Nattie smiled and explained, and then turning to Quimby, asked,
"You remember my speaking about 'C' and wondering whether a gentleman or lady?"
"Oh, yes!" Quimby remembered, and fidgeted on his chair.
"He proved to be a gentleman."
"Oh, yes; exactly, you know!" responded Quimby, looking anything but elated.
"It must be very romantic and fascinating to talk with some one so far away, a mysterious stranger too, that one has never seen," Miss Archer said, her black eyes sparkling. "I should get up a nice little sentimental affair immediately, I know I should, there is something so nice about anything with a mystery to it."
"Yes, telegraphy has its romantic side—it would be dreadfully dull if it did not," Nattie answered.
"But—now really," said Quimby, who sat on the extreme edge of the chair, with his feet some two yards apart from each other; "really, you know, now suppose—just suppose, your mysterious invisible shouldn't be—just what you think, you know. You see, I remember one or two young men in telegraph offices, whose collars and cuffs are always soiled, you know!"
"I have great faith in my 'C,'" laughed Nattie.
"It would be dreadfully unromantic to fall in love with a soiled invisible, wouldn't it," said Miss Archer, with an expressive shrug of her shoulders.