“Thank you! I—I never knew anyone who understood me as well as you!” he said with a grateful bow, and without more words, Cyn left him.
“How long you have been gone!” Nattie remarked, looking up, her cheeks very red, and her nose embellished with a streak of smut, as Cyn entered. “Did you see anyone?”
“No one except Quimby, who stopped me to ask about bringing a friend to call some evening,” Cyn replied, displaying the fruit, and producing the soap-dish.
“Mercy on us!” Nattie said, looking rather aghast, “it is rather large, isn’t it? and what did you bring-that soap-dish for?”
“I thought it might come handy,” laughed Cyn. “We will make a potato holder of it for the time. ‘To what base uses may we come at last?’—Why—” in a tone of surprise, “here is the Duchess!”
And sure enough, up by the window sat that sagacious animal, winking and blinking complacently, and evidently determined to be a third in the feast.
“She came in unnoticed under the shadow that fruit-dish threw,” said Nattie, teasingly.
Cyn shook an oyster fork at her threateningly.
“Say another such word and you shall have no steak!” she said tragically, “instead, a dungeon shall be your doom. We will let the Duchess remain as a receiver of odds and ends. I suppose her suspicions were excited by the sight of these articles. A rare cat! a learned cat! now please set the table, for our feast will soon be prepared!” and Cyn bent over the sizzling steak, that emitted a most appetizing odor.
Setting that table was no such easy matter as might appear, for what with the big fruit-dish, wooden covers, different sizes of plates and other incongruous articles, considerable management was necessary.
“I shall have to put the sugar on in the bag,” Nattie said, incautiously backing to view the general effect, and so stumbling over the saucepan of potatoes that sat on the floor, but luckily doing no damage.
“Ah, well! Eccentricity is quite the rage now, you know,” responded the philosophical Cyn, “and certainly, a sugar-bowl so closely resembling a brown paper bag as not to be distinguishable from the real thing, is quite recherche. But my dear Nat, where am I to set the steak if you have that big fruit-dish in the center of the table, taking up all the room?”
“I shall have to put it on the floor, then,” Nattie answered, despairingly, “for I have tried it on all parts of the table! If you set it on the edge,” she added hastily, seeing Cyn about to do so, “you will tip the whole thing over!”
“Then we must have a sideboard,” Cyn announced, with a plate of steak in one hand, and the big fruit-dish in the other. “Put my writing-desk on a chair, please; spread a towel over it, and there you have it!”
“But what a quantity of eatables we have! Two pounds of steak, ten big potatoes, a two-quart dish of tomatoes, two large pies, two Charlotte Russes, an urn of coffee, a dozen oranges and a box of figs—good gracious! Think of two people eating all that!” exclaimed Nattie, decidedly dismayed at the prospect.
“It is considerable,” Cyn confessed, surveying the array with a slightly daunted expression. “You see I am not used to buying for a family, and I was afraid of getting too little. But,” brightening, “there isn’t more than one quart of the tomatoes, and there are three of us, you know—the Duchess!”
“To be sure; I had forgotten her!” Nattie said, recovering her equanimity, and glancing at the purring animal, who was looking on approvingly, and evidently appreciated the difference between sirloin and her usual rations of round.
“Then let the revels commence, at once!” cried Cyn, rolling down her sleeves, while Nattie wiped the smut from her face.
But now another difficulty presented itself; the chairs were all too low to admit of feasting with the anticipated rapture; this was soon overcome, however, by piling a few books in the highest chair, and appropriating the music-stool.
“Now for a feast,” exclaimed Nattie, exultantly, as they sat down triumphant, and she brandished her very big knife and extremely small fork, while Cyn poured the coffee from the—urn; an undertaking attended with some difficulty, and requiring caution; and the Duchess looked on expectantly.
And then—the goal almost reached—upon their startled ears came a dreadful sound—the sound of a knock at the door!
Down to the ground went Nattie’s knife and fork, the coffee-urn narrowly escaped a similar fate, up went the back of the Duchess, and two dismayed Bohemians and one impatient cat gazed at each other.
IX
Unexpected Visitors
“It must be Miss Kling, overpowered by curiosity!” murmured Nattie.
“No!” answered Cyn in a stage whisper, “the knock is too timid. Good gracious! there it is again! Stand in front of the gas stove, Nat, lest it be Mrs. Simonson, while I go and invent some excuse for not letting in whoever it is.”
And having given these hasty directions, Cyn opened the door the smallest possible crack. As she did so, and before she could speak, it was pushed back violently, almost knocking her over, and in burst Quimby. This, however, might not have much disconcerted them, as he could have been disposed of easily enough, had not at his heels came a tall, fine-looking young man, a perfect stranger to both Cyn and Nattie.
“You see I keep my word!” was the enigmatical remark the smiling Quimby made as he entered. Then, catching sight of the festive board, he stopped short and stared, with an utterly confounded face, at that, at the embarrassed Nattie, at Cyn, behind the door, and at the saucepan cover, which, embellished with potato parings, occupied a prominent position in the middle of the floor.
His companion also paused, a surprised and amused smile lurking in his merry brown eyes as he looked at Nattie, seemingly regardless of anything else in the room.
Cyn was the first to recover from the general petrifaction,
