"I shall be very happy to. Are Natty and—Charley coming?"
Miss Jo nodded again, and without further parley walked away. As she turned the corner of Cottage Street into a more busy thoroughfare, known as Park Lane, she saw a lady and gentleman taking the sidewalk in dashing style. Everybody looked after them, and everybody might have gone a long way without finding anything better worth looking after. The young lady's tall, slight, willowy figure was set off by a close-fitting black cloth basque, and a little, coquettish, black velvet cap was placed above one of the most bewitching faces that ever turned a man's head. Roseate, smiling, sunshiny, the bright blue eyes flashing laughing light everywhere they fell. Her gloved hands daintily uplifting her skirts, and displaying the pretty high-heeled boots, as she sailed along with a very peculiar, jaunty, swinging gait.
And quite as well worth looking at, in his way, was her cavalier, gallant and handsome, with an unmistakable military stride, and an unmistakable military air generally, although dressed in civilian's clothes. As they swept past Miss Jo, the young lady made a dashing bow; and the young gentleman lifted his hat. Miss Jo stood, with her mouth open, gazing after them.
"A splendid couple, ain't they, Miss Blake?" said a man, passing. It was Mr. Clowrie, on his way to his office, and Miss Jo, just deigning to acknowledge him, walked on.
"My patience!" was her mental ejaculation, "what a swell they cut! He's as handsome as a lord, that young man; and she's every bit as good-looking! I must go up to Redmon this afternoon, and ask her down. Wouldn't it be great now, if that should turn out to be a match!"
CHAPTER IV.
VAL'S OFFICE.
Among the many tall, dingy brick buildings, fronting on that busy thoroughfare of Speckport, Queen Street, there stood one to the right as you went up, taller and dingier, if possible, than its neighbors, and bearing this legend along its grimy front, "Office of Speckport Spouter." There were a dozen newspapers, more or less, published in Speckport, weekly, semi-weekly, and daily; but the Spouter went ahead of them all, and distanced all competitors.
At about half-past seven o'clock, this foggy spring morning, two individuals of the manly sex occupied the principal apartment of the printing establishment. A dirty, nasty, noisy place it generally was; and dirty and nasty, though not very noisy, it was this morning, for the only sound to be heard was the voice of one of its occupants, chattering incessantly, and the scratching of the other's pen, as he wrote, perched up on a high stool.