“I shall improve the acquaintance, however,” the latter said. “I am very curious to know how he looks, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I do not suppose I ever shall,” Nattie answered.
“Then you—I beg pardon, but you never expect to see him?” queried Quimby, with great earnestness.
“In all probability we never shall meet. I think I should be dreadfully embarrassed if we should,” Nattie replied, as she handed the day’s cash to the boy who just then came after it. “Face to face we would really be strangers to each other.”
Quimby evinced more satisfaction at this than the occasion seemed to warrant, as Nattie noticed, with some surprise, but several customers claiming her attention, all at once, and all in a hurry, she was kept too busy for some time, to think upon the cause.
As soon as she was at leisure, Miss Archer, with the remark that they had made an unpardonably long call, arose to go.
“But you must certainly come again,” Nattie said, cordially, already feeling her to be an old friend.
“Indeed I shall,” she answered, in the genial way peculiar to her. “You have a double attraction here, you know. Can I say goodbye to C?”
“I fear not, as the wire is busy,” replied Nattie. “But I will say it for you as soon as possible.”
“Yes, tell him, please, that I will see him—I mean, hear the clatter he makes again soon: You, I shall see at the hotel, I hope, now we have met.”
“Oh, yes!” Nattie replied. “I am very much indebted to Quimby for making us acquainted.”
“Oh! really now, do you mean it?” exclaimed Quimby, with sudden delight. “I am so glad I’ve done something right at last, you know! Always doing something wrong, you know!” then hugging his hat to his breast, and speaking in a confidential whisper, he added, to the great amusement of the two girls, “I have a presentiment—a horrible presentiment—I’m always making mistakes, you see. I’m used to it, but I couldn’t get used to that, you know—that some day I shall marry the wrong woman!”
So saying, and with a last glance of implacable dislike at the sounder, Quimby bowed awkwardly, and departed with the laughing Miss Archer.
Soon after their departure, C asked,
“Has Black-Eyed Susan gone?”
“Yes,” responded Nattie. “She left a goodbye for you, and means to improve your acquaintance.”
“Thrice happy I! But about this he? Who is this he? I want to know all about him. Is he a hated rival?”
“Ha! I never heard him say so, but I will ask him if you wish. He lives in the same building with me, and brought Miss Archer, a fellow-lodger, down to introduce her.”
“Do you ever go to balls, concerts, theaters, or to ride with him?” asked C, who seemed determined to make a thorough investigation of matters.
“Dear me! No! He never asked me!”
“Do you wish he would?” persisted C.
“Of course I do!” replied Nattie, somewhat regardless of truth.
“It is my opinion I shall be obliged to come and look after you,” C replied, at this admission.
“But you wouldn’t know whether you were looking after the right person or not, when you were here!” Nattie said, with a smiling face and sparkling eyes turned in the direction of an urchin, flattening his nose against her window-glass, who immediately fled, overwhelmed with astonishment, at being, as he supposed, so smiled upon.
“And why wouldn’t I?” questioned C.
“Because I should recognize you immediately, and should pretend it was not I, but some substitute,” replied Nattie.
“You seem to be very positive about recognizing me. Is your intuitive bump so well-developed as all that?” asked C.
“Yes,” Nattie responded. “And then you know there would be a twinkle in your eye that would betray you at once.”
“Indeed! We will see about that, young lady. But now, as a customer has been drumming on my shelf for the past five minutes, in a frantic endeavor to attract my attention, and has by this time worked himself into a fine irascible temper, because I will not even glance at him, I must bid you good night, with the advice, watch for that twinkle, and be sure you discover it!”
IV
Neighborly Calls
In the opinion of Miss Betsey Kling, a lone young woman, who possessed three large trunks, a more than average share of good looks, and who went out and came in at irregular and unheard-of hours, was a person to be looked after and inquired about; accordingly, while Miss Archer was making the acquaintance of Nattie, and of the invisible C, Miss Kling descended upon Mrs. Simonson, with the object of dragging from that lady all possible information she might be possessed of, regarding her latest lodger. As a result, Miss Kling learned that Miss Archer was studying to become an opera singer, that she occasionally now sang at concerts, meeting with encouraging success, and further, that she possessed the best of references. But Miss Kling gave a sniffle of distrust.
“Public characters are not to be trusted. Do you remember,” she asked solemnly, “do you remember the young man you once had here, who ran away with your teaspoons and your toothbrush?”
Ah, yes! Mrs. Simonson remembered him perfectly. Was she likely to forget him? But he, Mrs. Simonson respectfully submitted, was not a singer, but a commercial traveler.
Miss Kling shook her head.
“That experience should be a warning! You cannot deny that no young woman of a modest and retiring disposition would seek to place herself in a public position. Can you imagine me upon the stage?” concluded Miss Kling with great dignity.
Mrs. Simonson was free to admit that her imagination could contemplate no such possibility, and then, neither desirous of criticising a good paying lodger, or of offending Miss Kling—that struggle with the ways and means having taught her to, offend no one if it could possibly be avoided—she changed the subject by expatiating at length upon a topic she always found safe—the weather. But Miss Celeste Fishblate coming in, Miss Kling left
