Wired Love - Ella Cheever Thayer (read any book txt) 📗

dubiously.

"I have it!" cried Nattie, "there is a fruit-dish in my room."

"Just the thing!" interrupted Cyn ecstatically, "I will run and bring it, if you will attend to the cooking."

"Look out for Miss Kling," said Nattie, warningly; "if she catches a glimpse of you making off with my fruit-dish, she will never rest until she finds out everything."

"Rely on me for secrecy and dispatch," said Cyn, going. "If she sees me,
I will mention nuts and raisins; merely mention them, you know."

But Miss Kling, for once, was napping; perhaps dreaming of him Cyn called the Torpedo—Celeste's father—and she obtained the dish, reached her own door again without being seen by any one except the Duchess, and was congratulating herself on her good luck, when suddenly, like an apparition, Quimby stood before her.

Cyn started, murmured something about "oranges," slipped the soap-dish she had also confiscated into her pocket, and tried to make the big fruit-dish appear as small as possible.

She might, however, have spared herself any uneasiness, for this always the most unobservant of mortals, was too much overburdened with some affair of his own, to notice even a two-quart dish.

"Oh! I—I beg pardon, I—I was coming with a a—request to your room," he said eagerly. "I—would it be too much to—to bring a friend, he knows no one here, and I am sure he and you would fraternize at once, if I might bring him, you know."

"Certainly—yes!" replied Cyn, too anxious to get away to pay much attention to his words, particularly as an odor of steak reached her nostrils.

"Thank you! I—I never knew any one who understood me as well as you!" he said with a grateful bow, and without more words, Cyn left him.

"How long you have been gone!" Nattie remarked, looking up, her cheeks very red, and her nose embellished with a streak of smut, as Cyn entered. "Did you see any one?"

"No one except Quimby, who stopped me to ask about bringing a friend to call some evening," Cyn replied, displaying the fruit, and producing the soap-dish.

"Mercy on us!" Nattie said, looking rather aghast, "it is rather large, isn't it? and what did you bring-that soap-dish for?"

"I thought it might come handy," laughed Cyn. "We will make a potato holder of it for the time. 'To what base uses may we come at last?'—Why—" in a tone of surprise, "here is the Duchess!"

And sure enough, up by the window sat that sagacious animal, winking and blinking complacently, and evidently determined to be a third in the feast.

"She came in unnoticed under the shadow that fruit-dish threw," said
Nattie, teasingly.

Cyn shook an oyster fork at her threateningly.

"Say another such word and you shall have no steak!" she said tragically, "instead, a dungeon shall be your doom. We will let the Duchess remain as a receiver of odds and ends. I suppose her suspicions were excited by the sight of these articles. A rare cat! a learned cat! now please set the table, for our feast will soon be prepared!" and Cyn bent over the sizzling steak, that emitted a most appetizing odor.

Setting that table was no such easy matter as might appear, for what with the big fruit-dish, wooden covers, different sizes of plates and other incongruous articles, considerable management was necessary.

"I shall have to put the sugar on in the bag," Nattie said, incautiously backing to view the general effect, and so stumbling over the saucepan of potatoes that sat on the floor, but luckily doing no damage.

"Ah, well! Eccentricity is quite the rage now, you know," responded the philosophical Cyn, "and certainly, a sugar-bowl so closely resembling a brown paper bag as not to be distinguishable from the real thing, is quite recherche. But my dear Nat, where am I to set the steak if you have that big fruit-dish in the center of the table, taking up all the room?"

"I shall have to put it on the floor, then," Nattie answered, despairingly, "for I have tried it on all parts of the table! If you set it on the edge," she added hastily, seeing Cyn about to do so, "you will tip the whole thing over!"

"Then we must have a side-board," Cyn announced, with a plate of steak in one hand, and the big fruit-dish in the other. "Put my writing-desk on a chair, please; spread a towel over it, and there you have it!"

"But what a quantity of eatables we have! Two pounds of steak, ten big potatoes, a two-quart dish of tomatoes, two large pies, two Charlotte Russes, an urn of coffee, a dozen oranges and a box of figs—good gracious! Think of two people eating all that!" exclaimed Nattie, decidedly dismayed at the prospect.

"It is considerable," Cyn confessed, surveying the array with a slightly daunted expression. "You see I am not used to buying for a family, and I was afraid of getting too little. But," brightening, "there isn't more than one quart of the tomatoes, and there are three of us, you know—the Duchess!"

"To be sure; I had forgotten her!" Nattie said, recovering her equanimity, and glancing at the purring animal, who was looking on approvingly, and evidently appreciated the difference between sirloin and her usual rations of round.

"Then let the revels commence, at once!" cried Cyn, rolling down her sleeves, while Nattie wiped the smut from her face.

But now another difficulty presented itself; the chairs were all too low to admit of feasting with the anticipated rapture; this was soon overcome, however, by piling a few books in the highest chair, and appropriating the music-stool.

"Now for a feast," exclaimed Nattie, exultantly, as they sat down triumphant, and she brandished her very big knife and extremely small fork, while Cyn poured the coffee from the—urn; an undertaking attended with some difficulty, and requiring caution; and the Duchess looked on expectantly.

And then—the goal almost reached—upon their startled ears came a dreadful sound—the sound of a knock at the door!

Down to the ground went Nattie's knife and fork, the coffee-urn narrowly escaped a similar fate, up went the back of the Duchess, and two dismayed Bohemians and one impatient cat gazed at each other.

CHAPTER IX. UNEXPECTED VISITORS.

