+made as he entered. Then, catching sight of the festive board, he
+stopped short and stared, with an utterly confounded face, at that, at
+the embarrassed Nattie, at Cyn, behind the door, and at the saucepan
+cover, which, embellished with potato parings, occupied a prominent
+position in the middle of the floor.
+
+His companion also paused, a surprised and amused smile lurking in his
+merry brown eyes as he looked at Nattie, seemingly regardless of
+anything else in the room.
+
+Cyn was the first to recover from the general petrifaction, and with the
+involuntary thought, "what an excellent stage situation!" came from
+behind the door, where Quimby's impetuous entrance had thrust her,
+saying, with as much ease as she could possibly gather together,
+
+"Don't be frightened at what you see, friend Quimby; we were only
+extemporizing a little feast, that is all. Will you join us?"
+
+But Quimby only stared harder than ever; he was evidently struck
+speechless.
+
+His companion, thus placed in the awkward position of an unintroduced
+intruder, withdrew his eyes from Nattie, took in the situation at a
+glance, and turning to Cyn, said, smiling,
+
+"I think we owe you an apology for our intrusion; my friend Quimby, on
+whom I called to day, in pity for my being a stranger in the city,
+kindly offered to introduce me to some friends of his. He informed me we
+were expected, but I fear we have made a mistake."
+
+At this Quimby recovered his voice.
+
+"No!" he cried, in stentorian tones, "it was not--I _cannot_ have made a
+mistake this time, you know! Cyn"--looking at her reproachfully--"you
+knew about it! I met you a short time ago, and asked you--and you said
+we might come, you know!"
+
+Half amazed and half amused, Cyn shook her head in denial, at which
+action Quimby started and turned pale.
+
+"Why I--I beg pardon--but in the hall! you said, 'certainly,' you know!"
+
+"Oh!" said Cyn, a light breaking in upon her. "I see, but I did not then
+understand you, I suppose;" rallying from her embarrassment, "my mind
+was so occupied with our feast, I was incapable of thinking of anything
+else; so please consider this an apology for the condition in which you
+find us, to yourself and your friend, whom, you will pardon me for
+reminding you, you have _not_ introduced," and Cyn looking laughingly at
+the stranger, who also laughed.
+
+"Oh! I--I beg pardon, I am sure, for--for all my stupidities. I--I am
+always doing something wrong, but I--I am used to it, you know," said
+the disconcerted Quimby; then wiping the perspiration from his forehead,
+he added clumsily, "my friend, Mr. Stanwood--Cyn--and Miss--Miss
+Rogers."
+
+Mr. Stanwood gayly shook hands with Cyn, whom Quimby had nervously
+forgotten to honor with a Miss, and then advanced to Nattie, who had not
+stirred from her position as screen for the gas stove, saying,
+
+"I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Rogers."
+
+And as Nattie accepted his proffered hand, in an embarrassed way, not
+yet being able to rise to the situation, and observed the peculiarly
+roguish expression with which he regarded her, she suddenly became aware
+that she had seen him on some previous occasion, but where she was
+utterly at loss to remember.
+
+Cyn, too, was struck by something a little odd in his manner to Nattie,
+and glanced at him curiously, as she said in her most cordial tones,
+
+"And now, gentlemen, as we have exchanged apologies all around, please
+be seated."
+
+Quimby immediately bounced up from the music-stool, on which, in his
+agitation, he had involuntarily dropped.
+
+"Oh, no!" he exclaimed hastily. "We--we did did not come to dinner, you
+know!"
+
+Cyn smiled at Quimby's anxiety to disclaim intentions no one thought of
+attributing to him, and turning to Mr. Stanwood, asked, thereby greatly
+scandalizing Nattie,
+
+"But supposing you were invited to stay and share our banquet, would
+you?"
+
+"Were I sure the invitation was heartfelt, I should be sorely tempted;
+wouldn't you, Quimby?" Mr. Stanwood replied, easily.
+
+Poor Quimby twirled his thumbs confusedly, and murmured something about
+leaving the ladies to enjoy their "feast" alone.
+
+"We have eatables enough for six, as Nat was just now intimating," went
+on Cyn, who certainly had a touch of true Bohemianism in her
+composition, as well as Jo Norton. "But our dishes, 'ay, there's the
+rub,'" and she laughingly held up the coffee-urn, while the less
+adaptable Nattie thought apprehensively of the propensity of things to
+cool.
+
+Undaunted by the urn, Mr. Stanwood said, with humorous wistfulness, but
+looking at Nattie,
+
+"You won't force us to eat the dishes, will you? and that steak smells
+so nice, and I haven't had any dinner!"
+
+"Then away with ceremony and sit down to the banquet!" said the reckless
+Cyn, regardless of the protest in Nattie's face; and truth to tell, the
+former young lady was not at all averse to this addition to their
+number.
+
+And to the consternation of Quimby, and dismay of Nattie, and possibly a
+little to the surprise of Cyn, Mr. Stanwood replied by seating himself
+down in a rocking-chair, and saying gayly,
+
+"I feel positive that I am about to enjoy myself as I have not since I
+was a boy, and stole eggs, and cooked them on a flat rock behind my
+uncle's barn, and had raw turnip for dessert. Sit down, Quimby!"
+
+Upon this Quimby, with a blushing protest against an intrusion, that did
+not seem to trouble his merry friend in the least, also sat down.
+
+As he did so, Nattie screamed; but too late. On the crowning glory of
+the feast, on those enticing Charlotte Russes, crowded from the table on
+to a chair, there was Quimby!
+
+"Bless my soul! what is the matter?" he asked, staring astounded at
+Nattie's scream, but still sitting there, entirely of the
+ruin he had wrought.
+
+Cyn's anguish knew no bounds, as she saw what had happened.
+
+"Get up!" she cried, wringing her hands, "can't you get up? good
+gracious! don't you know what you are sitting on?"
+
+"Eh?" he queried, rising obediently, and looking at her with a blank
+expression. "Sitting on?" then following her frantic gesture, he turned
+and looked at the chair behind him, and instantly horror overspread his
+countenance.
+
+"Bless my soul!" he gasped, turning round and round, trying to get a
+glimpse of his own coat-tails. "How did it come there? what is it?"
+
+"It is--_was Charlotte Russe!_" said Nattie, in gloomy despair.
+
+"_Charlotte Russe!_" echoed Quimby, still turning himself around like a
+revolving light. "It--it don't look much like it, you know!"
+
+At this, Mr. Stanwood, who had with difficulty suppressed his laughter
+until now, burst into an uncontrollable roar, in which he was joined by
+Cyn, and then by Nattie. They laughed until utterly exhausted, Quimby
+all the time keeping up his rotatory motion, with a face whose
+lugubriousness cannot be described.
+
+"I--I--bless my soul! I will replace what I have destroyed! I--I assure
+you, I will!" the unfortunate Quimby groaned, as soon as he could be
+heard. "I--what can I say, to express my sorrow--I--" and suddenly
+ceasing to revolve, he snatched Mr. Stanwood's hat, and started for the
+door.
+
+"Where are you going!" his friend questioned as gravely as he could.
+
+"More Charlotte Russes!" he responded incoherently, and with an agonized
+face.
+
+"If I may be permitted to make a suggestion," said Mr. Stanwood with
+labored gravity, "I should say, some little change in your toilet would
+be quite appropriate before going on the street, and moreover, that my
+hat will not fit your head!"
+
+At this, Quimby dropped the hat he held as if it had been red-hot,
+glanced at the chair whereon he had so lately distinguished himself,
+took up the tails of his coat one in each hand, revolved again, and then
+without a word darted from the room.
+
+As well as she could from laughing, Cyn called after him, telling him
+not to mind about getting the Charlotte Russes, and to hurry back, but
+he made no response.
+
+"Poor Quimby!" said Mr. Stanwood, wiping the tears of excessive mirth
+from his eyes. "He is such a good fellow, it is too bad he always is in
+hot water."
+
+"Yes," assented Cyn, removing the chair with the remains of what had
+been clinging to it from sight, Nattie following it with a somewhat
+rueful glance. "Shall we wait for him? I fear our dinner is getting
+cold."
+
+"I don't think we had better," Nattie, who had long been filled with a
+similar presentiment, responded. "There is no knowing whether he will
+return or not, and it's no use in having everything spoiled."
+
+"I do not think he will expect us to wait," Mr. Stanwood said.
+
+"Well then," said Cyn, "here is a chair for you, Mr. Stanwood. It's all
+right, so you need not look before sitting. Luckily you are taller than
+we, and need no books to raise you. Now the question is, what shall we
+give you to eat from? Ah! here is the bread plate! Nat, can't you find
+another wooden cover? No? Then spread a piece of brown paper over
+'Scribner's.' How fortunate we have an extra knife and fork; you don't
+mind their being oyster forks? I thought not! Nat and I will use the
+same spoon, so you can have a whole one. Nat, you and I will have to
+drink from that cracked tumbler."
+
+"Allow me," interrupted Mr. Stanwood. "Do you know," solemnly, "a
+cracked tumbler is and always was the height of my ambition."
+
+"Well then, we are all right!" said the jovial Cyn. "But I fear," she
+added, helping to steak, "if Quimby comes before we finish, he will have
+to go foraging for his own dishes!"
+
+Mr. Stanwood was praising the steak, which he certainly ate as if the
+admiration was genuine, when a timid rap announced Quimby's reappearance
+on the scene. In complete change of raiment, smelling like a field of
+new-mown hay, and figuratively clothed in sackcloth and ashes, he
+entered.
+
+"I--I beg pardon," he said, looking not at those he addressed, but
+humbly at the Duchess, who had been walking the floor impatiently and
+indignantly, but was now contentedly chewing. "I--I assure you I shall
+be delighted to go out and get Charlotte Russes to replace those I so
+wantonly destroyed. Will you--may I be allowed?"
+
+"Not on any account," said Cyn, quickly. "Besides, the stores are closed
+to-day."
+
+"So they are, so they are!" he exclaimed, putting his hand to his head
+dejectedly.
+
+"But we can exist without Charlotte Russes, I think," Nattie said. She
+had quite recovered her good humor, and was reconciled even to Mr.
+Stanwood's company; indeed, had secretly confessed he was really an
+acquisition. Such is the power of good beefsteak!
+
+"Some other time we will talk about it," Cyn said. "And now, we must
+improvise you a cup, plate, knife, fork, and spoon. I know you must be
+hungry after your exploit."
+
+Quimby blushed.
+
+"I--you shall have fifty Charlotte Russes tomorrow!" he ejaculated. "But
+the articles you mention--I--have in my room, and will bring them. You
+see I--sometimes have a little private lunch myself, you know," and
+departing, he in a moment returned with his dinner accouterments which
+Cyn commanded him to put down at once, lest he demolish them.
+
+"Let me see," she added, as he meekly deposited his burden on the
+nearest piece of furniture--which happened to be the piano. "I can make
+room for you here, next me, I think."
+
+"No! no!" he exclaimed quickly; "if you will be so kind, I--I would
+rather sit on that little stool in the corner, where I can do no damage,
+you know!"
+
+"Oh! we must not make a martyr of you!" laughed Nattie, as she cut a pie
+with a very dull knife, which caused the very unsteady table to shake,
+so that every one's coffee slopped over.
+
+"No, indeed; there is plenty of room here," added Mr. Stanwood,
+steadying his cracked tumbler. But Quimby shook his head.
+
+"Now, really--I--I shall feel much more comfortable if I may--if you
+will allow me to sit on the stool. I--I am used to it, you know! 'Pon my
+word, I--I mean all right, but some way I always make a mess of it!"
+
+Cyn would have remonstrated further, but Mr. Stanwood said, "We had
+better let him be happy in his own way; I suppose he will not be easy
+unless we do!"
+
+And so Quimby, much to his satisfaction, was allowed to eat his share of
+the feast on a low stool, in the corner, like a naughty school-boy.
+
+Visitors were destined to be numerous to-day, for hardly had Quimby been
+served, when a knock at the door was followed by the appearance of Jo,
+who tip-toed into the room, and in a mysterious whisper, said,
+
+"I saw Quimby enter this room, bearing utensils that could only be used
+for one purpose! I smelt a savory odor! and here I am!"
+
+"And welcome, too!" said Cyn, laughing; "come, sit here by me. Are you
+and Mr. Stanwood acquainted?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" replied Jo, perching himself on the arm of a rocking-chair
+close to Cyn, and appropriating a wooden cover for a plate as he spoke.
+"He and Quimby did me the honor to call on me to-day, but left for metal
+more attractive--whether the dinner or you ladies, I will not pretend to
+say!"
+
+"It was we ladies, you dreadful matter-of-fact creature!" said Nattie.
+"Their presence at the dinner was quite accidental; Cyn and I started
+out for a little quiet feast, and behold the result! Bohemian enough for
+even you, isn't it, Jo?"
+
+"Exactly what I like!" replied Jo--and very close indeed to Cyn had Jo
+managed to get, but then the table was very small--"But the idea of you
+two girls proposing to selfishly enjoy such a feast all alone!"
+
+"I begin to think we did make a mistake, in not making preparations for,
+and inviting a larger party," acquiesced Cyn.
+
+"I wonder if Miss Rogers has overcome her anger towards offending me?"
+questioned Mr. Stanwood, looking at her roguishly, as she helped him to
+a second piece of pie.
+
+"My anger towards you?" repeated Nattie, coloring.
+
+"Yes; you did not want me to accept Miss Archer's most kind invitation,
+and remain; now confess, did you?" he asked, laughing.
+
+Nattie was rather embarrassed at this instance of the young gentleman's
+perceptive faculties, and not exactly able to refute the charge, was
+somewhat at loss how to reply.
+
+"I--I do not get acquainted quite so easily as Cyn," she stammered.
+
+"Except on the wire!" Cyn added.
+
+"Except on the wire," repeated Nattie, with a smile; then meeting the
+curious glance of Mr. Stanwood, it suddenly flashed upon her that he was
+the same young gentleman who had called at the office, and inquired
+about the tariff to Washington, for the sole object of talking, as she
+then supposed.
+
+"I have seen you before!" she exclaimed, on the impulse of the moment.
+
+"That sounds like a novel! what is coming now?" ejaculated Jo, with his
+mouth full of pie.
+
+Mr. Stanwood laughed very heartily at Nattie's exclamation, and asked in
+reply,
+
+"Have you just discovered it? I recognized you the moment I entered the
+room to-day. That is one reason I was so anxious to remain. She snubbed
+me most outrageously," he added to Cyn, in explanation, "and simply
+because I tried to be agreeable to her one day at the office."
+
+"But you had no business to be agreeable!" said Nattie, also laughing,
+and not at all displeased.
+
+"Of course you had not," interrupted Jo.
+
+"I never talk to strangers," concluded Nattie.
+
+"Except, perhaps, on the wire, as you said just now!" he suggested.
+
+"You have caught her now!" said Cyn gayly, as she peeled an orange. "But
+you will never do even that again, will you, Nat?"
+
+"One such experience is quite enough for me," Nattie replied.
+
+"Still, the next one might not have red hair, or smell of musk!" Jo
+remarked.
+
+"He might be even worse, though!" interposed the penitent on the stool.
+
+With a strangely puzzled look, Mr. Stanwood glanced from one to the
+other, observing which, Cyn said,
+
+"You don't understand, of course. May I tell him, Nat?"
+
+"Ah! well--yes!" Nattie replied with an air of vexed resignation. "I
+suppose I may as well make up my mind to be laughed at on account of
+that story forever and a day."
+
+"I am as much of a victim as you, for I was intensely interested in the
+unknown," laughed Cyn; then turning to Mr. Stanwood, she went on. "It
+appears telegraph operators have a way of talking together over the
+wire, knowing little about each other, and nothing at all of their
+mutual personal appearance. In this manner, Nat became acquainted with a
+young man whom she knew as 'C,' and grew, to speak mildly, interested in
+him--Now, Nat, you know you did--and so, as I remarked previously, did
+I--we were introduced over the wire. In fact, he seemed everything that
+was nice and agreeable, and if we did not actually fall in love with
+him--you see, I am sharing your glory all I can, Nat--it is a wonder."
+
+"If this 'C' knew the impression he made on two young ladies, he would
+certainly feel complimented," Mr. Stanwood, who was playing with his
+knife and fork, here interrupted.
+
+"Fortunately, he never really knew," replied Cyn, while Nattie looked
+somewhat gloomily at her goblet of coffee, in memory of the romance that
+collapsed. "To continue this ower true tale!--Thus far all was
+mysterious, enchanting, romantic. But now comes the dark sequel. One day
+'C' called--bodily."
+
+Mr. Stanwood started and looked quickly up at Nattie, who, without
+observing his glance, murmured contemptuously,
+
+"Odious creature!"
+
+At this he turned with a perplexed look again to Cyn, who proceeded.
+
+"Yes, an odious creature he proved to be. Only think, he had red hair,
+and dreadful teeth, smelt of musk, wore cheap jewelry, and, in short,
+was decidedly vulgar!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Mr. Stanwood, staring at her as if he thought she was
+bereft of her senses. "What!" and he dropped his knife and fork, and
+pushed his chair back violently, to the alarm of the Duchess, who was
+immediately behind.
+
+Cyn appeared astonished at his vehemence; but Nattie, too occupied with
+thoughts of this newly-revived grievance to observe it, repeated,
+
+"Red hair, all bear's grease, and everything to match!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," Mr. Stanwood asked, looking at her earnestly,
+and speaking with great energy, "that a person, such as you describe,
+called on you and represented himself to be 'C'?"
