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 the