you not know that? And what is better, no one but those who understand our language can know what we say!"

"Exactly!" answered Quimby, relapsing again into wonder. "Exactly—on the wire!"

"Yes, we talk in a language of dots and dashes, that even Miss Kling might listen to in vain. And do you know," she went on confidentially, "somehow, I am very much interested in my new friend. I wish I knew—its so awkward, as I said—but I really think it's a gentleman!"

"Exactly—exactly so!" responded Quimby, somewhat dejectedly. And during the remainder of their walk he was very much harassed in his mind over this interest Nattie confessed in her new friend—"on the wire,"—who would appear as a tight-rope performer to his perturbed imagination. And he felt in his inmost heart that it would be a great relief to his mind if this mysterious person should prove a lady, even though, if a gentleman, he was many miles away. For Quimby, with all his obtusity, had an inkling of the power of mystery, and was already far enough on the road to love to be jealous.

Of these thoughts Nattie was of course wholly unaware, and chatted gayly, now of the distant "C" and now of the coming Miss Archer, to her somewhat abstracted, but always devoted companion.

CHAPTER III.

VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE FRIENDS.

With perhaps one or two less frowns than usual at the destiny that compelled her to forego any morning naps, and be up and stirring at the early hour of six o'clock, Nattie arose next morning, aware of a more than accustomed willingness to go to the office. And immediately on her arrival there, she opened the key, and said, without calling, just to ascertain if her far-away acquaintance would notice it,—

"G. M. (good morning) C!"

Apparently "C" had his or her ears on the alert, for immediately came the response,

"G. M., my dear!"

A form of expression rather familiar for so short an acquaintance, that is, supposing "C" to be a gentleman. "But then, people talk for the sake of talking, and never say what they mean on the wire," thought Nattie. Besides, did not the distance in any case annul the familiarity? Therefore, without taking offense, even without comment, she asked:

"Are we to get along to-day without quarreling?"

"Oh! it is you, is it, 'N'?" responded "C," "I thought so, but wasn't quite sure. Yes, you, may 'break' at every word, and I will still be amiable."

"I should be afraid to put you to the test," replied Nattie, with a laugh.

"Do you then think me such a hopelessly ill-natured fellow?" inquired
"C."

"Fellow!" triumphantly repeated Nattie. "Be careful, or you will betray yourself!"

"Ha, ha!" laughed "C." "Stupid enough of me, wasn't it? But it only proves the old adage about giving a man rope enough to hang himself."

"Don't mention old adages, for I detest them!" said Nattie. "Especially that one about the early bird and the worm. But I fear, as a _mys_tery, you are not a success, Mr. 'C'."

"A very bad attempt at a pun," said "C." "I trust, however, you will not desert me, now your curiosity is satisfied, Miss 'N.'?"

"Don't be in such a hurry to miss me. I have said nothing yet to give you that right," Nattie replied.

"Nevertheless, it's utterly impossible not to miss you. I missed you last night after you had gone home, for instance. "But you, a great, hulking fellow! No, indeed! In my mind's eye—"

But what was in "C's" mind's eye did not just then appear, for at this interesting point some one at Nattie's window, saying. "I would like to send a message," obliged her reluctantly to interrupt him with,

"Excuse me a moment, a customer is waiting."

She then turned as much of her attention as she could separate from "C" to the customer, enabled, perhaps, to answer the volley of miscellaneous questions poured upon her with unusual affability, on account of the settlement—and in the right direction!—of that vexed question of "C's" sex.

But she could not help thinking, as she glanced at the message finally written, and handed to her that had the writer attended a little more to the spelling-book, and a little less to the accumulation of diamond rings, it might have been a very wise proceeding. But perhaps

"Meat me at the train," was sufficiently intelligible for all purposes.

"What was it about your mind's eye?" Nattie asked over the wire, at the first opportunity.

"C" was again on the alert, without being called, for the answer came, after a moment, just long enough for him to cross the room, perhaps.

"As I was saying, in the eye aforesaid, me thinks I see a tall slim young lady with blue eyes and light hair, and dimples that come into her cheeks when I stupidly betray my sex."

As "C" said this, Nattie glanced into the glass just over her head at the reflection of her face. A face whose expression was its charm; that never could be called pretty, but that nevertheless suggested a possibility—only a possibility, of being handsome. For there is a vast difference between pretty and handsome. Pretty people seldom know very much; but to be handsome, a person must have brains; an inner as well as an outer beauty.

"How fortunate it is you are not near enough to be disenchanted!" Nattie replied to "C." "Your mind's eye is very unreliable. Tall! why, I'm only five feet! never was guilty of a dimple, and my eyes are of some dreadfully nondescript color."

"If you are only five feet, you never can look down on me, which is a great consolation," "C" responded. "And for the rest imagination will clothe the unseen with all possible beauty and grace."

"I am sure I am perfectly willing you should imagine me as beautiful as you please," replied Nattie, "As long as we don't come face to face, which in all probability we never shall, you will not know how different from the real was the ideal."

"Please don't discourage me so soon, for I hope sometime we may clasp hands bodily as we do now spiritually, on the wire—for we do, don't we?" said "C" asserting before he questioned.

"Certainly—here is mine, spiritually!" responded Nattie, without the least hesitation, as she thought, of the miles of safe distance between. "Now may I ask—"

"Oh! come, come! this will never do! You are getting on altogether too fast for people who were quarreling so yesterday!" broke in a third party, who signed, "Em." and was a young lady wire-acquaintance of Nattie's, some twenty miles distant.

"You think the circuit of our friendship ought to be broken?" queried
Nattie.

"Ah! leave that to time and change, by which all circuits are broken," remarked "C."

"Yes, but such a sudden friendship is sure to come to a violent end," Em. said. "Suppose now I should report you for talking so much—not to say flirting—on the wire, which is against the rules you know?"

"In that event I should know how to be revenged", replied "C." "I should put on my 'ground' wire and cut off communication between you and that little fellow at Z!"

Em. laughed, and perhaps feeling herself rather weak on that point, subsided, and Nattie began, "Sentiment—"

But the pretty little speech on that subject she had all ready was spoiled by an operator—who evidently had none of it in his soul—usurping the wire with the