+
+"Exactly," Nattie replied; "first telling me he was going away to
+substitute for a day, and then coming upon me in all his odiousness."
+
+"The story seems to interest you," added Cyn, glancing at him
+scrutinizingly.
+
+Mr. Stanwood looked at her, at Nattie, mused a moment, and then burst
+into a laugh, equal even to the one Quimby had caused.
+
+"It does interest me," he said, as soon as he could speak; "very much,
+indeed. It is really the best joke--considered from one point--I ever
+heard. And, of course, after that day, 'C' was cut?"
+
+"Indeed he was," Nattie replied, scornfully.
+
+"The circuit was broken after that!" Jo added, technically.
+
+"And a romance was spoiled in the first act," added Cyn, rising from the
+now vanished feast.
+
+"Poor 'C'!" said Mr. Stanwood, following her example. "Really, Miss
+Archer, I have enjoyed this dinner better than any I ever had, and the
+climax is the best of all!"
+
+"I wish we might have such a feast every day!" said Jo, regretfully.
+
+"And, except the damage--I don't refer to any done myself, I--I am used
+to it, you know--I quite agree with you about the dinner. And as for the
+joke--I--I--really it was quite a serious one to Miss Rogers, at the
+time, I assure you. Bless my soul! You should have seen how--how blue
+she was for a week, you know!" said Quimby.
+
+Nattie colored as Mr. Stanwood glanced at her, and knowing he could not
+but notice the blush, thought angrily, "How dreadful it is to have such
+honest, outspoken people as Quimby about!"
+
+"Come, Nat, and help me clear away the remains," said Cyn. Apparently
+glad enough was Nattie to obey, and turn aside her burning face from the
+sight of those merry brown eyes.
+
+In a very few moments the banqueting hall was transformed to a parlor,
+with only Quimby sucking an orange on his stool that he refused to
+leave, Jo cracking nuts, and the Duchess eating a fig, to tell of what
+had been.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+THE BROKEN CIRCUIT RE-UNITED.
+
+
+Mr. Stanwood sat down at the table where Nattie was looking over Cyn's
+album, and seemed to have become very thoughtful; Cyn meanwhile busied
+herself in dressing an ugly gash the ever-unfortunate Quimby had managed
+to inflict on his hand.
+
+Suddenly Nattie was disturbed by Mr. Stanwood drumming with a pencil on
+the marble top of the table, and glancing up casually, observed his eyes
+fixed upon her with a peculiar expression, and at the same moment her
+ear seemed to catch a familiar sound. With a slight start she listened
+more attentively to his seemingly idle drumming. Yes--whether knowingly,
+or by accident, he certainly was making dots and dashes, and what is
+more, was making N's!
+
+"I will soon ascertain if he means it or not!" thought Nattie, and
+seizing a pair of scissors, the only adaptable instrument handy, she
+drummed out, slowly, on account of the imperfectness of her impromptu
+key--pretending all the while to be entirely absorbed in the album,
+
+"Are you an operator?"
+
+Mr. Stanwood, in his turn, seemingly deeply engaged in the contents of a
+book, immediately drummed in response,
+
+"Yes."
+
+Nattie felt the color come into her face.
+
+"Oh, dear!" she thought, "and Cyn told him that ridiculous story! Every
+operator in town will know it now." Then with the scissors she asked,
+
+"Why didn't you say so? Where is your office?"
+
+"I have none now," the pencil answered, while Cyn, glancing across the
+room, wondered to see the two so studious, and unsuspiciously asked
+Quimby if he supposed they were practicing for a drum corps? After a few
+meaningless dots, the pencil went on,
+
+"A little girl at B m was dreadfully sold one day!"
+
+The album Nattie held fell from her hands as she stared petrified at her
+_vis-a-vis_, who kept his eyes on his book with the most innocent
+expression imaginable, one that even a Chinaman could not have equaled.
+Where could he have heard those words, once so familiar? A moment's
+thought gave her the most probable key.
+
+"You are in the main office of this city, and have heard me talking with
+'C'!" she wrote, as fast as the scissors would let her.
+
+"No, to the first of your surmise," came from the pencil, "and yes to
+the last."
+
+"What office were you in?" the scissors asked.
+
+"X n," responded the pencil.
+
+"What! with 'C'?" asked the scissors, and if ever there was a pair of
+excited scissors, these were the ones.
+
+"Well--yes," replied the pencil with provoking slowness. "Don't you
+'_C_' the point? Can't you 'C' that you did not 'C' the 'C' you thought
+you did 'C' that day?"
+
+Nattie's breath came fast, and her hand trembled so she could not hold
+the scissors. With a crash they dropped on the table, making one loud,
+long dash. But the imperturbable pencil went on calmly,
+
+"It was all a mistake. I am--'C'!"
+
+Disdaining scissors and pencil, Nattie started up, exclaiming
+vehemently,
+
+"What do you mean? it can't be possible!"
+
+The consternation of Cyn, who was just informing Quimby that his wound
+would do very well now, the horror of the patient, and the surprise of
+Jo Norton at this emphatic and unaccountable outburst from the hitherto
+so silent Nattie was indescribable.
+
+"Good gracious, Nat! what in the world is the matter?" cried Cyn,
+starting up and bringing the bottle of liniment she held in violent
+contact with Quimby's head, a circumstance that even the victim did not
+notice, so absorbed was he in amazement.
+
+At Nattie's exclamation, Mr. Stanwood threw aside his book, pencil, and
+innocent countenance together, and regardless of any one but her, sprang
+to his feet, advanced with both hands extended, and shining eyes,
+saying,
+
+"I mean just what I said, it is possible!"
+
+Hardly knowing what she did, utterly confused and bewildered, Nattie
+placed her hand in the two that clasped it, while Cyn stared with
+distended eyes, Quimby with wide-open mouth, and Jo gave a long whistle.
+Cyn was first to recover, and began to scold.
+
+"Well," she exclaimed, "this _is_ a pretty piece of business, never yet
+played on any stage, I should think! Nat, will you, or will somebody
+have the goodness to explain this sudden and extraordinary scene?"
+
+"I--I don't understand!" Nattie murmured faintly, and looking
+half-frightened, and half-beseechingly at Mr. Stanwood, who in response
+smiled and said, with a firmer clasp of the hand he still held,
+
+"I will explain in a very few moments how it is possible that I am the
+real 'C'!"
+
+"What!" screamed Cyn.
+
+"What!" shouted Jo.
+
+"What!!" absolutely yelled Quimby.
+
+"There has been a mistake!" Mr. Stanwood said, now looking at Cyn.
+
+"A mistake!" she repeated excitedly, "what _do_ you mean? YOU 'C,' our
+'C,' of the wire? Nonsense! You are joking!"
+
+"Yes, he is joking!" Quimby reiterated, but his teeth chattered as he
+spoke. "He is a dreadful fellow to joke, Clem is!"
+
+"Clem!" cried Cyn and Nattie, in the same breath.
+
+"Do you begin to believe me?" said the gentleman who had caused all this
+disturbance, and looking at Nattic, who now, becoming conscious that her
+hand was yet in his, withdrew it hastily, with a deep blush.
+
+"I don't know what to think!" cried Cyn.
+
+"Do explain something, quick, or I shall burst a blood-vessel with
+impatience; I know I shall!" exclaimed Jo.
+
+Mr. Stanwood complied, by saying,
+
+"The fact of the case is simply this. That red-haired young man, so
+graphically described by you girls, that 'odious creature,' was the
+operator I went to substitute for that day!"
+
+"Oh!" said Nattie, a light beginning to break upon her.
+
+"But how--" commenced Cyn.
+
+"I will tell you how, if you will be patient," Mr. Stanwood interrupted,
+smiling. "His office, as you," looking at Nattie, "remember, had once
+been on our wire. He had heard 'N' and I talking, and in fact had often
+annoyed us by breaking. So, as he was at the city, he took the
+opportunity to pass himself off for me; perhaps for the sake of a joke,
+perhaps from more malicious motives. I recognized his description at
+once, from your story to-day, and I remember, too, his telling me on his
+return, that he knew the best joke of the season; a remark I did not
+notice, never supposing it concerned me."
+
+"Yes!" said Nattie, eagerly, "and he was very particular to ask me not
+to mention his call, on the wire."
+
+"I do not suppose he imagined but we would eventually discover the
+fraud, however; and so we should, had not you," looking rather
+reproachfully at Nattie, "in your haste to drop so undesirable an
+acquaintance, avoided the least hint of the true cause. How the dickens
+was I to know what was the matter? I puzzled my brains enough over it, I
+assure you."
+
+"And that red-headed impostor has been chuckling in his sleeve ever
+since, I suppose," said Cyn, indignantly; then seizing. Mr. Stanwood by
+the arms, she cried, in a transport of delight, "and it really is true?
+you are our 'C?'"
+
+"What! am I not yet believed?" he questioned, laughing; "what more shall
+I do to convince you of my identity? you accepted our red-headed friend
+readily enough!"
+
+"Oh! I believe you!" cried Nattie, eagerly; then stopped, and colored,
+abashed at her own so plainly shown delight.
+
+But Mr. Stanwood looked at her with a gratified expression in his brown
+eyes.
+
+"And you will not snub me any more, will you?" he said, pleadingly;
+"because I never use bear's grease or musk, and my hair isn't red a
+bit!"
+
+"I will try and make amends," Nattie answered, shyly; adding, "I ought
+to have known there was some mistake. I never could reconcile that
+creature and--and 'C'!"
+
+"Then I may flatter myself that I am an improvement?" asked Mr.
+Stanwood, merrily; at which Nattie murmured something about fishing for
+compliments, and Cyn replied gayly,
+
+"Yes; because you have curly hair! You remember what I said on the wire,
+_via_ Nat?"
+
+"Could I forget?" he replied, gallantly.
+
+"And it isn't a dream! You are 'C', the real 'C,'" replied Cyn, pinching
+herself, and then seizing Nattie, who, from the suddenness of it all was
+yet in a semi-bewildered state--there was not a bit of unhappiness in
+it, though--waltzed ecstatically around the room, crying, "Oh! I am so
+glad! I am so glad!"
+
+At this point Quimby, who, during the preceding explanation had listened
+with a face illustrating every variety of consternation and dismay,
+attracted attention to himself by an audible groan, observing which, he
+muttered something about his "wound"--the word had a double meaning for
+him then, poor fellow!--and rising, came forward, took his friend by the
+shoulder, and asked, solemnly,
+
+"Now, Clem--I--I beg pardon--but is it--is this all true, and--and not
+one of your jokes, you know? Honestly, are you that--that 'C'?"
+
+"Here is a doubting Thomas for you!" cried Clem, gayly. "But, upon my
+word of honor, old boy, I truly and honestly am 'that C,' and I suppose
+you were the 'other visitor of no consequence,' who called with Miss
+Archer that day I was favored by an introduction to her. How little I
+thought it then!"
+
+"How little _I_ thought it!" groaned Quimby, as his hand fell dejectedly
+from Clem's shoulder. "But I--I am used to it, you know!" So saying he
+sank into a chair. That _he_ had brought about such a result as
+this--that _he_ had resurrected the dreaded "C" from the grave of musk
+and bear's grease was too much.
+
+"But now that all is explained, I am really not sorry for the mistake,"
+Clem said, utterly unconscious of his friend's state of mind. "For, had
+it not been for that I should never have learned, as I have to-day, from
+you two ladies, what a very interesting and agreeable fellow I am!" and
+he bowed profoundly, with a twinkle of merriment in his eyes.
+
+"Over the wire," Nattie added, pointedly.
+
+"Of course, over the wire!" he said, with another bow. "But it shall be
+my endeavor to make good my reputation, minus the wire!"
+
+"You will have to work very hard to place Mr. Stanwood where 'C' was in
+our good graces!" said Cyn, archly.
+
+"Then suppose we drop the Mr. Stanwood, and take up Clem, who already
+was somewhat advanced!" he said, adroitly.
+
+"Ah! Clem sounds more natural, doesn't it, Nat?" questioned Cyn
+laughing; "we knew Clem and 'C,' but Mr. Stanwood is a stranger!"
+
+"Then let us drop him by all means! and now say you are glad to see your
+old friend!" said Clem, gayly.
+
+"We are transported with delight at beholding our Clem, so lately given
+up as lost forever!" Cyn replied with equal gayety; and Clem, then
+looking at Nattie, as if he expected her to say something also, she
+murmured,
+
+"I am very glad to meet 'C,'" a remark that sounded cold beside that of
+enthusiastic Cyn. But in fact Nattie was so confused, so happy, and so
+strangely timid, that she longed to get away by herself and think it all
+over and quietly realize it; and besides, in her secret heart, Nattie
+felt a growing conviction that Cyn used the plural pronoun we more than
+previous circumstances actually warranted.
+
+"But Nat," said Cyn, all unconscious of her friend's jealous criticism,
+"you have not yet told me how you found him out?"
+
+"He telegraphed to me with a pencil on the table, and coolly informed me
+that he was 'C,'" Nattie explained.
+
+"And then you jumped up and threw us uninitiated ones into a great state
+of alarm," said Cyn; "and instead of practicing for a drum corps, as I
+supposed, you were talking secretly, you sly creatures!" then turning to
+Clem, she asked, laughing, "what did you think when Nat dropped you so
+suddenly and completely?"
+
+"What could I think, except that it was a caprice of hers," he answered,
+laughing. "At first I thought she was vexed at my having gone to B a,
+but she denied that, and finally I believe I became angry myself, and
+concluded to let her have her own way. Nevertheless, I could not resist
+calling to see her, when I came to the city, and had I met with any
+encouragement, I should probably have declared myself, but I was
+annihilated without ceremony."
+
+"You would not have been, perhaps, had you been honest in the first
+place, instead of asking unnecessary questions about tariffs," replied
+Nattie.
+
+"Yes, but you were to recognize me by intuition you know, and I wanted
+to give you a chance," responded Clem, quickly.
+
+Nattie looked a trifle abashed.
+
+"But I am quite sure I should have suspected it was you, had I not given
+you up as hopelessly red-headed," she persisted; "why, almost the very
+first question the creature asked was, 'do you see that twinkle?'"
+
+"So he heard and treasured that remark to some purpose," he said; "well,
+I will not dispute your intuition theory, since your last words assure
+me that I do not fall so far short of your imaginary 'C,' as did my
+personator. I imagine your expression of countenance, on learning the
+intelligence, was hardly flattering to his vanity."
+
+Nattie, who had colored at the first of his remark, replied
+contemptuously,
+
+"His self-conceit was too great to attribute my very uncordial reception
+to anything except, as he said, 'my bashfulness.' I presume it has
+afforded him great enjoyment to think how successfully he stepped into
+your shoes, and what a joke he had played upon me."
+
+"Upon _us_, you mean," corrected Clem.
+
+"Certainly; upon _us_," Nattie replied, with another flush of color. "I
+remember how indifferent he seemed when I hinted that now we had met the
+chief pleasure of talking on the wire was gone. And I believe he didn't
+actually say in so many words that he was 'C,' but left me to understand
+it so."
+
+"And I am indebted to him for being such a lonesome, miserable fellow
+the latter part of my telegraphic career," said Clem, rather savagely.
+
+Nattie murmured something about the time passing pleasanter when there
+was some one to talk with, and Cyn asked, curiously,
+
+"Then you have left the dot and dash business, have you?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It was merely temporary with me," Clem replied; then seating
+himself on the sofa beside Nattie, and drawing a chair up for Cyn,
+between himself and Jo--Quimby being at the other end of the room, a
+prey to his emotions--Clem continued;
+
+"The truth of the matter is simply this, my father, with a
+pig-headedness worthy of Eugene Wrayburn's M. R. F. in 'Our Mutual
+Friend,' determined to make a doctor of me, not on account of any
+qualifications of mine, but for the simple reason that a doctor is a
+good thing to have in a family. But I, having an intense dislike to the
+smell of drugs, a repugnance to knowing anything more than absolutely
+necessary about the 'ills that flesh is heir to,' and decided objections
+to having the sleep of my future life disturbed, declined, and at the
+same time expressed a desire to go into the store with him, and become a
+merchant. Upon which my most immediate ancestor waxed wroth, called me,
+in plain, unvarnished words, a fool; and a pretty one I was to set
+myself up against his will! I, who couldn't earn my salt without him to
+back me! Being of a contrary opinion myself, I determined to test my
+abilities in the salt line. I began," looking at Nattie, merrily, "by
+salting you!"--then explaining to Cyn, Jo, and the silent Quimby,
+"'Salt' is a term operators use, when one tries to send faster than the
+other can receive. I began my acquaintance with N by trying to 'salt'
+her. To go on with my narrative, I had learned to telegraph at college,
+where the boys had private wires from room to room, and being acquainted
+with one of the managers in our city, succeeded in obtaining that very
+undesirable office down there at X n, where I remained until my stern
+parent relented, concluded to hire a doctor instead of making one, and
+offered me the control of a branch of the firm here in your city. And
+here I am!"
+
+"And isn't it strange how you should have stumbled upon us, feast and
+all?" said Cyn, laughing.
+
+Nattie was again disturbed by the plural pronoun, and also angry at
+herself for observing it.
