tioned 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