ly she continued, "But I was not aware, Miss Rogers, that you
and this Quimby were so intimate! The admiration is mutual, I suppose?"

"There is no admiration," replied Nattie, with a flash of her gray eyes,
inwardly indignant that any one should insinuate she admired
Quimby--honest, blundering Quimby, whom no one ever allowed a handle to
his name, and who was so clever, but like all clever people, such a
dreadful bore. "I have only met him two or three times since that
evening you introduced us in the hall, so there has hardly been an
opportunity for anything of that kind."

"You spoke so warmly!" Miss Kling remarked. "However," conciliatingly,
"I don't suppose by any means that you are in love with Quimby! You are
much too sensible a young lady for such folly!"

Nattie shrugged her shoulders, as if tired of the subject, and after a
spasm of sneezing, Miss Kling continued:

"As you intimate, he means all right, poor fellow! and that is more than
I should be willing to acknowledge regarding Mrs. Simonson's _other_
lodger, that Mr. Norton, who calls himself an artist. I am sure I never
saw any one except a convict wear such short hair!" and Miss Kling shook
her head insinuatingly.

From this beginning, to Nattie's dismay, Miss Kling proceeded to the
dissection of their neighbors who lived in the suite above, Celeste
Fishblate and her father. The former, Miss Kling declared, was setting
her cap for Quimby. Mr. Fishblate being an unquestionably disagreeable
specimen of the _genus homo_, with a somewhat startling habit of exploding
in short, but expressive sentences--never using more than three
consecutive words--Nattie naturally expected to hear him even more
severely anathematized than any one else. But to her surprise, the lady
conducting the conversation declared him a "fine sensible man!" At which
Nattie first stared, and then smiled, as it occurred to her that Mr.
Fishblate was a widower, and might it not be that Miss Kling
contemplated the possibility of _his_ becoming that other self not yet
attained?

Fortunately Miss Kling did not observe her lodger's looks, so intent was
she in admiration of Mr. Fishblate's fine points, and soon took her
leave.

After her departure, Nattie changed her inky dress, and put on her hat
to go out for something forgotten until now. As she stepped into the
hall, a tall young man, with extremely long arms and legs, and mouth,
that, although shaded by a faint outline of a mustache