+
+"Isn't it?" Clem answered merrily; "what a lucky fellow I am! You see,
+not being at all acquainted in the city, I hunted up my old college
+friend Quimby, who asked me to call on some lady friends of his,
+mentioning no names, which of course I was only too glad to do! Imagine
+my surprise and delight when I discovered who those friends were! But I
+don't know as I should have dared to reveal mvself, having been so often
+snubbed,"--With a roguish glance at Nattie-- "if that story had not been
+told and the mystery solved. Imagine my dismay, though, at being called
+an 'odious creature,' and the surprise with which I listened to my own
+description! So earnest were you, that I actually, for a moment, thought
+my hair must have turned red!" and he ran his fingers through his curly
+locks with a rueful face.
+
+The girls laughed, and Cyn exclaimed,
+
+"What a pity it is you tore up that picture, Nat!"
+
+"Yes," acquiesced Nattie, adding, in explanation, to Clem-- "You
+remember that pen and ink sketch? My first act of vengeance was to
+destroy it!"
+
+"Never mind, Jo will do another, will you not?" asked Clem, turning to
+that gentleman, who, upon being thus appealed to, arose, laid down the
+nutcracker he held, and said with the utmost solemnity,
+
+"Jo is ready to draw anything. _But_ Jo is aghast and horrified at being
+mixed even in the slightest degree with anything so near approaching the
+romantic, as the affair in question. What is the use of a fellow shaving
+off his hair, I would like to know, if such things as these will
+happen?"
+
+"It is no use fighting against Nature!" laughed Cyn. "Romance always has
+been since the world was, and always will be, I suppose. Your turn will
+come, Jo! I have no doubt we shall see you a long haired, cadaverous,
+sentimental artist yet!"
+
+"Never!" cried Jo heroically. "But you must confess that this affair is
+taking undue advantage of a fellow. A _wired_ romance is something
+entirely unexpected!"
+
+"And besides, viewed telegraphically, there is nothing at all romantic
+in the whole affair!" said Nattie, who, between her confusion at the
+turn the conversation had taken, and her alarm lest something should be
+said about that chubby Cupid--whom it will be remembered she had
+suppressed in her former description to "C "--was decidedly embarrassed.
+
+Before Jo could express his satisfaction at this statement, Clem
+exclaimed, reproachfully,
+
+"Oh! do not say that! not even to spare our friend's feelings can I deny
+the romance of our acquaintance."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Cyn; "I really believe Nat is going over
+to Jo's ideas. Never mind! just wait until your turn comes, you
+unsentimental Jo."
+
+"Madam!" cried Jo, "when I find myself in the condition you describe, I
+will come and place the disposal of myself in your hands!" and he made
+her a profound bow.
+
+There is many a true word spoken in jest, and none of the little party
+there assembled imagined how true, indeed, these words were to prove, as
+Cyn gayly answered,
+
+"It is a bargain, Jo, and I shall have no mercy on you, I can assure
+you."
+
+"And we must not forget that we are indebted to Quimby for the
+unraveling of all this mystery," said Nattie. She smiled on him where he
+sat, in his dismayed isolation, as she spoke, and although it was the
+warmest smile she had ever yet bestowed upon him, he was rendered no
+happier by its warmth.
+
+"Yes, how fortunate it was, Clem, that you looked him up!" said Cyn.
+
+Nattie wondered that she could pronounce the familiar name so easily.
+She was quite sure she herself could not.
+
+"Was it not?" exclaimed Clem, delightedly; "and what is better than all,
+I am coming here to room with him!" At this Jo shook him cordially by
+the hand, Cyn and Nattie gave exclamations of pleasure, and Quimby
+suddenly started into life. "I--I beg pardon," he said, hastily, "but
+I--I really--I though you said you had rather be farther down town, you
+know."
+
+"Yes, that was my first inclination, but as you urged me so much, and as
+I find so many old friends here, I have concluded to accept your offer,
+my boy, so consider the matter settled," replied Clem.
+
+And in his own entire satisfaction and unconsciousness, Clem did not
+observe but what Quimby looked as happy as might be expected, at this
+intelligence.
+
+"'Oh, won't we have a jolly time,"' sang Cyn, and Clem, Nattie and
+Jo--but not Quimby--took up the chorus.
+
+And obtuse as he was, Quimby could not but observe that Nattie's eyes
+were shining in a way he had never seen them shine before, that the
+ever-coming and going flush on her cheeks was very becoming, and that
+there was an expression in her face, when she looked at Clem, that face
+had never held for _him_. Nor could he fail to think, that the romantic
+commencement of the acquaintance of these two, even the episode of the
+musk-scented impostor all now enhanced the interest Nattie had once felt
+for the invisible "C" neither did he need a prophet to tell him that the
+two girls would sit up half the night, talking confidentially over this
+unexpected and happy _denouement_, or even that Nattie's sleep would not
+be quite as sound as usual.
+
+Love, it is said, is blind. So, to some things, perhaps, it is, but
+never to a rival.
+
+And when at last Clem tore himself away, with the remark,
+
+"What a fortunate day this has been! Quimby, my dear boy, how can I
+thank you? I shall take possession of my half of your apartment at once,
+to be sure no one shall again usurp my place; until then, _au revoir_!"
+and, in parting, perceptibly held Nattie's hand longer than was
+absolutely necessary, Quimby followed him with dejected mien, fully
+aware that of all the mistakes he had ever made he committed the worst,
+when he asked his old chum to call on some lady friends of his!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+MISS KLING TELEGRAPHICALLY BAFFLED.
+
+
+Miss Betsey Kling was quite uneasy in her mind about this time, not only
+because the Torpedo refused to see himself in the light of that other
+self, and fled whenever he saw her approaching, but also because some
+subtle instinct told her, that under her very nose, was going on
+something of which the details were unknown to her, and that listen as
+she would, could not be ascertained. This good-looking young man, who
+had so suddenly appeared on Mrs. Simonson's premises who and what was
+he? From Mrs. Simonson she learned that he was an old friend of
+Quimby's; that she believed he was also an old friend of Miss Archer's,
+or Miss Rogers', or of both, and that his father was very wealthy,
+
+"Humph!" said Miss Kling, with a suspicious sniffle. "Strange that he
+should room with Quimby if his father is so wealthy? Why does he not
+have a room of his own?"
+
+"He and Quimby are such friends, you see!" Mrs. Simonson explained.
+
+Miss Kling gave another sniffle, this time of contempt, at such a reason
+being possible.
+
+"Miss Rogers is in here about all her time when she isn't at the office,
+is she not?" was the next question.
+
+"She is very intimate with Miss Archer," Mrs. Simonson replied.
+
+"And I suppose _he_ and that Quimby are in there with them every evening,
+are they not?" pursued Miss Kling.
+
+They called quite often, Mrs. Simonson acknowledged, as did Mr. Norton,
+and Miss Fishblate.
+
+"They seem to have good times, too," added kindly Mrs. Simonson. "Young
+folks will be young folks, you know. And why not? Bless you! we never
+can enjoy ourselves again as we do when young. There are too many cares
+and worries when we get to our age."
+
+Miss Kling rose stiffly; this allusion to "our age" disgusted and
+offended her beyond pardon, and she flew into a spasm of sneezing.
+
+"Well, I, for one, do not think such conduct is proper," she said, as
+soon as possible. "I was brought up to understand that young ladies
+should never receive the visits of gentlemen except in the presence of
+older people!"
+
+Mrs. Simonson only laughed a little forced laugh she had when she did
+not know exactly what to say. For her own part, although not willing to
+offend Miss Kling by saying so, she was glad to see her lodgers enjoying
+themselves; more than glad to have Clem there, as on his arrival she had
+promptly tacked an extra dollar on the room rent, under the plea that
+the wear and tear on furniture was greater with two in a room.
+
+Miss Kling, fearing, perhaps, another reference to "our age," left her,
+and next attacked Celeste Fishblate, having long ago discovered Nattie
+to be impregnable to the process known as "pumping," a fact that had
+augmented her ever-increasing dislike towards her lodger.
+
+From Celeste, she learned that they had "_such_ nice times!" that Mr.
+Stanwood was "_so_ splendid!" and that "Miss Archer was just _dead_ in
+love with him, and he with her!"
+
+"Humph!" thought Miss Kling with a sneeze. "It's that Miss Archer then,
+is it?" Her next move was to arrest poor Quimby in the hall, intending
+to put him through a series of interrogations regarding the antecedents
+of his friend, and the length of his acquaintance with Miss Archer. But
+in this she was baffled, for at the first question, Quimby exclaimed,
+
+"I--I don't know! Don't ask me!" and fled.
+
+Miss Kling, much to her dissatisfaction, was therefore compelled to make
+the little she had gathered go as far as it would, for the present. But
+she lived in hopes.
+
+It was perhaps not wonderful, that Miss Kling sitting lonely by her
+fireside, and pining for her other self, should feel envious because her
+lodger, whom she took ostensibly for company, was enjoying herself over
+the way evening after evening, and telling her absolutely nothing about
+it, but confining their intercourse to the necessary civilities.
+
+Undoubtedly the few weeks that had passed since Clem's appearance on the
+scene ought to have been the happiest in Nattie's hitherto lonely life,
+happier even than those in which she talked to the then unseen "C," and
+speculated about him with Cyn. But yet--she sometimes felt that a
+certain something that had been on the wire was lacking now; that Clem,
+while realizing all her old expectations of "C," was not exactly what
+"C" had been to her. One reason of this she knew was her own inability
+to conquer a sort of timidity she felt in his presence, a timidity from
+which Cyn was certainly free. Well aware that beside the gay and
+brilliant Cyn she was nowhere, Nattie had a sensitive fear that he might
+be disappointed in her. But she did not yet know that the foundation of
+all these uneasy misgivings of hers was a selfish emotion, the same that
+had prompted that jealous pang at Cyn's "we" the day he first discovered
+himself, and this was, that on the wire "C" had been all hers, but in
+Clem, Cyn seemed to have the largest share.
+
+Twice he had called on Nattie at the office, but neither time could
+stop, and as it happened on each occasion, she was in the midst of a
+rush of business, hat left no chance for conversation. But one rainy
+Saturday afternoon, when a general dullness prevailed, and she was
+fervently wishing the hands of the clock might move on faster towards
+six, Clem holding a very wet umbrella, and with water dripping from his
+curly locks, presented himself. If he was not, he certainly ought to
+have been flattered by the blush with which Nattie involuntarily
+welcomed him.
+
+"Did you rain down?" she hastily exclaimed, hoping by this trite
+commonplace to distract attention from the blush, of which she was
+conscious.
+
+"It appears like it, doesn't it?" he answered merrily, giving himself a
+little shake, and placing his wet umbrella and hat in a corner. "It was
+so dull at the store, I thought I would run around to the scene of
+former exploits. Do you not sometimes wish I was back at X n to keep you
+company such days as these?"
+
+Without thinking twice before she spoke once, Nattie answered candidly,
+as she placed a chair for her visitor,
+
+"Yes, I believe I do, often."
+
+"I do not know whether to take that as a compliment or otherwise," Clem
+said, looking at her as if half vexed.
+
+Nattie glanced up inquiringly
+
+"It certainly is a compliment to my abilities for, making myself
+agreeable at a _distance_. But--" said Clem, with a shrug of his
+shoulders, "a poor fellow does not like to feel as if the farther away
+he is, the better he is liked!"
+
+"Oh! I did not mean it that way at all!" exclaimed Nattie, in hasty
+explanation. "Only, you know, I had more of your company on the wire!"
+
+Clem looked pleased.
+
+"If that is the trouble--" he began, but Nattie interrupted, her face
+very red.
+
+"I did not mean that, either; I meant it was in such a different way,
+you know--and I--I could talk more easily, and--I do not believe I know
+what I do mean!" stopping short in embarrassment.
+
+Clem looked at her and smiled.
+
+"Let us see if it is any easier talking on the wire," he said; and
+taking the key, he wrote,
+
+"Good P m, will you please tell me truly, and relieve my mind, if you
+like me as well as you thought you would?"
+
+Taking the key he relinquished, and without looking at him, she replied,
+"Yes; and suppose I ask you the same question, what would you say,
+politeness aside?"
+
+"I should answer." wrote Clem, his eyes on the sounder, "that I have
+found the very little girl expected!"
+
+And then their eyes met, and Nattie hastily rose and walked to the
+window, for no ostensible purpose, and Clem said, going after her,
+
+"It _is_ nicer talking on the wire, isn't it?"
+
+Nattie was saved the necessity of replying by some one down the line who
+just then inquired,
+
+"Who was that talking soft nonsense just now? We don't allow that sort
+of thing here!"
+
+"How impertinent!" exclaimed Nattie.
+
+"Possibly our red-headed friend is somewhere about," Clem said; then
+taking the key, responded to the unknown questioner,
+
+"Don't trouble yourself; I shall not talk soft nonsense to you!"
+
+"That sounds like 'C's' writing! Is it?" was asked quickly.
+
+"My style must be very peculiar to be so readily detected," Clem said to
+Nattie, laughingly; then replied on the wire, "If you will sign I will
+tell you."
+
+"Em."
+
+"Ah!" said Clem, and immediately acknowledged himself. Then followed a
+short chat with "Em," in which she endeavored to make him confess what
+office he was then sending from, which he persistently refused to do.
+
+Having bade "Em" good-by, and closed the key, he said to Nattie,
+verbally, "We ought to have a private wire of our own, since a wire is
+so necessary to our happiness! I see," glancing around the office, "that
+you have an extra key and sounder here."
+
+"Yes;" Nattie replied, "we had at one time a railroad wire, and when it
+was taken out, the instruments were left, and have been here ever
+since."
+
+"Do you suppose you could take them home--to practice on, say?" queried
+Clem, a sparkle in his brown eyes.
+
+"Doubtless, if I asked permission, they would allow me that privilege;
+why?" asked Nattie, curiously.
+
+"I have a brilliant idea!" replied Clem, gayly. "But do not be alarmed,
+I am used to it, as Quimby would say; it is this. I myself have a key
+and sounder, relics of college days, beauties, too, and if you can take
+home those over there, we will have telegraphic communication from your
+room to ours, immediately. The wire and battery I will fix all right,
+and when Cyn is out, and you can't come over, and at odd times, we will
+have some of our old chats."
+
+"But," said Nattie, hesitatingly, although evidently delighted with the
+idea, "Miss Kling' will never--"
+
+"Hang Miss Kling!" interrupted Clem, emphatically; "excuse the
+expression, but she deserves it; she never need know. I will undertake
+to arrange everything, and keep the secret from her. To account for the
+instruments in your room, tell her you are going to practice at home,
+and have a pupil. Cyn, I know, will be delighted to amuse herself by
+learning."
+
+"I should like it very much," acknowledged Nattie, "but--"
+
+"I allow no buts," Clem interrupted with gay decision; "you get the
+instruments, tell me the first time Miss Kling goes out to spend the
+day, and leave the rest to me."
+
+Nattie needed little urging, being only too willing to have some more of
+those old confidential chats with "C,"--which _nobody_ could share--and
+the required promise was given.
+
+Strange it is, how circumstances alter cases. Coming to the office that
+morning, Nattie had found it disagreeable and hard enough to buffet the
+storm, and had growled at herself all the way, because she was not smart
+enough to get on in the world, even so far as to be able to stay at home
+in such weather For storms of nature, like storms of life, are hardest
+to a woman, trammeled as she is in the one by long skirts, that will
+drag in the mud, and clothes that every gust of wind catches, and in the
+other by prejudices and impediments of every kind, that the world, in
+consideration, doubtless, for her so-called "weakness," throws in her
+way. But now, on her way home, Nattie minded not the wind, and rather
+enjoyed the rain; it may be that this total change in her sentiments was
+due to the fact that Clem held the umbrella.
+
+Miss Kling saw them come into the hotel together, wet and merry, and
+scowled. Perhaps in former days she had gone home under an umbrella with
+somebody--a possible other self--and so knew all about the enjoyability
+of the experience. But Nattie did not even notice her landlady's
+acrimonious glance, and sang a gay song as she changed her bedrabbled
+dress.
+
+Cyn, who was of course immediately informed about the projected private
+wire, was delighted with the idea, and began studying the Morse alphabet
+at once.
+
+"And the best of all is that we are going to get the better of that
+argus-eyed Dragon!" said Cyn.
+
+"_If_ we can!" Nattie replied with emphasis.
+
+"Oh! but Clem is sure of that part!" Cyn said with great confidence.
+
+But Nattie shook her head dubiously.
+
+"She is so inquisitive!" she remarked.
+
+"Yes, and the most despicable character on earth to me, is a person
+whose chief object in life is gossip! why, life is too short to take
+care of our own affairs in! I wish you would leave her, and come and
+room with me!" exclaimed Cyn indignantly.
+
+"Mrs. Simonson would not dare have me. She is afraid of Miss Kling, you
+know. But I wish I might, for I am tired of being here," Nattie replied
+discontentedly.
+
+"Well, we will have our wire at all events, and for once something shall
+be that Miss Kling will not know," said Cyn exultantly.
+
+Unconsciously the dreaded individual favored them, shortly after, by
+going to spend the evening with friends after her own heart--very
+genteel, but in reduced circumstances:--and as the instruments were all
+ready, and they had only been waiting for her absence, Clem went to
+work. He was assisted by the willing Jo, who argued that running a wire
+was solid work, and _not_ romantic, and by Quimby, who viewed the
+arrangement as another formidable link in the chain of his rival, and
+clamored wildly for a "telephone," because "anybody could use a
+telephone." But that, as Clem said, was exactly what they did not want!
