"Of course she is handsome, talented, brilliant fascinating, everything that is nice," Clem answered, "but," in a low voice, "Cyn was not my little girl at B m!"
Of course, after this there was another inevitable consequence, and then
Clem asked,
"And did you care because you imagined—you naughty, jealous girl—that
I loved Cyn?"
"Yes," Nattie answered, blushing, but honestly, "I was very unhappy, indeed I was, Clem! I think I loved you from the first—when you were invisible, you know!"
"And I," said Clem, "should have given myself up a victim to despair, like Quimby, if it had not been for one thing. Jo made me a duplicate of that picture you destroyed, and the fact that you never even mentioned the Cupid overhead gave me hope!" and his own roguish look was in his eyes as he saw Nattie's confusion, and laughing his merry laugh, he clasped her in his arms.
"I beg pardon," said Cyn tapping, and entering after a cautious interval, "But I come to inquire if Nat—I mean Nathalie—still thinks, as she did an hour ago, that Clem and I are just suited to each other?"
Nattie laughed and blushed.
"You see I set my heart on this from the beginning," said Cyn to Clem, not thinking it necessary to define to what "this" referred. "It was such a perfect romance, you know! and she has been frightening me by declaring that you were in love with me, and was so positive that she almost made me believe it, notwithstanding my natural sagacity!"
"As I certainly should have been," replied Clem gallantly, "only for a prior attachment. You see, I loved Nattie before ever I saw you! Why, I used to pass the most of my time when at X n in wondering what she was like, and wishing—I was as near her as I am now, for instance. And how miserable I was, when she dropped me so suddenly! and how happy I was when I came upon her at that blessed feast, and the red hair was all explained away. And then came another cross on the circuit of my true love."
"And had it not been for that dear Betsey Kling with her invectives we should have been mixed, and not had a cue now!" exclaimed Cyn. "I declare, I could hug her!"