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 embarra.s.sment, "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 embarra.s.sed 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 a.s.sure 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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," a.s.sented 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 d.u.c.h.ess, who had been walking the floor impatiently and indignantly, but was now contentedly chewing. "I--I a.s.sure 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.