+Consequently Quimby, as he lent his aid, felt himself a very martyr.
+However, he was, by this time, "used to it, you know,"--as he would have
+said--having viewed himself in that light since his unwitting
+resurrection of "C." Still, he sometimes fancied he saw a dim light
+shining ahead through the gloom--a hope that Clem might be fascinated by
+Cyn. Many were, Quimby argued, so why should not Clem be? and certainly
+he talked with her more than he did with Nattie!
+
+In Nattie's room, they placed the instruments on a small shelf put up
+for the purpose, just outside her closet, and run the wire through the
+closet into the hall outside, and thence along, so close to the wall
+that it was not noticeable, except to those who knew, and then into Mrs.
+Simonson's apartments. Here, no concealment was necessary, as Mrs.
+Simonson had been informed of the plan, and, although trembling lest the
+vials of Miss Kling's wrath would be poured on her head, should that
+lady discover the arrangement, had no objections to offer, if they were
+positive "the electricity on the wire would not wear out the carpet, or
+injure the table"--which was the terminus in Quimby and Clem's room.
+
+Having satisfied her on this point, they deemed it expedient not to show
+her the battery in their closet, fearing alarm lest it might eat through
+the room and overpower her.
+
+"And now," said Clem, gayly, when all was finished, and fortunately
+without attracting attention, not even Celeste being in the secret;
+"now, Quimby, we can dispense with that alarm clock we were intending to
+buy."
+
+"I--I beg pardon, but I--I don't quite catch your meaning," the martyr
+replied, in evident surprise.
+
+"Why, Nat is to be our alarm clock!" explained Clem, laughing. "She is,
+from necessity, an early riser, and I shall depend on her to call on our
+wire at precisely six thirty every morning, and continue calling until I
+answer."
+
+"I certainly will," Nattie replied. "But I will venture to predict that
+both you and Quimby will privately call me all sorts of names for doing
+it. It makes people so very cross to be aroused from a morning nap, you
+know!"
+
+"It doesn't make _me_ cross, I--I assure you; it--it will be a pleasure!"
+quickly exclaimed Quimby, who was delighted with this idea of the alarm
+clock.
+
+"I will report him if he shows the least symptom of growling, after that
+assertion!" Clem said to Nattie, somewhat to Quimby's internal
+agitation, for, to tell the truth, he was not really quite certain of
+being in a state of rapture at six thirty every morning, even when awoke
+by the clatter of a sounder, of which the motive power was his
+inamorata.
+
+"And now, to christen our wire!" Nattie, who was in high spirits, said
+gayly, and she ran over to her room, and a half hour's chat with "C"
+followed before she went to bed. For a week after, however, she lived,
+as it were, on thorns, and came home every night half expecting an
+explosion.
+
+None came, however. Miss Kling's eyes were not as good as they once had
+been, what with their long service watching for that other self, and
+overlooking her neighbors; the hall was dark; she had no duplicate key
+to Nattie's always-locked room, and the small wire, nestling close to
+the wall, was undiscovered; of course, she heard the clatter of the
+sounder, but this Nattie explained on the score of "practice."
+
+"Well, I am sure!" said Miss Kling, snappishly, "I should think you
+would get 'practice' enough at the office, without sitting up nights to
+do it!"
+
+At which Nattie turned away to hide a blush, aware that "C" and she
+sometimes talked even into the small hours, in their zeal, doubtless,
+that the new wire should not rust out for lack of using.
+
+But this telegraphic arrangement came hardest on poor Quimby, who,
+between his jealousy when the two were communicating, his inability to
+understand what was being said, and the impossibility of sleeping with
+such a clatter in the room, lost his appetite, and invoked anything but
+blessings on the head of "that Morse man," who had made such things
+possible.
+
+Cyn had no intention of being left out in the cold, and making Jo join
+her, began the study of telegraphy, and the two hammered away
+incessantly. It began to be observable, about this time, that Jo was
+very willing to be led about by the nose by Cyn. Why, was not so
+apparent; perhaps because there was no romance in it.
+
+Cyn learned the quicker of the two, and she was soon able, slowly and
+uncertainly, to "call" Nattie, ask her to come over, or impart any
+little information, but was always driven frantic by the attempt to make
+out Nattie's reply, however slowly written. Cyn tried to induce Quimby
+to overcome the horrors of those little black marks, the alphabet and
+their sounds, but he recoiled from the effort as hopeless.
+
+However, whenever they made candy, as they often did, he had an
+opportunity of distinguishing himself, that he did not fail to improve.
+On the first occasion, so uneasy was he about a quiet conversation Clem
+and Nattie were having, that he absently put the mass of candy he had
+been pulling, into his pocket to cool. It _did_ cool, but he sold the coat
+afterwards, to a boy at the office.
+
+Next time, he forgot to grease his hands, and stuck himself so together,
+that they had the utmost difficulty in getting him apart, but, as he
+said,
+
+"It's no matter, I--I am used to it, you know!"
+
+He capped the climax, however, by accidentally dropping a large handful,
+warm, on top of Celeste's head, aggravating the offense by telling her
+to "go quick and soak her head;" which, although it was what she
+eventually did, was too much like a certain slang phrase much in vogue,
+for human nature to endure; and giving him an angry look, the only one
+on record ever given by her to a man, she rushed from the room, and was
+seen no more that evening.
+
+After this exploit, whenever molasses candy was on the programme, they
+made a rule that Quimby should sit in the corner, on the old familiar
+stool, and not move until all was over--a rule to which he submitted
+meekly.
+
+But he was not happy. In truth, all his joys in these days were mixed
+with alloy, between the pointed monopoly of Celeste-who, of late, and
+since she had given up every one else as hopeless, had devoted herself
+entirely to him--and his secret jealousy of Clem.
+
+Strangely enough, with the exception of Cyn, no one was aware of the
+exact state of his mind. Clem was as unconscious of it as a child, for
+any peculiarity in his behavior was laid to his well-known
+idiosyncrasies; Celeste suspected he was in love, but was blindly
+determined to believe she was the chief attraction in his eyes. Nattie,
+if she thought about it at all, imagined he was entirely cured Of that
+former "foolishness," as she termed his one attempt to put his devotion
+into words. And as for Jo, being so opposed to anything of a sentimental
+nature himself, naturally he was unwilling to observe any indications of
+the kind in another, and any glaring revelations that forced themselves
+on his notice, he, in common with Clem, decided was "only Quimby's way."
+
+Oh, Dear, no! Jo could see nothing but plain-unromantic facts. It was no
+sentiment, or anything of the sort on Jo's part, of course, that made
+him reproduce the handsome, brilliant face of Cyn, in so many of his
+recent pictures. Oh, no! she was a good "study," that was all! Nor that
+caused him to seek her society in preference to all others, to listen
+entranced when she sang, and to be exceedingly annoyed--a rare thing
+once for good humored Jo--when Clem was given more than his share of her
+attention. Again oh, no! Cyn was a fellow Bohemian, a congenial
+spirit, that was all. Neither in the least sentimental or jealous was Jo!
+
+But for all that, and for some unexplained reason, he was not quite so
+even in his spirits as he was wont to be, sometimes being very happy,
+and then terribly depressed. Did he eat too much, or too little, which?
+For if it was not the first commencement of a first love--and of course
+it was not--it must have been his digestion that ailed him!
+
+Had Miss Betsey Kling known of these little uneasy undercurrents amidst
+the gayety that so annoyed her, the knowledge would doubtless have given
+her much satisfaction, besides, possibly, the inkling she could not now
+obtain of what was "going on." It was a source of great distress to her
+that she could not ascertain whether it was Cyn or Nattie with whom Clem
+was "flirting." For she was positive he was trifling with the affections
+of one or the other, and that matters would end in some kind of a
+horrible scandal. But for all her listening and prying around, she could
+not seem to gain much information, except that everybody but
+herself--and perhaps the old gentleman Fishblate--was having a good
+time. Nor could she get hold of anything "dreadful," which was the
+greatest disappointment of all.
+
+One night, however, listening at her own door as Nattie bade Cyn "good
+night," over the way, Miss Kling heard Clem call out from within,
+something that made her very hair stand on end. It was this:
+
+"Please wake me up earlier than usual to-morrow morning, will you,
+Nattie?"
+
+"Wake him up, indeed!" thought the outraged but happy Miss Kling, as she
+wended her way back to her own room. "Pretty goings on! and I know I
+heard that machine clatter when she was not in, one day! Machines do not
+clatter without a human agency somewhere! There is something wrong here!
+and I will find it out, or my name is not Betsey Kling 'Wake him up,'
+indeed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+CROSSES ON THE LINE.
+
+
+It happened that not long after Cyn sang at a concert given in one of
+the principal halls of the city. Of course, a party from the Hotel
+Norman attended. This party consisted not only of all the young people,
+but also included Mrs. Simonson.
+
+Cyn made a great success, and was encored every time she sang. Never had
+Nattie so fully realized the beauty and brilliancy of her friend, as she
+did upon that evening. Nor could she fail to observe that Clem, too, was
+startled into a new admiration. Was it because of this that a
+seriousness, quite foreign to the gay scene, fell over Nattie's face?
+
+As for Celeste, she was decidedly envious, and had there been no
+gentlemen in the party, would have turned exceedingly glum. As it was,
+she, with some difficulty, called up her usual smiles, and contented
+herself with whispering spitefully to Quimby,
+
+"How can she appear before the public so? it seems _so_ unwomanly!"
+
+"Charming, indeed!" replied Quimby, without the slightest idea of what
+she had said, as his attention was concentrated on Cyn, and his brain
+incapable of entertaining two ideas at once.
+
+But while acknowledging her attractions, Quimby preserved his composure,
+arguing to himself in a common sense way,
+
+"What is the use of a fellow falling in love with a girl that every
+other fellow is sure to fall in love with too, you know?"
+
+Mrs. Simonson, good soul, quite swelled with pride in her lodger, and by
+her behavior created the impression in the minds of people sitting near,
+that she was the singer's mother.
+
+And Jo--unsentimental Jo--was entirely carried away. With the music, of
+course, for music was art, and art, only in another branch, was his life
+and work; and was not Cyn a beautiful work of Nature, the mother of all
+art?
+
+"He will be a very lucky man who shall call our Cyn his," whispered Clem
+to Jo, as she came out in answer to an encore.
+
+"What!" ejaculated Jo, so savagely that every one turned to look at him,
+and Clem opened his eyes wide with surprise. "Bah! Nonsense!"
+
+And some way or other, after this, the music sounded very dismal to Jo,
+and the close air of the room made his head ache; but he had been
+working very hard all day, and was tired, so this was quite natural.
+
+Was Clem presuming on his good looks, and thinking of making Cyn _his_,
+he wondered? If he was, _she_ certainly would not be fool enough to--Jo
+stopped here in his meditations, because he would like to have been a
+little surer that she would not. Very strongly he felt just then that
+"things of a doubtful nature were sometimes very uncertain!"
+
+It was, of course, no sentiment on his part that caused these emotions.
+He did not wish Cyn to throw herself away in matrimony, that was all;
+and so strong were his feelings on this point that he could not banish
+the idea from his mind all the rest of the evening, and was noticeably
+thoughtful.
+
+But he was very gay; even unusually, wildly gay on the way home, and
+kept Mrs. Simonson, whom he escorted, in such a state of laughter that
+she burst three buttons, and was all "wheezed up" when they reached the
+hotel.
+
+"Why are you so thoughtful to-night?" Clem asked Nattie, as they walked
+down their street behind the rest, in the wake of Jo's gayety and
+Celeste's meaningless giggle. Celeste was clinging to the arm of the
+unwilling, but helpless Quimby, and chatting of the handsome tenor.
+
+With a slight start, Nattie replied to Clem's question,
+
+"I do not know. Am I?"
+
+"Yes; you have hardly spoken a word all the way. Is anything the
+trouble?" asked Clem, and she, looking moodily oh the ground, did not
+see the anxiety in his eyes as he spoke.
+
+"Nothing!" she replied; then startled him by bursting out passionately,
+
+"I am tired of living with no object; with nothing but a daily routine.
+Can it be there is no better place in the world for me? That my life
+must be always thus? I _cannot_ be contented!"
+
+Clem stopped short and stared at her agitated face.
+
+"I never knew you were not happy, Nattie," he said, gently.
+
+"Oh! I am not unhappy; I am only discontented," Nattie replied.
+
+"You are somewhat contradictory in your statements," said Clem, as they
+went on again, for she also had stopped. "Is it office troubles that
+annoy you? Poor little girl, it _is_ a monotonous life!"
+
+Nattie flushed at the tenderness in his voice.
+
+"That is one thing," she replied, a little tremblingly, "but I want
+something to work for, as Cyn has. I am ambitious; my present position
+can never content me; I am haunted all the time by an uneasy
+consciousness that if I was smart I should be doing something to get
+ahead; and yet, I don't know what to do!"
+
+"I remember you once said something about becoming a writer; why not try
+that?" suggested Clem.
+
+They had reached their own landing at the hotel, and paused. The
+remainder of the party had disappeared.
+
+"It seems so hopeless," Nattie answered, dispiritedly; "there is no
+opening anywhere."
+
+"But it will never do to wait for that, you know. If the world is a
+closed oyster, we must open it. Isn't that the way Cyn did?" said Clem,
+half surmising the realization of the difference between Cyn's brilliant
+success and her own plodding along that had caused her dejection; and as
+he spoke, he took her hand in his, but Nattie snatched it quickly away.
+
+"Ah! Cyn!" she said in sudden and uncontrollable jealousy, "of course
+_you_ could never expect me to compare with her!"
+
+Clem looked at her a moment, then some emotion flushed his face, and he
+would have spoken had not Miss Kling, disgusted with her inability to
+catch a word from inside, opened her door, saying sharply,
+
+"Are you coming in, Miss Rogers?"
+
+"Certainly," Nattie replied quickly, and already ashamed of her jealous
+outburst. "Good night, Clem."
+
+"But will you not come over and congratulate Cyn on her success?" he
+asked, detaining her. "I heard a carriage just stop, and think she is in
+it."
+
+"Not to-night; to-morrow," said Nattie, hastily, and left him before he
+could again urge the request.
+
+"Oh!" said Miss Kling, as Nattie closed the door behind her, "was that
+Mr. Stanwood who came home with you?"
+
+"Yes;" Nattie answered, briefly. "I should hardly have thought Miss
+Archer would have allowed it!" remarked Miss Kling, with a sneeze.
+
+"I don't know why she should have forbidden it!" replied Nattie, coldly,
+yet looking somewhat startled. Poor Nattie's nerves were decidedly
+unstrung to-night.
+
+"You do not mean to say that you are ignorant of what every one else
+knows?" queried Miss Kling, with a malicious sparkle in her eyes; "that
+they are just the same as engaged."
+
+Nattie turned a very pale face towards her.
+
+"I--I think you are mistaken," she faltered.
+
+"Mistaken! no indeed!" said Miss Kling, positively; "I should think your
+own eyes might tell you that! Why, Mrs. Simonson says, Miss Archer has
+thought of nobody but him since he came into the house, and that anybody
+can tell he is in love with her, from his actions and the attentions he
+pays her, and Celeste told me the same thing, long ago. But I suppose
+Miss Archer is willing he should come home with _you_. She isn't, of
+course, jealous of _you!_"
+
+There was a sneering emphasis in Miss Kling's last words, that made them
+anything but complimentary, as Nattie felt; but saying only, in a voice
+she vainly tried to steady,
+
+"You may be right," she went into her own room, and locked the door
+behind her.
+
+She knew now! knew what that first romantic acquaintance, that dejection
+at the companionship lost in the obnoxious red-head, that joy when "C"
+was restored to her in Clem, that unsatisfied desire to have him back on
+the wire, all to herself; that suppressed jealousy of Cyn, led to--and
+what it all meant; that she loved him! and he, did he, as they said,
+love Cyn? alas! who could help loving bright, beautiful Cyn? To attract
+him to herself was only the romance of their first acquaintance--and
+even this Cyn slightly shared; it was not Cyn's fault. Nattie could not
+be guilty of the petty meanness of disliking her friend because she
+possessed attractions superior to her own. But if he loved Cyn, then,
+indeed, had the curtain fallen on the sad ending of her romance; the
+lights were out, and all was darkness. _If_ he loved Cyn? Nattie, with the
+first full knowledge of her own feelings, could hardly hope otherwise,
+remembering their intimacy, his marked attention to her, his praise of
+her, and her winning beauty and talents. Yes, it must be that he loved
+her! Oh, why must Cyn be given everything, and she--nothing? What kind
+of fate was it that marked out the broad, sunny road for one, and the
+somber, uneven pathway for another? Must her life be one of lonely
+discontent, a telegraph office at the beginning, and a telegraph office
+at the end? was this to be all?
+
+"No!" thought Nattie, raising her head proudly, and looking at the red
+and swollen eyes that gazed at her from the opposite glass. "Life _shall_
+give me something of its best; if not of love, then of fame! and I will
+work and persevere until I gain it!"
+
+Yet, for all of her resolution, Nattie sobbed herself to sleep. Not so
+easy is it to renounce love, and look forward to a life barren of its
+best and sweetest gift.
