"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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing--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 a.s.sertion.

"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 n.o.body--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 compa.s.ses 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 a.s.sure her that he himself possessed a great pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sure 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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,