"Ah! Clem sounds more natural, doesn't it, Nat?" questioned Cyn laughing; "we knew Clem and 'C,' but Mr. Stanwood is a stranger!"
"Then let us drop him by all means! and now say you are glad to see your old friend!" said Clem, gayly.
"We are transported with delight at beholding our Clem, so lately given up as lost forever!" Cyn replied with equal gayety; and Clem, then looking at Nattie, as if he expected her to say something also, she murmured,
"I am very glad to meet 'C,'" a remark that sounded cold beside that of enthusiastic Cyn. But in fact Nattie was so confused, so happy, and so strangely timid, that she longed to get away by herself and think it all over and quietly realize it; and besides, in her secret heart, Nattie felt a growing conviction that Cyn used the plural pronoun we more than previous circumstances actually warranted.
"But Nat," said Cyn, all unconscious of her friend's jealous criticism, "you have not yet told me how you found him out?"
"He telegraphed to me with a pencil on the table, and coolly informed me that he was 'C,'" Nattie explained.
"And then you jumped up and threw us uniniti-