+
+And after this there was a change in her observable even to the
+undiscerning Quimby. Shadows had fallen over her face, lurked in her
+gray eyes and around the corners of her mouth. The old restlessness had
+given place to a settled gloom. She was less often seen among the gay
+circle that gathered in Cyn's parlor, pleading every possible excuse for
+staying away, and when with them, to his surprise and delight, and to
+Celeste's dismay, she devoted herself to Quimby, to Jo--to any one
+rather than to Clem. For most of all had she changed to him. Afraid of
+betraying her secret, and unable to control the pain that overpowered
+her when in his presence, now she knew her own heart, she avoided him in
+every practicable way, and seldom, even over their wire, talked with
+him. She was always "tired," or "busy," when he called her now.
+
+Clem, surprised and puzzled by this unaccountable change, at first
+endeavored to overcome her coolness, but ended by becoming cool in his
+turn, and talked and joked with Cyn more than ever. And if a touch of
+the shadows on Nattie's face sometimes crept over his own, she, in her
+self-engrossment, did not observe it.
+
+If Quimby's hopes burned brighter at this state of affairs, and he was
+consequently happier, Jo, for some reason unexplained, was not. In fact,
+he was decidedly queer; now gay, now horribly cynical, not to say
+morose.
+
+Truly, Cupid, viewed in the character of a telegraphist, was far from
+being a success; for he had switched everybody off on to the wrong wire!
+
+Cyn, gay unconscious Cyn, no more dreamed of Clem being supposedly in
+love with her, than she did that Jo was so filled with thoughts of her,
+that, had he been a different kind of a man, one would have called him
+desperately in love. But Cyn, unconscious of all this, saw, and with
+sorrow, the ever-increasing coldness between Nattie and Clem. For she
+had quite set her heart on the romance that had commenced in dots and
+dashes culminating in orange blossoms--a Wired Love. But now, to her
+vexation, she saw her anticipations liable to be set at naught, and
+herself unable to obtain even a clew to the trouble. Like the "line
+man," who goes up and down to find why the wires will not work, she
+could not find the "break" anywhere, and decided that romances, whether
+"wired" or taken in the ordinary way, were certainly very unwieldy
+things to manage.
+
+"It seems to me that you do not use that wire very often now," she said
+one evening to Clem and Nattie, the latter of whom she had forcibly
+dragged forth from the solitude of her room. "Were it not for me, it
+would rust. Why! I used to hear your clatter into the small hours, but
+now--"
+
+"Now we are more sensible," concluded Nattie, leaning over the piano to
+look at some music. "One gets tired of talking in dots and dashes after
+a time!"
+
+Poor Nattie's trouble made her bitter sometimes.
+
+"Yes, one wants a person they don't know to talk with, in order to make
+it interesting!" added Clem, not to be outdone.
+
+"Good gracious!" thought Cyn, dismayed at the result of her probing.
+"This is really dreadful!" then she exclaimed impulsively,
+
+"I hope you have not quarreled, you two!"
+
+"Oh! dear no!" replied Nattie quickly, "what should we quarrel about?"
+
+But Clem, after looking at her a moment, advanced and held out his hand,
+saying frankly,
+
+"I believe we have been cross to each other of late, although how it
+happened I do not know! So let us make up and be good!"
+
+Cyn looked up hopefully at this, but Nattie, who could hardly conceal
+her agitation, replied coldly,
+
+"I do not see that anything has been the matter!" and placing a limp
+hand in his for an instant, turned away.
+
+Clem bit his lip, then took out his watch, saying,
+
+"I believe I have an engagement down town this evening. I shall have to
+leave you now, I fear, ladies."
+
+Nattie celebrated his departure by bursting into tears that she vainly
+tried to hide, and was detected in this situation on the sofa by Cyn.
+
+Cyn's arms were about her in a moment, and Cyn's voice said lovingly,
+
+"What is it, dear? Tell me what is the matter lately? Trust me with it.
+Is it about Clem?"
+
+With a determination, very brave and unselfish, but unfortunately
+entirely uncalled for, not to mar Cyn's happy love by her sorrow, Nattie
+checked the tears, of which she was ashamed, and answered,
+
+"No! I am very weak and foolish. The idea of my crying like a
+school-girl! I am only unhappy because--because--I am nobody!"
+
+And this was all the information the sympathetic and perplexed Cyn could
+obtain.
+
+Sitting that night on a low cricket before the fire with her dark hair
+unbound--and it was fortunate for Jo's peace of mind that he could not
+see her just then, because she was such an interesting "study!"--Cyn
+thought it all over, and could not, as she told herself, make out what
+it was all about.
+
+"I thought everything was going on so smoothly," she mused, "and now
+here is what Clem himself would term a cross on the wire! and no one can
+find out where it is! Doesn't she love him, I wonder? I should, if I was
+she! Does he love her? if he does not, he is no kind of a hero! Ah! I
+know what would test the matter! a crisis! Now, for instance, if the
+house would only get on fire, and Nat burn up--that is, almost--and Clem
+save her just in time--that is the sort of thing that brings these
+heroes to terms in the dramas! but I suppose--everything is so different
+in real life--Clem would not wake up in time, and she would burn to a
+crisp--or some one else would save her first--Quimby, for instance, he
+is always doing something he ought not! no, I don't think it would do to
+risk it! nevertheless, I am convinced that a crisis is what is essential
+to complete the circuit, telegraphically speaking, or in other words, to
+bring down the curtain on every body, embracing everybody, with great
+_eclat!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+THE WRONG WOMAN.
+
+
+Somewhat exultant over the new aspect of affairs, and unable longer to
+endure the strain of the load of love he was carrying about with him,
+Quimby came to a desperate determination.
+
+This was no other, than to confide in his room-mate, and once dreaded
+rival, and then, provided he was not thrown out of the window, or kicked
+down stairs, ask his advice about how to render himself clearly
+understood by _her_, at the same time relating his former unfortunate
+attempt.
+
+This programme he carried into effect one morning, as Clem was blacking
+his boots. Perhaps he had made private calculations on a blacking-brush
+hitting a man with less damage than some larger article.
+
+"I say, Clem!" Quimby began, "I--I want to ask your advice, you know!"
+
+"I am at your service, my dear boy," replied the unsuspecting Clem,
+rubbing away at his boot.
+
+"Well--I--I want to know--the fact is, I--I am boiling over with love!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Clem, looking up with an amused smile, "you are not in
+love with Cyn too, are you?"
+
+"With Cyn, _too_?" These words were balm to the soul of Quimby, and gave
+him courage to answer eagerly,
+
+"Ah! no use in that for _me_, you know! It--it is _she_--Miss
+Rogers--Nattie--you know!"
+
+The blacking-brush left Clem's hand, but not to fly at the expectant
+Quimby. It simply dropped onto the floor, while Clem gave vent to his
+feelings in a prolonged whistle.
+
+"Is it possible!" he said, having thus relieved himself of his first
+astonishment. "I might have suspected as much if I had stopped to think,
+though!"
+
+"Yes, I--I think I showed it plain enough, you know!" said Quimby
+candidly. "You see, I--I tried to tell her of it once, before you came
+here, when you were invisible, you know, but some way she--she didn't
+just understand, and--and bolted, you know! So just tell me how to do
+it, that is a good fellow, for do it I must!"
+
+Clem picked up his blacking-brush, and very deliberately smeared the
+boot he had just polished, with another coat of blacking, before
+answering.
+
+"How can I tell you?" he said at last. "You don't suppose proposing is
+an every-day habit of mine, do you? My dear boy, I never proposed in my
+life!"
+
+"But you--you ought to--I mean you will sometime, you know! Just give me
+a--a start, you know!" pleaded Quimby, sitting down on the edge of the
+bed.
+
+"Shall I call her and propose for you?" inquired Clem, somewhat
+ironically, and glancing at the sounder.
+
+"No--no--I--_No!_" cried Quimby in great alarm at this proposition. "She
+might think you meant yourself, you know!"
+
+"In which case the rejection would be sure!" said Clem. Then flinging
+his brush savagely into a corner, he added as he went out,
+
+"You must settle it yourself, old fellow! No one can help us in those
+matters. There is no duplex!"
+
+Quimby was therefore left to his own devices; and his own devices
+brought about a most extraordinary result.
+
+That same evening, Nattie coming over to Cyn's room, and finding her
+absent, sat down to await her return, which Mrs. Simonson assured her
+would be very soon. There was no gas lighted, and in the dusk Nattie
+remained, feeling, perhaps, an affinity with the somber shadows of the
+twilight. As she sat musing, now wishing "C" had left her life forever
+when he left it with the odors of musk and bear's-grease about him, and
+now despising herself for the weakness she found it so hard to overcome,
+she became conscious of a denser shadow in the shadows of the open door.
+
+"I--I beg pardon. Is it Cyn?" asked this shadow, in the voice of Quimby.
+
+"No," Nattie replied, "Cyn is out."
+
+"I--I beg pardon. Is it _you_?" the shadow asked with accents of delight.
+
+Nattie acknowledged the "you."
+
+"And you--you are alone?"
+
+Nattie glanced around the room hoping the Duchess had strayed in, so she
+might truthfully say no. But she was compelled to reply in the
+affirmative.
+
+"Glorious opportunity--I--it must not be wasted! I--I will explain, you
+know!" he exclaimed, excitedly and incoherently. But to Nattie's
+surprise, instead of entering, he darted away in such a tremendous hurry
+that he stumbled and fell, and she distinctly heard his skull bang
+against his own door.
+
+But his last words were too ominous, and she was too well acquainted
+with his peculiarities to flatter herself she was permanently relieved
+of his company. He had perhaps gone to brush his hair, or take some
+quieting drops, but she knew he had certainly not gone to stay, and not
+being exactly in the humor for his company, Nattie resolved to fly
+ignominiously. Afraid of returning to her own room, lest she might meet
+him and be taken captive, she quietly retired into Cyn's bed-room. In a
+few moments she heard him stumbling over a stool in the parlor, and was
+just thinking that if he should take it into his head to remain any
+length of time, she would be in rather a predicament, when to her
+surprise she heard him say,
+
+"I--I must speak! I--I hope this time I shall remember what I have so
+often--so often said in the privacy of my own apartment, to--if I may
+confess it--to a pillow--a pair of pants and a coat--placed in a chair
+as a poor effigy of--of you, you know. Will you--will you--don't speak,
+but let me alone, hear me and let the--the flow of language come!"
+
+He paused, and in the greatest bewilderment, Nattie stared at the
+opposite wall. Did he by some powerful intuition discern she was within
+hearing distance, or was he in his disappointment rehearsing to her
+empty chair? Before Nattie could decide between these two solutions of
+his conduct, another voice, the voice of Celeste, said faintly and
+affectedly,
+
+"Oh, Quimby"
+
+And then Nattie comprehended the situation. After her own retreat,
+Celeste had entered and taken the just vacated chair. It was twilight.
+Celeste wore a black dress like hers, her hair was dressed in the same
+style, and was the same color, and Quimby had mistaken her for Nattie!
+And in his excitement and struggle with that "flow of language," he did
+not notice even that it was not Nattie's voice saying "Oh, Quimby!" for
+he continued,
+
+"I--I--you may reject me--I am afraid you will, but I must say it, you
+know. I must, or I shall--I shall explode and fly into atoms!"
+
+Here Celeste gave a little scream, but he went on determinedly, making
+the most of his "glorious opportunity."
+
+"I--I am not like other fellows, you know! that is, I mean I have not
+the--the brass, if I may so express myself, and I am always doing
+something wrong--but I am used to it, you know--the question is, could
+you get used to it? for I have a heart that is--that is honest, and that
+beats all full of love--of--love for--you know who I mean!"
+
+There was a murmured "oh!" from Celeste, as Quimby paused to wipe from
+his brow the perspiration called forth by his arduous undertaking.
+
+"What shall I do!" frantically thought the perplexed listener, divided
+between the ludicrous part of the affair, and her desire to save him
+from the dilemma into which he was rushing; "what _can_ I do? oh! if Cyn
+would only come!"
+
+But Cyn came not, and while Nattie paused, irresolute, and not knowing
+what course to take, Quimby went on to his fate.
+
+"I have thought, sometimes, that you liked some other fellow--Clem, I
+mean--" Nattie felt herself blush in the darkness--"but I do hope not!
+the thought has made me boil in secret often, and he loves Cyn, you
+know--" Nattie's color left her face as quickly as it had come--"but
+oh!" and he went down on to his knees with a whack that made the vases
+on the mantel jingle. "Let me tell you what I tried twice before to say,
+what is always in my thoughts! I--I adore you! the ground you walk on!
+and have, ever since I first saw your nose! I--I beg pardon, but I fell
+in love with your nose! and will you--can you tell me that you don't
+love any other fellow--Clem, I mean--and share my little property, and
+be--be Mrs. Quimby, you know!"
+
+"Ah! really I--such a trying moment!--but dear, _dear_ Quimby, I never
+cared for Clem, never only for you--and I am yours!"
+
+With these words, Celeste precipitated herself into his arms, and the
+next moment Nattie heard a crash as they both fell on the floor. The
+sudden shock of recognition that then burst upon him, weakened him to
+such an extent that he could not support himself, much less her, so down
+they went!
+
+"He must know who it is now!" thought Nattie, with a sigh of relief.
+
+And meanwhile Celeste had picked herself up, but Quimby still remained
+flat on the floor, bracing himself up by his hands on either side, and
+staring at her, motionless. Fortunately it was too dark for her to see
+the expression of his face.
+
+"Did you hurt yourself?" asked Celeste at length. "Let me help you up!
+We are to help each other now, you know."
+
+Quimby groaned.
+
+"Oh, misery!" he gasped. "This--my destiny is too much for me! Oh! the
+evil deeds of darkness! Listen to me, I implore you! It is all a
+mistake! I thought--"
+
+"Of course it was a mistake! You did not suppose I thought you fell
+purposely, did you, dear?" quickly interrupted Celeste, blindly or
+willfully misunderstanding--who shall say which? "But please get up, Cyn
+may come."
+
+At this Quimby scrambled to his feet with startling suddenness, and
+exclaiming hastily,
+
+"I will--I will write and tell you all--_all!_ I have an engagement now
+with a friend just around the corner!" he rushed from the room, and
+would have flown, but the pertinacious Celeste had followed, and just as
+he reached the outside hall, regardless of the publicity, flung herself
+around his neck, this time without bringing him to the ground.
+
+"It is not necessary to write!" she cried. "Pray, do not take such a
+trifle so much to heart. Remember I am yours, and--"
+
+Another voice from the stairs just above the pair, interrupted her. It
+was the voice of Fishblate _pere_, and it said,
+
+"Hugging! Marry her!"
+
+"I--I--will!" wailed the now alarmed Quimby, as Celeste blushingly
+withdrew from her embrace of him. "I--I will see you to-morrow if I--if
+I live!" and striking his forehead with his hand, he burst away, bounded
+frantically down the stairs and fled, ejaculating,
+
+"I knew it! I had a presentiment from my youth!"
+
+"Excuse his eccentricity, Pa!" Celeste said. "He loves me _so_ much, poor
+fellow!"
+
+"Humph! Get enough of _that!_" he growled, with contempt.
+
+"And he has a nice little property!" added Celeste, as they went up
+stairs.
+
+"Property is the thing!" Fishblate _pere_ said, with undisguised
+plainness.
+
+Nattie emerged from her retreat on the hasty exit of Quimby and Celeste,
+so full of regret for the flight that had proved so disastrous to him,
+that the ludicrous part of the scene just enacted was forgotten.
+
+"Poor Quimby!" she thought, remorsefully. "What a dreadful fix he is in!
+I hope he will get out of it; and I am so sorry for my share in it! How
+strange it would be if he should, as he once said, marry the wrong
+woman, after all!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+QUIMBY ACCEPTS THE SITUATION.
+
+
+When Quimby rushed out into the street, it was with some wild and
+indefinite intention of flying to the ends of the earth, but recalled to
+his senses by the stares of the passers-by, he concluded he had better
+first return and get his hat. When he reached his own room, where Clem
+was thoughtfully pacing the floor, he flung himself face downwards upon
+the bed, groaning and kicking his feet spasmodically.
+
+"What is the matter?" Clem inquired.
+
+"I've done it now! I've done it now!" was all the answer Quimby gave
+him.
+
+"Has she rejected you?" asked Clem, his mind going back to their
+morning's conversation.
+
+"No! no! she has accepted me!" wailed Quimby, with a prodigious kick.
+
+"_What!_" shouted Clem, stopping short in his promenade.
+
+"She has! Oh, she has!" moaned the wretched victim of mistakes. "I am
+engaged! Oh, heavens! engaged!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Rogers has accepted you?" inquired
+Clem harshly.
+
+This name completely unmanned poor Quimby, and he began to cry like a
+school-boy.
+
+"Miss Rogers!--No! never--never! but _she_--Celeste!"
+
+"Celeste!" echoed Clem; "Celeste!"
+
+"Yes! I--oh!--I made a mistake, you know!" explained Quimby, wiping his
+eyes on the bedspread.
+
+An irresistible smile, but quickly suppressed, curved Clem's lips as he
+asked,
+
+"But how could you possibly make such a mistake as that? Come, cheer up,
+my boy, tell me, and let me help you out!"
+
+Quimby looked at him mournfully.
+
+"It--it was dark," he answered dejectedly, "she sat in the chair--the
+lost Nattie I mean, it was she, for she spoke to me! Why did I not seize
+the chance then? But no! I left her to--to rehearse a little first, and
+when I returned--Oh!--it was still dark, and I did not know a
+transformation had been effected--I burst forth in eloquence,
+and--oh!--it was Celeste, you know! I fled--she followed,--caught and
+hugged me in the hall! Her father saw--roared 'Marry her' and I--there
+was no escape, you know!"
