ndeed, until to-day she had not fully realized how
necessary "C" had become to her telegraphic life. Naturally, she had
woven a sort of romance about him who was a friend "so near and yet so
far." Perhaps too, a certain yearning for tenderness in her lonely
heart, a feeling that every woman knows, found something, very pleasant
in being always greeted with "Good morning, my dear," and hearing the
last thing at night, "Good night, little girl at B m."

Miss Kling undoubtedly would have been shocked at being thus addressed
even on the wire, by a strange person--a person certainly, although
unseen; but Nattie, used to the license that distance gave, whether
wisely or unwisely, had never, thought it necessary to check the
familiarity.

Pondering over what he had hinted about leaving permanently, in the
leisure usually devoted to chatting with him, but which that day she
hardly knew how to fill, Nattie wondered if, should they ever come face
to face, they would feel like the old friends they were, or if the
nearness would bring a constraint now unknown? Yet she was fain to
confess she would like to see him and ascertain the personal appearance
of one who occupied so much of her thoughts. But how strange it would
be, if, after all their friendly talks and gay confidences, he should
pass out of the way that was both their ways now, and they never know
anything more about each other than that one was "C" and one was "N!"
something not impossible either, or even improbable; for fate is a sort
of switch-board, and a slight move will switch two lives onto wires far
asunder, even as the moving of a peg or two will alter everything on the
board that shows its power so little.

With such thoughts in her mind, Nattie was rather among the shadows that
day, and presented no laughing face to the curious passers-by, much to
that opposite clerk's relief, who came to the conclusion that she had
once more recovered her senses.

About an hour before the time for closing the office, as she was
counting over her cash, and thinking how glad she was that "C" would be
back to-morrow, she became conscious of some one waiting her attention
outside, and went forward, scarcely looking at him, expecting, of
course, a message. But instead, the individual, who filled the air with
a suffocating odor of musk, asked,

"You are the regular operator here, I suppose?"

With a start Nattie looked up, expecting a complaint, an occurrence
often prefaced by