"Please repeat."
"X n" took the interruption very good-naturedly—it was after dinner—and obeyed without expressing any impatience.
But, alas! Nattie was even now unable to keep up with this too expert individual of uncertain sex, and was obliged again to "break," with the humiliating petition,
"Please send slower!"
"Oh!" responded "X n."
For a small one, "Oh!" is a very expressive word. But whether this particular one signified impatience, or, as Nattie sensitively feared, contempt for her abilities, she could not tell. But certain it was that "X n" sent along the letters now in such a slow, funereal procession that she was driven half frantic with nervousness in the attempt to piece them together into words. They had not proceeded far, however, before a small, thin voice fell upon the ears of the agitated Nattie.
"Are you taking a message now?" it asked.
Nattie glanced over her shoulder, and saw a sharp, inquisitive nose, a green veil, a pair of eye-glasses, and a strained smile, sticking through her little window.
Nodding a hasty answer to the question, she wrote down another word of the message, that she