+
+"But, my dear fellow," remonstrated Clem, "you can explain the mistake!
+you are not obliged to marry Celeste because you accidentally proposed
+to her!"
+
+Quimby shook his head hopelessly.
+
+"She--she--would sue me for breach of promise you know, and take
+all--all my little property! And her terrific father--I don't know what
+he would not do to me! Only one thing could make me brave all!--If Miss
+Rogers--Nattie, would say it might have been, had not this fearful
+mistake occurred, I would face even old Fishblate and break all bonds."
+
+"Dear old fellow, I am afraid she--Nattie would have rejected you, in
+any case. She is--a flirt!" said Clem, somewhat savagely. "She leads
+people on, for the sake of dropping them, when it suits her
+convenience!"
+
+"I--now really, I--I cannot think that; even though she had rejected me,
+I could not think _that!_" said Quimby, loyally; then with sudden
+decision, "I will settle it now! If I had not put it off before, as I
+did, I might not have blundered into this awful fix, you know! I hear
+them in Cyn's room now; Cyn and Nattie; come with me! I--I will have
+witnesses, and no mistakes this time, you know!"
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Clem, following his excited friend,
+rather reluctantly.
+
+"I am going to find out if she--Nattie--likes me, you know! if she does,
+I will brave Celeste--her fierce father--the law! if not--why then, I
+must be a martyr anyway, you know, and I don't care how big a one I am!"
+
+So saying, Quimby went across to Cyn's room, Clem, not exactly liking
+the position thrust upon him, but unwilling to refuse, accompanying him.
+
+Meanwhile, Nattie had pounced upon Cyn, the moment she returned,
+exclaiming,
+
+"Oh! Cyn! such a dreadful thing has happened!"
+
+"What? how? when?" asked Cyn, while, from the effects of the melodrama
+she had just been witnessing, visions of Clem, with a dozen bullets in
+his head, danced before her eyes.
+
+"Quimby! poor Quimby! I have ruined him!" was Nattie's remorseful and
+unintelligible answer.
+
+"Well, my dear, if you could possibly be a trifle lucid, perhaps I could
+understand the plot of the piece," said Cyn, decidedly relieved of her
+first surmise.
+
+Upon which Nattie, half laughing and half crying, explained. But the
+ludicrous side was too much for Cyn, and she could only laugh.
+
+"What a farce it would make!" she said, as soon as she could speak.
+
+"Oh, Cyn!" Nattie said, reproachfully. "Think how dreadful it is for
+Quimby, and for me, the un-meaning instrument of it all!"
+
+"Nonsense, my dear," said Cyn, more seriously, and bringing her
+philosophy to bear on the subject, "It was not your fault! she was
+determined to have him in any case! Had it been you, as he supposed, you
+would of course have declined the proffered honor, and she would have
+caught him in the rebound! If he has spirit enough, he can get out of
+marrying her in some way. If not--she will make him a good wife enough.
+Men, you know, as she says, prefer to marry women who don't know too
+much; so it is all right!"
+
+And with this Nattie was fain to be content. But she felt great pity for
+the poor fellow; perhaps because of the unhappiness in her own heart.
+
+It is only from the depths of our own sorrows that we learn to feel for
+that of others.
+
+As Quimby and Clem entered, both Nattie and Cyn looked surprised and
+curious, but Quimby, so excited now that his usual nervous bashfulness
+was forgotten, said immediately,
+
+"I--I beg pardon, I am sure, for calling so late, but my business will
+not wait, and I wanted Clem as witness--he and Cyn--so as to make no
+mistake now!" then turning to the astonished Nattie, he went on,
+
+"Nattie, I--I--my feelings for you have long been of--of adoration--no,
+please, hear me--" as she made a gesture to interrupt him. "To-night, in
+this room, I addressed another--Celeste--" here he groaned, but
+recovered himself and went on, "in the dark, you know, with words
+intended for you. I want to know now, what, had I not been so deceived,
+you would have said?"
+
+"But what difference can it make now?" asked Nattie, hesitating, and
+wishing to spare him, as he paused for a reply.
+
+"Every difference!" said Quimby, wildly. "I beg you to--to answer me
+truly, in order that I may know what course to take!"
+
+"Then since you wish," replied Nattie, with a pitying glance, "I will
+tell you that as a friend I think very highly of you, and always shall.
+But, that is all."
+
+"Then come on, Celeste!" exclaimed Quimby, in a burst of despair.
+"She--she says, she loves me, and I--I may get used to it in time! all
+but her teeth," he added, in his strict honesty, "to those I never can!"
+
+Cyn felt a mischievous desire to hint that time might relieve him of his
+objection, but restrained herself and said,
+
+"But you can explain the matter to her, you know!"
+
+"Just what I have been telling him," said Clem. "No woman would force
+herself on a man under such circumstances!"
+
+"She would, I feel it!" answered the unconvinced Quimby. "Miss
+Rogers--Nattie, I--I thank you, I--I shall always remember you as
+something unattainable and dear, and hope somebody more worthy may be to
+you what I would have been if I could. But I--I was born to make
+mistakes, you know, and I--I am used to it--and ought to be thankful it
+was not Miss Kling!"
+
+"I am very, very sorry!" murmured Nattie, and Clem saw there were tears
+in her eyes.
+
+"Moral--never make love in the dark!" said Cyn, looking with solemn
+warning at Clem.
+
+"Be sure that all--all the gas in the room is lighted if ever you
+propose!" added Quimby, miserably, to his friend.
+
+"I will remember," said Clem, glancing at Nattie. "There are worse
+mistakes made in the dark than on the wire, it seems!"
+
+"Far--far worse!" groaned Quimby, as Nattie hastily turned her head
+aside.
+
+"But now, really, Quimby!" urged Cyn, seriously, "do be sensible. Do not
+be foolish enough to marry a woman you do not want, because you cannot
+have the one you do!"
+
+But Quimby, with the fear of old Fishblate, and a breach of promise
+suit, and a dread of explanations in his mind--moreover, having firmly
+decided that a little more or less of misery did not matter, could not
+be persuaded to take any steps himself, or allow them to be taken, to
+free himself from the result of his latest mistake.
+
+Therefore, it came about, to the surprise of those not in the secret,
+and the unconcealed exultation of one of the parties immediately
+concerned, that the engagement of Quimby and Celeste was announced.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+ONE SUMMER DAY.
+
+
+The week that decided Quimby's fate so unexpectedly and brought him so
+much woe, to Cyn brought good tidings. Her success at the concert had
+been so decided that she was the recipient of many offers for the coming
+season, and was enabled to accept those that promised most
+advantageously. No one was more honestly glad than was Nattie in her
+congratulations; Nattie, who had fought and overcome that selfish pain
+and bitter wonder of hers, why Cyn should have everything and she
+nothing.
+
+Since the approach of summer, a much-talked of project among them had
+been a little picnic party in the woods, and as Clem now proposed to get
+it up in honor of Cyn's success, the plan was immediately carried out.
+Mrs. Simonson, with a feeble protest, because Miss Kling was not
+invited, accompanied them. The "them," of course, consisted of Cyn,
+Nattie, Clem, Jo, and the newly betrothed ones.
+
+Nature was kind to these seekers of her solitudes, and gave them a
+perfect day; one of those that occur in our uncertain climate less often
+than might be wished, but that penetrate everywhere with their sunshine,
+when they do come, even into hearts where sunshine seldom glances. So,
+for the nonce, our friends forgot all their little troubles; even Quimby
+brightening up, and ceasing to think of his engagement, as they stood
+underneath the green trees, by the banks of a small river; sunshine
+everywhere, and the music of birds in the air.
+
+"Is it not glorious?" cried Cyn, like a child, in her exuberance.
+
+"Why not camp out here, and stay all summer?" ecstatically suggested
+Clem, as he fondled his fishing tackle.
+
+"But it might not always be pleasant like this," said practical Mrs.
+Simonson.
+
+"When the sun shines we forget it may ever storm," said Jo, and looking
+admiringly at Cyn as he spoke.
+
+"Is our artist a philosopher, as well as all the rest we know he is?"
+asked Cyn, laughing.
+
+"A very little one; five feet six!" replied Jo.
+
+"Well, we will have no shadows to-day," said Cyn.
+
+"No shadows to-day!" echoed Jo; then turning to Mrs. Simonson, asked, "I
+hope you do not still regret Miss Kling!"
+
+"I suppose she would spoil it all!" that good lady committed herself
+enough to say.
+
+"Well, really, I must say," remarked Celeste, who now gave herself many
+airs, and evidently looked upon Cyn and Nattie as commonplace creatures,
+_not_ engaged!--"I must say, now that you are speaking of her, that she
+does _Kling_ in a way that is not pleasant sometimes. She actually annoys
+pa!"
+
+"I thought she entertained a high regard for The Tor--for your father,"
+said mischievous Cyn.
+
+"That is exactly it!" replied Celeste. "_Too_ high a regard! Truly, she
+behaves very ridiculously! Why, she positively waylays pa! so indelicate
+in a woman, you know!" with sublime unconsciousness of ever having
+indulged in the pastime of waylaying herself! "Such an old creature,
+too! she is always coming and wanting to mend his old clothes and
+stockings! Poor pa actually has to lock himself in his room sometimes!"
+
+The vision of "poor pa" thus pursued was too much for the gravity of
+the company, and there was a general laugh.
+
+"It is true," asserted Celeste. "Now; isn't it, Ralfy?" appealing to her
+betrothed with appropriate bashfulness.
+
+Everybody stared at this. No one before ever really knew that Quimby
+possessed a front door to his name, and he, as surprised as any one at
+the cognomen Love had discovered, fell back on a rolling log, and
+clutched his legs to that extent that they must have been black and blue
+for a week afterwards.
+
+Clem saved the discomfited "Ralfy" the necessity of replying, by
+interposing with,
+
+"Come! come! let us not talk on such incongruous subjects this lovely
+day! let us rather talk sentiment!" and he gave a prodigious wink in
+Jo's direction.
+
+"I fear we are not a very sentimental party!" laughed Cyn; adding
+mischievously, "except, of course, Quimby and Celeste!"
+
+"Oh! I--I am not, I assure you! I am not in the least, you know!"
+protested Quimby, taking a roll on the log; "never felt less so in my
+life."
+
+"Why, Ralfy!" exclaimed Celeste, reproachfully, and to his distress went
+up close to him, and would have sat down by his side, but for the
+uncontrollable rolling propensity of that log, which made it impossible.
+
+"How is it with you, Jo?" queried Cyn; "can you not for once, forget
+your horrible hobby, and be a little sentimental, in honor of the day?"
+
+Jo, who was throwing sticks into the water, to the great disturbance of
+the bugs, and plainly-shown annoyance of a big frog, made a somewhat
+surprising reply. Decidedly seriously, he said,
+
+"I fear if I should attempt it, I might get too much in earnest!"
+
+"Oh! we will risk that, so please begin!" said Cyn, but staring at him a
+little as she spoke. "Jo, sentimental! Just imagine it!"
+
+"Will you risk it?" he asked still seriously, and with so peculiar an
+expression that she could reply only by another astonished stare.
+
+"But really, it does not pay to be sentimental, as you all ought to have
+found out long ago! as Jo and I have!" Nattie said, jestingly, yet with
+an undertone of earnestness.
+
+"Then," said Clem, dryly, "since it is so with us, let us fish!" and he
+threw his line into the stream.
+
+Cyn, Jo, and Mrs. Simonson followed his example. Quimby declined joining
+in the sport, and perhaps, likening himself to the fish, balanced
+himself on the log, and looked on with a pathetic face. Celeste, as in
+duty bound, remained by his side. Nattie, too, was an observer only, and
+from the expression off her face was decidedly not amused.
+
+"I think it is cruel!" she exclaimed, as Jo took a fish off Cyn's hook.
+
+"I--I quite agree with you!" Quimby replied quickly, in answer to
+Nattie's observation. "It is cruel!"
+
+"But perhaps the fish were made for people to catch," suggested the
+pacific Mrs. Simonson, who had not yet been able to get a bite.
+
+"Yes," acquiesced Clem, pulling up a skinny little fish. "They are no
+worse off than we poor mortals after all. We must each fulfill our
+destiny, whether man or fish."
+
+"Yes! it is all fate!" exclaimed Quimby vehemently. "We cannot help
+ourselves!"
+
+"You believe in fate then? I don't think I do!" said Cyn, with a glance
+half-humorous, half-pitying, at its victim on the log; "what incentive
+would we have to any effort, if we were sure everything was marked out
+for us in advance?"
+
+"That is a question requiring too much effort for us to discuss on a
+warm day," said Nattie.
+
+"Certain circumstances must bring about certain results, you will
+acknowledge," Clem gravely remarked.
+
+"But, it is said that every soul that is born has a twin somewhere; and
+if so, that must be fate!" said Mrs. Simonson.
+
+"Miss Kling's theory, I believe!" laughed Nattie.
+
+"If it is so, the right ones don't often come together," said Quimby
+gloomily.
+
+"_We_ are an exception, then, to the general rule!" simpered Celeste.
+
+Quimby groaned, and then murmured something about the toothache.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Cyn, in a low voice, to Nattie.
+
+"After all, there _is_ something in fate," Nattie sighed.
+
+"Perhaps so," she said.
+
+"Well, we will not get solemn over fate," said Jo, cheerily; then, in a
+lower voice, as he glanced at Cyn, he added--"yet."
+
+"And do not frighten away what few fish there are here, with your
+theories," commanded Clem.
+
+Although this mandate was obeyed, and for a time silence reigned, it was
+not long before they were all singing a gay song, started by Clem
+himself, even Quimby joining in the chorus with a feeble tenor. But they
+were tired of fishing by that time, and began to feel as if a little
+refreshment would not be out of place, and would indeed enhance the
+loveliness of Nature, so a fire was made, and lunch-baskets unpacked.
+
+"It will take a good many of those fish for a mouthful," declared Clem,
+who was cook.
+
+"You may have my share, I can't eat creatures I have seen squirm," said
+Nattie.
+
+"Ah, you fastidious young woman! what shall I ever do with you, if you
+are cast away on a desert island with me?" exclaimed Clem, in mock
+despair.
+
+"Set up a telegraph wire, and then she would need nothing more,"
+insinuated Cyn.
+
+"And get snubbed for my pains!" muttered Clem, _sotto voce_. But Nattie
+caught the words, and an expression of distress passed over her face.
+
+"This reminds me of that feast!" Cyn declared, as they sealed themselves
+wherever convenient, with a dish of whatever was handy.
+
+"Only more so," added Clem.
+
+"What feast?" asked Celeste, curiously.
+
+"One we had once," Cyn replied evasively, glad there was something
+Celeste did not know about. In fact, in the matter of curiosity, Celeste
+was an embryo Miss Kling.
+
+"I am sorry we have no _Charlotte Russes_ to-day, Quimby," remarked Clem,
+with an expression of transparent innocence.
+
+Quimby could only reply with a groan. The recollections awakened were
+too much.
+
+"What is the matter now, Ralfy?" asked the loving Celeste.
+
+Again Quimby muttered something about "that tooth."
+
+"Oh!" said Celeste, tenderly, "you really must have it out, Ralfy!"
+
+The possibility of being obliged to part with a sound tooth in
+self-defense, restored him for the time being. But he was not the only
+one to whom the retrospect brought a momentary pain. Nattie sighed as
+she looked back to the day that had brought Clem, but not restored as
+she then supposed, but taken away, her "C."
+
+"The salubrious air and the invigorating odor of the forest adds
+immeasurably to the natural capacity of the appetite!" commented Jo,
+gravely, as he passed his plate for the seventh fish.
+
+"Ah!" sighed Celeste, who prided herself on her delicacy, "I never
+could eat more than would satisfy a mouse, and since my engagement,"
+simpering, "I cannot swallow enough to scarce keep me alive!"
+
+Quimby looked up eagerly.
+
+"I--I beg pardon, but if the--if the engagement weighs upon you, I--I am
+willing to release you, you know!" he exclaimed, hopefully.
+
+"You jealous creature!" replied Celeste, archly. "You know, Ralfy, that
+no consideration could make me release you!"
+
+Quimby knew it only too well, and sighed as he picked a chicken bone.
+
+"A great objection to dining in the woods is that one is apt to find his
+food unexpectedly seasoned!" said Clem, as he captured a six-legged bug
+of an adventurous spirit, that had sought to investigate the contents of
+his plate.
+
+"Isn't it strange that bugs don't seem half so bad in our food here as
+they would at home!" said Mrs. Simonson.
+
+"Oh! we can get used to anything, if we only think so!" said Cyn,
+bringing her cheery philosophy to the front.
+
+"Yes!" assented Quimby, mournfully, "I--I am used to it, you know!"
+
+Cyn laughed, and then proposed the health of the betrothed pair, which
+was drank in lager beer, and to which Quimby, bolstered up by Celeste,
+attempted to respond, but collapsed in the middle of the third sentence,
+and with the words,
+
+"Thank you! and I--I am used to it, you know!" sat down, wiped his
+forehead on his napkin, and looked intensely miserable.
+
+After that they toasted Cyn, and then "Dots and Dashes," and last, Jo
+with mock solemnity proposed "Fate."
