young man, if he could possibly mistake the expression on Nattie's face for rapture, as, frantically grasping the umbrella, she gasped,
"No—no—it can't be—you are not—not—"
"Not C? Ain't I, though!" laughed the proprietor of the ring, pin, bear's-grease, et cetera.
"But," said poor Nattie, clinging desperately to hope and the umbrella, "C said this morning he was going to B a—and"
"That was a trick to take you by surprise," he interrupted, with great enjoyment of his own words. "I knew I was coming here, all the time, but I wanted to give you a nice little surprise. Think I have, eh?" and he laughed again, and winked with almost vulgar assurance.
Nattie let go of hope and the umbrella, and collapsed with her romance into a chair; and she thought of Quimby's warning about the "soiled invisible," and barely suppressed a groan. Involuntarily she stole a glance at this too-visible person, and shuddered. Could she reconcile "C," her visionary, interesting, witty and gentlemanly "C" of the wire, with this musk-scented being of greasy red hair, cheap jewelry and vulgar manners? Impossible!
"It is the nightmare! it cannot be!" she thought, with the despairing refuge in dreams we often take when suddenly overwhelmed with terrible realities.
