"Forty cents," Nattie answered, shortly.
"Thank you," he said, but without moving, and after a moment, as if desirous of opening a conversation, he continued, smiling, "I hardly think I will send a message to-day; I presume you will not object to being spared the trouble?"
Nattie, having been quarreling all day with intangible somethings, was rather glad than otherwise to find a real object upon which she could vent the unamiability resulting from her surplus discontent. The young man's evident desire to talk more than circumstances warranted, was displeasing to her, and she rejoined very stiffly,
"It is a matter of perfect indifference to me," and turned away.
With an amused smile, he looked at the back thus presented to his view, opened his lips to speak, hesitated, and finally walked away. Nattie, looking after him out of the corners of her eyes, saw him glance back as he opened the door, and had a remorseful feeling that perhaps she had been crosser to him than he really deserved, for he was certainly very fine-looking. But what was done could not be undone, and with no expectation of ever seeing him again, she dismissed the matter from her mind.
The best, perhaps the only really pleasant part of Nattie's life now, was her evenings, passed almost invariably with Cyn. Indeed, Cyn seemed to be a magnet, around which all gathered—Quimby, although, of course, Cyn herself was not his chief attraction—Celeste Fishblate, who determinedly pushed herself into an intimacy, and Jo Norton, who, had it not been for the fact so loudly proclaimed by himself, of his having no sentiment in his soul, would have been suspected of being on the road to falling in love with Cyn, so strangely was he attracted to her company. But this, of course, was impossible for him!
"That will not do, dear," Cyn remarked, when Nattie related her little adventure with the young gentleman. "Do you know you have been in a dreadful state of mind ever since 'C' intruded his personality?"
Nattie colored a little as she replied, discontentedly, "Oh, it isn't that, I assure you; the truth is, I am ambitious, Cyn. I suppose I forgot it, slightly, while I was so interested in 'C;' but I cannot be content with a mere working on from day to day, in the same old routine, and nothing more."
Cyn looked at her scrutinizingly, as she asked, "But in what particular way are you ambitious? to be rich, or what?"
"Oh! not for money!" Nattie answered, with a slight contempt for that necessary and convenient article. "I am ambitious for fame! I want to be a writer; but when I think of the obstacles in my way to an opening, even, in that direction, I am daunted. I have attacks of energy, it is true, but I fear it is fitful; it comes and goes."