+
+And just then Quimby met with a fresh mishap, and came near ending his
+sufferings in a watery grave, only the water did not happen to be quite
+deep enough. Arising from the sharp-pointed rock that had served him for
+a pivot on which to eat his dinner, he stumbled, fell and rolled over
+and over down the bank, and into the river, with a tremendous splash.
+
+Every one jumped up in consternation.
+
+"Oh, Clem! Jo!" shrieked Celeste, wringing her hands, and rushing down
+to the water's edge. "Save him! Save my darling Ralfy!"
+
+"Ralfy," however, was equal to saving his own life this time. The water
+was only up to his waist, and he had already picked himself up and was
+wading ashore.
+
+"I--I am all right!" he said looking up at his anxious friends with a
+reassuring smile. "I--I am used to it, you know!"
+
+As Clem assisted him up the bank, the thought came into Cyn's head, why
+would it not be a good idea to push Nat--accidentally--into the river,
+so Clem might rescue her, and thus bring about that much to be desired
+crisis? But remembering that water would run the colors of her dress,
+and farther, how dreadfully unbecoming it was to be wet--a fact fully
+demonstrated by the present appearance of Quimby--Cyn rejected the idea
+as not exactly feasible.
+
+They left Quimby drying on a sunny bank, with Celeste as guardian angel,
+love, and the remains of the repast to cheer her, and the consciousness
+that his clothes were shrinking on him as they dried, to divert _him_, and
+wandered off through the woods, and over the hills, gathering on the way
+so many flowers and green things, that Cyn declared they looked like
+Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane.
+
+At first they were all together, then straggled apart; Mrs. Simonson
+being the first dereliction, as she was not quite equal to climbing as
+fast as the young people. Thus it came about that Nattie found herself
+alone with Clem, and suddenly stopping, with some embarrassment, but
+steadily, said,
+
+"There is something I wish to say to you. You have spoken several times
+of late about my 'snubbing' you. I want to say, I have not intentionally
+done so; that I have the same--the same friendship for you as always,
+and that I wish you every happiness. What may have appeared to you as
+strange or cold in my conduct of late, is due to secrets of my own."
+
+Clem look at her scrutinizingly, as she spoke, and the flowers he had
+gathered fell unheeded from his hands.
+
+"It has never been _my_ wish that any coldness should come between us; you
+know that, Nattie," he replied earnestly. "From our first acquaintance,
+the old acquaintance over the wire, you have held the same place in my
+heart!"
+
+"The place next to Cyn!" was Nattie's involuntary bitter thought, but
+she instantly stifled the feeling, and answered,
+
+"Thank you, Clem; and I hope we may always be the same friends."
+
+At this Clem took an impetuous step towards her, and would have
+said--who can tell what?--had not at the same moment Mrs. Simonson, very
+much out of breath, come up with them. Nattie was not sorry. She had
+wished to say to him what she had, that he might not think her changed
+manner of late had been caused by any feeling of dislike, and might
+understand she wished him success with Cyn. But she had no desire to
+prolong the interview, and gladly walked on by the side of the puffing
+Mrs. Simonson.
+
+Clem, however, looked displeased, and followed with a thoughtful face;
+so thoughtful that Mrs. Simonson noticed and wondered at his
+preoccupation.
+
+Meanwhile, Cyn, with Jo, were far in advance, and had turned into a
+by-path that led toward a slight rising, sauntering on, Cyn talking
+merrily, Jo unusually quiet, until suddenly stopping, she exclaimed,
+
+"Dear me! we have lost sight of every one! Had we not better return?"
+
+"No! I do not want to!" answered Jo, bluntly.
+
+"Do you not? As you say, only we must not lose them. Possibly they may
+stroll this way; shall we sit down?" and without waiting for a response
+Cyn seated herself on a big rock by the side of the pathway.
+
+Although Jo was not romantic, he had an artist-eye, and could not but
+note the beauty of the scene before him, a scene he did not need to
+reproduce on canvas to remember ever after;--the mountains in the
+background, the narrow path sloping down from the near hill to where, on
+the gray and moss-covered rock, Cyn sat, her dark eyes mellow with the
+summer sunshine, and the cherry ribbons of her hat giving the requisite
+touch of color to make the picture perfect.
+
+For a moment he stood in silent admiration, then, taking off his hat,
+and smoothing down his shaven locks, he said,
+
+"To tell the truth, Cyn, I do hope they will not stroll this way. They
+are around altogether too much. I never can have a quiet talk with you!"
+
+"I declare, I believe in addition to your being unsentimental, and all
+that, you are becoming a confirmed grumbler!" exclaimed Cyn, as she
+caught one of the boughs of the tree overhead and turned a
+merrily-protesting face towards him.
+
+Jo looked at her, and a queer expression came over his face.
+
+"Am I?" he said, slowly. "Well--would you like to see me sentimental?
+Would you like to see me make a fool of myself?"
+
+"Nothing would give me greater pleasure!" cried Cyn.
+
+"Then," exclaimed Jo, planting himself directly in front of her, "here
+goes! now I am going to astonish you very much, Cyn!"
+
+"Very well! I am all impatience! Go on!"
+
+"But it is no joke!" he replied, in protest to her laughing face. "If I
+am to make a fool of myself I am going to do it in dead earnest!"
+
+"That is the way, of course," responded Cyn, but beginning to look a
+little surprised.
+
+For Jo seemed very much excited, and his manner indicated anything but a
+jest. Extraordinary creature, that Jo! His next proceeding was even more
+strange; that was to ask the apparently irrelevant question,
+
+"Do you remember what we were all saying a short time ago, about Fate?"
+
+"Certainly; but are you going to favor me with a dissertation on Fate,
+instead of making a fool of yourself?"
+
+"No!" was the solemn reply, "have a little patience, Cyn. The fact is,
+you are my Fate--there is no mistake about it!--and must be either cruel
+or kind, and there's no alternative!"
+
+Cyn's surprise increased visibly.
+
+"I am sure, I do not understand you at all! how queer you are to-day,
+Jo!"
+
+"Of course I am queer! when a man throws his theories and hobbies to the
+winds, and confesses himself conquered, he is apt to be queer, is he
+not? Can you not understand, that I, Jo Norton, who have always scoffed
+at sentiment, and proudly declared myself incapable of being the victim
+of love, am ready--yes, and longing!--to make as big a fool of myself as
+the veriest spooniest youth in existence, and all for love of you, Cyn?"
+
+To this exceedingly novel declaration of love, Cyn responded by
+releasing the bough she held, and staring at him with distended eyes and
+a perfectly blank face; for once in her life, speechless.
+
+"I told you I was going to astonish you," said Jo, quaintly, in answer
+to her prolonged stare, "and I do not wonder that you cannot believe I
+really love you! I did not myself, for a long time, and I would not
+after I knew it! But it is a fact. No joke--no mistake, but a sober,
+serious fact! I love you, love you, love you!"
+
+Jo's voice grew very fervent, as he uttered these last words, and was in
+such striking contrast to his ordinary manner, that Cyn could but see
+that this was indeed, "no joke."
+
+"You--you love--and _love me!_" she gasped.
+
+"Yes, I could not help it! I have only known it within a few days, but I
+think I have loved you ever since we first met, only those confounded
+theories of mine blinded me."
+
+"Well--but what are you going to do about it?" questioned Cyn, unable
+yet to recover from her bewilderment.
+
+Jo looked at her, wistfully.
+
+"I know I am homely, Cyn, and I am poor; I have nothing to offer you but
+an honest, loving and true heart. I suppose a man who is in love is
+naturally unreasonable--I never was in love before, you know--but an
+extravagant hope will whisper to me, that even this little might not be
+unappreciated by you."
+
+And as he spoke, Jo's face was so transfigured that it could no longer
+be called plain. Cyn gazed at him in wonder, and recovering partly from
+her first surprise, an unusual seriousness came over her own handsome
+face, as she answered earnestly,
+
+"It is not unappreciated! oh, no, Jo! Nothing to offer me but an honest,
+loving and true heart, you say? why, that is everything!"
+
+"Then will you accept it? May I try and win your love?" he asked
+eagerly, advancing close to her. "I will work very hard to make myself
+worthy of it, and to win a name you need not be ashamed to bear. I lay
+myself, my life at your feet, Cyn."
+
+"And this is unsentimental Jo!" Cyn exclaimed involuntarily.
+
+"This is unsentimental Jo," he answered, in all humility. "Do with him
+what you will; he is all yours."
+
+Into Cyn's expressive eyes came some deeply-stirred emotion.
+
+"I am so sorry;" she said, sadly, "so very, very sorry! what shall I
+say? what shall I do? I like you so much as a friend! But what you ask,
+Jo, could never be!"
+
+The sun sank behind the distant hills, and a shadow, such as had fallen
+over the woods behind them, settled on Jo's face.
+
+"The idea is new to you. At least, think it over. Do not leave me
+without a little hope," he entreated.
+
+"Jo, I wish--yes! I _do_ wish that I could love you as you deserve to be
+loved," said Cyn, earnestly. "But it cannot be! it never could be! Do
+not deceive yourself with false hopes. Friends always, Jo, but lovers
+never!"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Jo, bitterly, unable to restrain his jealousy, "it is
+Clem who stands between us!"
+
+"_Clem_ who stands between us!" echoed Cyn, astounded for the second time
+that day.
+
+"There--now I have lowered myself in your estimation; I am but a
+blundering fool, Cyn. You see I am selfish in my love; and I have not
+yet become sentimental enough to be willing to see another fellow win
+what is all the world to me!"
+
+Cyn's face grew red as was the sky when the sun had gone down.
+
+"Do you mean to insinuate that I am in love with Clem?" she asked,
+angrily.
+
+"I would not insinuate it for all the world, if you are not," was Jo's
+eager reply; "I am not experienced in love matters, but I am quite sure
+he loves you--and he is very handsome," he added ruefully.
+
+"What a dreadful combination of circumstances!" cried Cyn, distractedly.
+"But, pshaw! It's impossible!"
+
+"Impossible? No, indeed! Why, it was by being so jealous of him that I
+first awoke to the fact that I was in love with you myself. Besides,
+every one has noticed his fondness for you."
+
+"They have?" vehemently, and smiting the rock where she sat with her
+hand, as she spoke. "But this is truly awful!"
+
+"Then you do not care for him?" questioned Jo, joyfully.
+
+"Care for him?" repeated Cyn, irritably. "Of course I care for him! Is
+it not my pet scheme that he should marry Nattie? Certainly it is, and
+has been from the first! And now, if he has gone and fallen in love with
+_me_, a nice predicament we will all be in. But you must be mistaken! I
+cannot believe him capable of such a thing! The only reason I have to
+fear it is that I would not have credited it of _you_ yesterday!"
+
+"But you see I do love you. You believe I do, do you not, Cyn?" asked
+Jo, too eager to press his own suit to give much thought to Nattie and
+Clem. "Why will you not try and love me, as you do not love Clem? Am I
+so homely as to be repulsive to you?"
+
+"Homely? Nonsense!" replied Cyn, momentarily putting aside her newest
+anxiety for the previous one, "now I come to think of it, I had rather
+marry you than any man I know!"
+
+"Would you? Would you really?" seizing her hand hopefully. "Then why
+will you not?"
+
+Cyn allowed her hand to remain in his as she said slowly and
+impressively,
+
+"I cannot marry. That is entirely out of the question for me. Of my
+life, love can form no part!"
+
+"But I thought you believed in love?" said Jo, looking perplexed, but
+clinging to her hand as a sort of anchor.
+
+"I do. I believe it is the best happiness of life. But it cannot be for
+me. Why, I will tell you. I owe this much in return for what you have
+given me; what I prize even though I am compelled to refuse it. What
+stands between us is the memory of a love--gone forever."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Jo, astounded in his turn. "You do not mean to say
+that you--that you--_you_, the gayest of the gay--that _you_--" Jo stopped,
+unable to proceed.
+
+"You hardly expected to find me in the _role_ of the victim of a broken
+heart, did you?" questioned Cyn, with a half-sad, half-humorous smile.
+"I admit I do not exactly answer to the average description, and my
+heart is not broken--there is only a blank in it--something dead that
+can never live again. Once I loved a man with all my heart"--Jo
+sighed--"with all the illusion of youth, and he loved me. The difference
+between his love and mine was, that mine was forever, and his was for a
+day."
+
+"Impossible!" interrupted Jo. "No man who once loved you could ever
+change."
+
+"He happened to be one of the kind who _could_. I never really knew the
+cause--it might have been another woman. You know there always _is_
+another woman."
+
+"Or another man," added Jo gloomily.
+
+"Yes," assented Cyn, and continued. "He was one of the kind, I think
+now, who are incapable of appreciating a woman's love, and consequently
+unworthy of it. But unfortunately, I did not know this, and wasted mine
+on him. So he and love, went out of my life forever. But," with a proud
+raising of her head, "I would not be weak enough to allow all my life to
+be ruined because one part of it was wrecked; with so much gone, there
+still remained something, and of that I made the most. This is why my
+art is everything to me, and why I cannot marry you."
+
+"But it seems to me unreasonable, that because you loved one man who was
+unworthy, you should refuse the love of another who would try very hard
+to make you forget that first sad experience," argued Jo. "Give me what
+you have left, Cyn! If it be but dead ashes, I will thank God for the
+gift, and perhaps, at some future day, in response to my devotion, even
+from those ashes shall arise another love, so strong, so intense, that,
+in comparison, the old shall be but as some half-forgotten trouble of
+childhood, whose remembrance cannot awaken even a passing pain."
+
+The fervor of an honest affection made Jo truly eloquent, and his true
+blue eyes met the dark ones of Cyn, glowing with earnestness and love,
+and for a moment she looked at him and hesitated. Then she arose, saying
+resolutely,
+
+"No! Jo! no! Do not tempt me! The experiment would be too dangerous! To
+give you a warmed-over affection in return for your whole heart, would
+only be misery for us both--more misery than I am bringing to you now. I
+respect and esteem you, as I said before--we will be
+friends--comrades--always--no more!"
+
+As she spoke, she extended her hand to him, in farewell to all his
+hopes.
+
+And so understanding he clasped it, a sadness on his face she had never
+seen there before.
+
+"As you will, Cyn," he replied, brokenly, "but I shall love
+you--forever!"
+
+As he spoke, from below came the cry,
+
+"Cyn Jo! where are you? we are going!"
+
+"Coming!" Cyn's clear voice answered back.
+
+"One moment," Jo said, detaining her, "may I--may I kiss you once, Cyn?
+Once, and for the last time?"
+
+There were tears in Cyn's eyes. She bent her handsome head, their lips
+met, then, without a word, they went on together to join those who
+awaited them.
+
+And it was thus Fate decreed for these two.
+
+Love brings the most intense sorrows, the keenest joys of life. But
+there must always be some lives, into which comes only the sadness, and
+none of the bliss, of loving.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+O. K.
+
+
+Leaving Clem, on their arrival at the hotel, to bear the burden of the
+green stuff they had brought from the woods, Cyn, with a trace of
+melancholy on her sunny face, followed Nattie to her room. For Cyn's
+joyous picnic, with its gay beginning, had ended sadly enough for her.
+
+"I want to ask you something," Cyn said, with frank directness, as she
+carefully closed the door behind them. "And that is, are you, can you be
+foolish enough to imagine, that Clem and I are in love with each other?"
+
+The small basket Nattie held in her hand fell to the floor, at this
+unexpected question. Had Cyn drawn forth a bowie-knife, and playfully
+clipped off her nose, she could not have been more astounded.
+
+"If you can possibly reduce your eyes to their ordinary size, and give
+me a candid yes or no, I will be obliged," Cyn said, rather petulantly,
+after waiting in vain for an answer. The events of the day had sorely
+tried her usually even temper.
+
+A little tremulously, while a burning flush covered her face, Nattie
+answered her,
+
+"I--I have heard it intimated!"
+
+"You have heard it intimated! That means yes, to my question," said Cyn;
+then sinking despairingly on the lounge, she added, "here is a crisis of
+which I never dreamed!"
+
+Not understanding very well, and moreover much agitated by the subject,
+Nattie knew not what to say.
+
+"This is awful!" went on Cyn, savagely beating the pillow with her fist;
+"what contrary things love affairs are!"
+
+Fearful of having in some way betrayed her secret--the only conclusion
+she could draw from Cyn's extraordinary outburst--Nattie stood looking
+guiltily at the floor a few moments, then recovering herself, she went
+to Cyn, and said, in a voice full of emotion,
+
+"I do not just comprehend your meaning, dear, but it may be you think I
+might not quite like the idea, on account of that--that first affair on
+the wire. If so, dismiss the thought. You and Clem are suited to each
+other, and--" Nattie stopped, unable to continue.
+
+Cyn, who had been beating the innocent pillow, as if it was the cause of
+all this, while Nattie was speaking, now threw it across the room, as
+she exclaimed.
+
+"Oh! the perversity of human nature! Oh! you degenerate girl! As if I
+cared for Clem in that way! Have I not from the first set my heart on
+this real-life romance ending in the only way it could rightfully end?"
+
+A sudden light came into Nattie's face, but it died away in a moment.
+
+"Then you do not care for him? Poor Clem!" she said, in a low voice.
+
+"Poor Clem, indeed!" cried Cyn, pacing the floor excitedly. "I
+cannot--no, I cannot--believe it of him! He certainly has sagacity
+enough not to run his head against a beam in broad daylight, even--"
+
+"If Jo had not," she was about to add, but checked herself suddenly. Not
+for the world would she betray Jo's confidence. What had passed between
+them to-day should be a secret always, never again to be mentioned--but
+never forgotten in the friendship and companionship of after years.
