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 uncomfortabl