+
+"You must be very difficult to suit, dear, if you do not like Clem!"
+said Nattie, with unconscious significance, after waiting in vain for
+Cyn to finish her sentence.
+
+"It is not that," replied Cyn, somewhat sadly. "Do you not know I have
+only one love,--music?"
+
+"Poor Clem!" again said Nattie, from the depths of her tender heart.
+"For I know he loves you, dear. He could not help it, who could?"
+
+Such words would have been sweet to the vanity of an ordinary woman. But
+on Cyn they had a very opposite effect.
+
+"Things have come to a pretty pass if one can not laugh and joke, and
+enjoy one's self with friends without being made love to!" she said,
+annoyed. Then looking scrutinizingly at Nattie, she asked,
+
+"And you--did you really wish Clem and I might love each other?"
+
+Nattie played nervously with the fringe of her dress, hesitated, then
+replied in a low tone,
+
+"I fear I did not, Cyn!"
+
+"Then it may come right yet!" exclaimed Cyn, hopefully.
+
+Nattie shook her head.
+
+"And he loving you? Oh, no!" she said. "I shall never be able to say
+O.K. to what you term your romance of the dots and dashes, Cyn. In fact,
+I have made up my mind that there are some people born to go through
+life missing both its best and its worst, and that I am one!"
+
+"Pray, do not say that!" urged Cyn, too disturbed to bring her easy
+philosophy to bear on the situation. "Of all things, do not get morbid."
+
+"But it is the truth!" persisted Nattie. "Even my name, for instance,
+proves it! I was christened Nathalie, a very fine poetic name. But, in
+all my life no one ever called me by it! I was always mediocre Nattie!"
+
+"And _I_ have curtailed you down to Nat!" said Cyn, with whimsical
+remorse. "But what a tangle we are in! First it was the man of musk and
+bear's grease, who came between you! Then, when he was explained away,
+came blundering I! Why did you not lock me out of sight somewhere? I
+would have done it myself had I known--" ironically-- "what an
+extremely fascinating and dangerous person I was!"
+
+At this Nattie could not help smiling.
+
+"Is was not your fault; it was Fate!" she said, her smile becoming a
+sigh, that Cyn echoed, for she thought of Jo. But yet unconvinced, she
+said,
+
+"Fate! No; it cannot be! I think better of Clem than to believe he, too,
+has made a mistake, like Quimby, and fallen in love with the wrong
+woman!" then starting up, she exclaimed, tragically, "Who? ah! who
+shall cut the Gordian knot and bring about a crisis that shall cause
+this 'wired love' to terminate in 'O. K.'?"
+
+As if invoked by Cyn's words, there came a sneeze from outside, and Miss
+Kling pushed open the door unceremoniously.
+
+"I wish to have some conversation with you, Miss Rogers," she said in a
+tone of severity.
+
+"Some other time, if you please," Nattie replied, impatiently, for her
+talk with Cyn had unnerved her; "just now I am engaged."
+
+Miss Kling drew herself up and said, with even more austerity,
+
+"There is no time like the present, and since Miss Archer is here, it
+may not be amiss for her to hear what I have to say."
+
+Nattie frowned, but Cyn, not unwilling to be diverted even by Miss Kling
+from the topic that was so annoying her, said,
+
+"Very well. We are listening, Miss Kling."
+
+"Miss Rogers," proceeded Miss Kling solemnly, after a preparatory
+sneeze, "I know _all_."
+
+The emphasis on the last word was truly tremendous, and Nattie started
+astonished, while Cyn looked up with awakened curiosity.
+
+"May I inquire what you mean by all?" inquired Nattie stiffly.
+
+"Yes," repeated Miss Kling, without heeding the question. "I know ALL. I
+have for some time suspected that something underhanded was going on.
+Now I know what it is that has been so carefully concealed from me! I
+have long objected to your associates, Miss Rogers, but--"
+
+"Pardon me, but that certainly does not concern you!" interrupted Cyn
+disdainfully.
+
+Miss Kling looked at her and sneezed a sinister sneeze.
+
+"It concerns me to know what kind of people I have in my house!" she
+replied, "and since you force me to speak out, Miss Archer, I will say
+that in my opinion no truly modest and proper girl would become intimate
+with those who pad their legs and paint their faces, and show themselves
+to the public"--this insinuation struck Cyn so comically that she could
+hardly suppress a laugh. "My suspicions, to return to what I was about
+to say, Miss Rogers, were first awakened by hearing that--that
+instrument"--Cyn and Nattie exchanged looks of intelligence--"you have
+here going, when I knew you were not in the room. And now, as I said, I
+know _all_! I pass over the audacity of such proceedings on _my_ premises,
+but their utter immorality is too much for me to bear! Yes! I found a
+wire, and know where it leads! Into the room of two young men! That any
+young woman should so immodest as to establish telegraphic communication
+between her bed-room and the bed-room of two young men is beyond my
+comprehension!"
+
+Cyn felt a mischievous desire to inquire how it would have struck her,
+had it been the bed-room of _one_ young man? Nattie, who had flushed
+crimson at the first knowledge of Miss Kling's discovery, now drew
+herself up and replied with dignity,
+
+"Really, Miss Kling, I think this extravagance of language utterly
+uncalled for! I admit it was not exactly correct for me to allow the
+wire to be run without consulting you, but beyond that, there was
+nothing reprehensible in my conduct."
+
+Miss Kling held up her hands in horror.
+
+"Nothing reprehensible in being connected by a telegraph wire with two
+young men!" she exclaimed. "Nothing--"
+
+"Excuse my intrusion; but, Cyn, will you please inform me if I am to
+stand all night loaded with green stuff, like a farmer on a market day?"
+at this point the merry voice of Clem interrupted, as he came hastily
+in, still bearing the burden Cyn had piled upon him. Then becoming aware
+of Miss Kling's presence, he added to her, "I beg pardon for my abrupt
+entrance, but the outer door being open, I made bold to enter;" then
+explanatory to Cyn, "Your door was locked, as also was mine, of which
+Quimby has the key; and as Celeste has not yet been able to part with
+him, there I have been standing in the hall, like patience with a load
+of dandelions!"
+
+"We were having such an interesting conversation," Cyn answered, with a
+scornful glance in Miss Kling's direction, "that I quite forgot you and
+the lapse of time."
+
+Clem instantly became aware of something amiss in the atmosphere, and
+glanced around inquiringly. Miss Kling immediately enlightened him.
+
+"There are many things you make bold to do, young man!" she said.
+"Putting telegraph apparatus in my house, for instance!"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Clem, comprehensively.
+
+"Yes;" went on the aggrieved Miss Kling, "you and that Quimby, I
+suppose, did it. The idea originated with you, of course. _He_ hasn't
+brains enough; if he had he would not marry Celeste!" and Miss Kling
+sniffed in utter contempt of poor Quimby.
+
+"Thanks for the compliment to _my_ intellectual abilities!" said Clem with
+a mischievous look; then advancing towards her, he answered in his own
+frank, manly way, "And so you have found us out? But I trust you will
+not be offended with us? It is, after all, a trifle, and we said nothing
+about it merely because we wished to have a little mystery of our own!
+It was, as the newsboys would say, a lark of ours!"
+
+"Lark!" repeated Miss Kling, drawing herself up stiffly; "young man, you
+will oblige me by not using slang in my presence!"
+
+"Pardon me," said Clem, good humoredly; "and in regard to the wire,
+blame me, if you must blame any one. As you say, it was all my doing,
+and I induced Miss Rogers to allow the wire to come into her room."
+
+"And I, too," added Cyn, propitiatingly, for Nattie's sake, "I wished to
+learn the business, you know!"
+
+But Miss Kling would not propitiate.
+
+"Miss Rogers, I have no doubt, was very ready to be induced!" she said,
+with an effort at sarcasm. "I have heard of young females so much in
+love that they would run after and pursue young men, but never before of
+one so carried away and so lost to every sense of decorum, as to be
+obliged to have a wire run from her room to his, in order to communicate
+with him at improper times!"
+
+This accusation, far-fetched and ridiculous as it was, yet being uttered
+in the presence of Clem, overwhelmed poor Nattie, and she sank on the
+lounge, burying her face in her hands, at which Clem made a hasty
+motion, and then, as if aware any interference of his would only make
+matters worse, checked himself. But Cyn came to the front with striking
+effect.
+
+"You ought, certainly, to be well informed on the subject of _old_
+females who run after _old_ men!" she said, witheringly. "If one may
+believe what the Tor--what Mr. Fishblate says!"
+
+This shot told. Miss Kling turned livid with rage and mortification, and
+burst into a terrific spasm of sneezing.
+
+"Miss Rogers," she said, wrathfully, as soon as she recovered
+sufficiently to speak, "your conduct and that of your associates is such,
+that I can no longer allow you to remain on my premises.
+
+"Miss Kling, this is--is very unjust,", said the agitated Nattie.
+
+"It is against the wishes of her friends that she has remained as long
+as she has," cried Cyn, hotly.
+
+"Miss Kling, your proceedings are infamous!" exclaimed Clem, not able to
+contain himself longer.
+
+Rather afraid to draw out Cyn any more, Miss Kling gladly seized this
+opportunity to attack Clem.
+
+"Young man, what right have you to interfere?" she inquired,
+majestically.
+
+Clem bit his lip. Sure enough, what right had he?
+
+He glanced at Nattie where she sat, pale and disturbed, at the scene
+that threatened to end seriously for her, and then, obeying a sudden
+impulse, seized the key at his side, and called,
+
+"N--N--N!"
+
+Nattie looked up quickly, and while Miss Kling, who supposed he was
+wantonly drumming on the obnoxious instrument to exasperate her, vented
+her indignation, and also the outraged feelings caused by the
+Torpedo-wound inflicted by Cyn, still rankling, in a wrathful homily to
+which no one listened, for Cyn was watching Clem curiously, he wrote
+rapidly, his eyes on the sounder,
+
+"She says I have no right to interfere. If you had not so changed
+towards me--if I could hope you loved me as I have ever loved you, I
+would ask you to give me the right, and let me put this pernicious
+discredit to her sex on the other side of that door!"
+
+As these words in dots and dashes came to her ears, Nattie, forgetting
+Miss Kling, forgetting everything, except that she loved Clem, and Clem
+declared--could it be possible--that he loved her, arose hastily, with a
+quick joy suffusing her face, and then their eyes met, and neither words
+or dots and dashes were needed. Love, more potent than electricity,
+required no interpreter, and that most powerful of all magnets drew them
+together. Before the face and eyes of the amazed Miss Kling, who had
+just delivered herself of a sentence intended to be crushing, and could
+not conceive why her victim should suddenly look so happy over it, he
+advanced to Nattie's side, clasped her hand eagerly and tenderly, then
+turning to Miss Kling, said, while Cyn, surmising the truth of the
+matter, embraced herself fervently,
+
+"Miss Kling, any farther observations you may have to make, you will be
+good enough to say to me, hereafter; and now, will you oblige me by
+leaving the room?" and he politely held open the door.
+
+"What?" gasped Miss Kling, hardly believing her own ears.
+
+"I cannot allow you to annoy Miss Rogers, the lady who is to be my
+wife!" Clem added; "and if she and I choose to have twelve telegraph
+wires, we will. Let me bid you good-evening!" and he pointed
+significantly at the open door.
+
+"Your wife! Miss Rogers!" echoed the discomfited Miss Kling, and glanced
+at the blushing Nattie, at Cyn, undisguisedly exultant, and at Clem,
+determinedly waiting for her to go out. This was something she had not
+expected, and it took her aback. So, with a sneeze, she drew herself up,
+gave a spiteful parting shot,
+
+"Well, she has worked hard enough to get you--had to bring the telegraph
+to her assistance!" and then retreated, before Cyn could retaliate with
+the Torpedo. Retreated to her own room, to nurse her wrath and envy, and
+to dream hopelessly, forever more, of that other self, never to come
+nearer than now!
+
+The discreet Cyn, comprehending that Miss Kling had brought about that,
+"crisis," and that something had been said on the wire to the right
+purpose, followed her out, and left them alone. It is hardly necessary
+to mention, that as soon as the door closed behind Cyn, Clem took Nattie
+in his arms and kissed her. It was an inevitable consequence.
+
+"And now explain why you have treated me so, you contrary little girl?"
+he queried, tenderly.
+
+"I thought," Nattie replied, raising her gray eyes, from which the
+shadows were all gone now, to his, "that you loved Cyn."
+
+"You did!" he said, surprised and reproachful; "and that is why you have
+been so cold and distant! How could you?"
+
+"But Cyn is so handsome, and--I do not see how you could help it!"
+pleaded Nattie in self-extenuation.
+
+"Of course she is handsome, talented, brilliant fascinating, everything
+that is nice," Clem answered, "but," in a low voice, "Cyn was not my
+little girl at B m!"
+
+Of course, after this there was another inevitable consequence, and then
+Clem asked,
+
+"And did you care because you imagined--you naughty, jealous girl--that
+I loved Cyn?"
+
+"Yes," Nattie answered, blushing, but honestly, "I was very unhappy,
+indeed I was, Clem! I think I loved you from the first--when you were
+invisible, you know!"
+
+"And I," said Clem, "should have given myself up a victim to despair,
+like Quimby, if it had not been for one thing. Jo made me a duplicate of
+that picture you destroyed, and the fact that you never even mentioned
+the Cupid overhead gave me hope!" and his own roguish look was in his
+eyes as he saw Nattie's confusion, and laughing his merry laugh, he
+clasped her in his arms.
+
+"I beg pardon," said Cyn tapping, and entering after a cautious
+interval, "But I come to inquire if Nat--I mean Nathalie--still thinks,
+as she did an hour ago, that Clem and I are just suited to each other?"
+
+Nattie laughed and blushed.
+
+"You see I set my heart on this from the beginning," said Cyn to Clem,
+not thinking it necessary to define to what "this" referred. "It was
+such a perfect romance, you know! and she has been frightening me by
+declaring that you were in love with me, and was so positive that she
+almost made me believe it, notwithstanding my natural sagacity!"
+
+"As I certainly should have been," replied Clem gallantly, "only for a
+prior attachment. You see, I loved Nattie before ever I saw you! Why, I
+used to pass the most of my time when at X n in wondering what she was
+like, and wishing--I was as near her as I am now, for instance. And how
+miserable I was, when she dropped me so suddenly! and how happy I was
+when I came upon her at that blessed feast, and the red hair was all
+explained away. And then came another cross on the circuit of my true
+love."
+
+"And had it not been for that _dear_ Betsey Kling with her invectives we
+should have been mixed, and not had a cue now!" exclaimed Cyn. "I
+declare, I could hug her!"
+
+But Betsey Kling not being available just then, she substituted Nattie,
+and gave her a most emphatic squeeze.
+
+"It was your shot about the Torpedo that finished her, Cyn," laughed
+Clem.
+
+"It _was_ effective, I flatter myself," Cyn confessed. "And that reminds
+me, you must not stay here now, Nat, you know; so I have seen Mrs.
+Simonson, and you are going to live with me--for the present"--glancing
+archly at her, "until that book is written, for instance."
+
+"And it _will_ be written, now, I know!" said Nattie, earnestly, her eyes
+shining. "You remember what you once said, Cyn? I see now you were
+right."
+
+"Yes;" said Cyn, seriously, "and thank Heaven that it was love, and not
+disappointment, that came!"
+
+"Love shall not come in vain!" Nattie said, as seriously. "I will be
+worthy of it!"
+
+The after years only could prove her words. But in Clem's face the
+belief in them was written as plainly as if those future possibilities
+were acknowledged results.
+
+"We must have another feast to celebrate events!" Cyn said then, gayly.
+"You are happy; my romance is O. K.; Celeste is ecstatic; Quimby as
+joyful as circumstances permit the victim of mistake to be; Jo and I are
+hopeful of future fame--and we certainly must have a feast!"
+
+"With plenty of dishes this time," laughed Clem, "and there shall be no
+more crosses on the wire!"
+
+"But bless my heart!" ejaculated Cyn, "here you two are making love
+like ordinary mortals"--at this Nattie hastily withdrew the hand Clem
+had taken-- "Quimby and Celeste, for instance! This will never do! We
+must end this romance of dots and dashes as it commenced, to make it
+truly 'Wired Love!'"
+
+"True enough! so we must!" answered Clem merrily, and rising, he went to
+the "key," with his eyes looking straight into Nattie's, and wrote
+something that made her blush and seize his hand in shy and unnecessary
+alarm, saying,
+
+"Suppose Jo should be over in your room! He might be able to read it!"
+
+"Very well," replied Clem, as he laughed and kissed her, regardless of
+the spectator. "I am quite content to make love like common mortals,
+Cyn, and I hope, my darling Nattie, that we are done now with all
+'breaks' and 'crosses,' as we are with Wired Love. Henceforth ours shall
+be the pure, unalloyed article, genuine love!"
+
+And Nattie, half-laughing, half-serious, but wholly glad, took the key
+and wrote, "O. K."
+
+If any one is anxious to know what Clem wrote when Nattie stopped him,
+here it is.
+
+MY LITTLE
+DARLING
+MY WIFE
+
+[Transcriber's Note. The concluding three lines were printed in the
+American Railroad dialect of Morse. It cannot easily be represented
+in ASCII as it requires dashes of different lengths]
+
+THE END
+
+
+
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