"It must be Miss Kling, overpowered by curiosity!" murmured Nattie.

"No!" answered Cyn in a stage whisper, "the knock is too timid. Good gracious! there it is again! Stand in front of the gas stove, Nat, lest it be Mrs. Simonson, while I go and invent some excuse for not letting in whoever it is."

And having given these hasty directions, Cyn opened the door the smallest possible crack. As she did so, and before she could speak, it was pushed back violently, almost knocking her over, and in burst Quimby. This, however, might not have much disconcerted them, as he could have been disposed of easily enough, had not at his heels came a tall, fine-looking young man, a perfect stranger to both Cyn and Nattie.

"You see I keep my word!" was the enigmatical remark the smiling Quimby made as he entered. Then, catching sight of the festive board, he stopped short and stared, with an utterly confounded face, at that, at the embarrassed Nattie, at Cyn, behind the door, and at the saucepan cover, which, embellished with potato parings, occupied a prominent position in the middle of the floor.

His companion also paused, a surprised and amused smile lurking in his merry brown eyes as he looked at Nattie, seemingly regardless of anything else in the room.

Cyn was the first to recover from the general petrifaction, and with the involuntary thought, "what an excellent stage situation!" came from behind the door, where Quimby's impetuous entrance had thrust her, saying, with as much ease as she could possibly gather together,

"Don't be frightened at what you see, friend Quimby; we were only extemporizing a little feast, that is all. Will you join us?"

But Quimby only stared harder than ever; he was evidently struck speechless.

His companion, thus placed in the awkward position of an unintroduced intruder, withdrew his eyes from Nattie, took in the situation at a glance, and turning to Cyn, said, smiling,

"I think we owe you an apology for our intrusion; my friend Quimby, on whom I called to day, in pity for my being a stranger in the city, kindly offered to introduce me to some friends of his. He informed me we were expected, but I fear we have made a mistake."

At this Quimby recovered his voice.

"No!" he cried, in stentorian tones, "it was not—I cannot have made a mistake this time, you know! Cyn"—looking at her reproachfully—"you knew about it! I met you a short time ago, and asked you—and you said we might come, you know!"

Half amazed and half amused, Cyn shook her head in denial, at which action Quimby started and turned pale.

"Why I—I beg pardon—but in the hall! you said, 'certainly,' you know!"

"Oh!" said Cyn, a light breaking in upon her. "I see, but I did not then understand you, I suppose;" rallying from her embarrassment, "my mind was so occupied with our feast, I was incapable of thinking of anything else; so please consider this an apology for the condition in which you find us, to yourself and your friend, whom, you will pardon me for reminding you, you have not introduced," and Cyn looking laughingly at the stranger, who also laughed.

"Oh! I—I beg pardon, I am sure, for—for all my stupidities. I—I am always doing something wrong, but I—I am used to it, you know," said the disconcerted Quimby; then wiping the perspiration from his forehead, he added clumsily, "my friend, Mr. Stanwood—Cyn—and Miss—Miss Rogers."

Mr. Stanwood gayly shook hands with Cyn, whom Quimby had nervously forgotten to honor with a Miss, and then advanced to Nattie, who had not stirred from her position as screen for the gas stove, saying,

"I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Rogers."

And as Nattie accepted his proffered hand, in an embarrassed way, not yet being able to rise to the situation, and observed the peculiarly roguish expression with which he regarded her, she suddenly became aware that she had seen him on some previous occasion, but where she was utterly at loss to remember.

Cyn, too, was struck by something a little odd in his manner to Nattie, and glanced at him curiously, as she said in her most cordial tones,

"And now, gentlemen, as we have exchanged apologies all around, please be seated."

Quimby immediately bounced up from the music-stool, on which, in his agitation, he had involuntarily dropped.

"Oh, no!" he exclaimed hastily. "We—we did did not come to dinner, you know!"

Cyn smiled at Quimby's anxiety to disclaim intentions no one thought of attributing to him, and turning to Mr. Stanwood, asked, thereby greatly scandalizing Nattie,

"But supposing you were invited to stay and share our banquet, would you?"

"Were I sure the invitation was heartfelt, I should be sorely tempted; wouldn't you, Quimby?" Mr. Stanwood replied, easily.

Poor Quimby twirled his thumbs confusedly, and murmured something about leaving the ladies to enjoy their "feast" alone.

"We have eatables enough for six, as Nat was just now intimating," went on Cyn, who certainly had a touch of true Bohemianism in her composition, as well as Jo Norton. "But our dishes, 'ay, there's the rub,'" and she laughingly held up the coffee-urn, while the less adaptable Nattie thought apprehensively of the propensity of things to cool.

Undaunted by the urn, Mr. Stanwood said, with humorous wistfulness, but looking at Nattie,

"You won't force us to eat the dishes, will you? and that steak smells so nice, and I haven't had any dinner!"

"Then away with ceremony and sit down to the banquet!" said the reckless Cyn, regardless of the protest in Nattie's face; and truth to tell, the former young lady was not at all averse to this addition to their number.

And to the consternation of Quimby, and dismay of Nattie, and possibly a little to the surprise of Cyn, Mr. Stanwood replied by seating himself down in a rocking-chair, and saying gayly,

"I feel positive that I am about to enjoy myself as I have not since I was a boy, and stole eggs, and cooked them on a flat rock behind my uncle's barn, and had raw turnip for dessert. Sit down, Quimby!"

Upon this Quimby, with a blushing protest against an intrusion, that did not seem to trouble his merry friend in the least, also sat down.

As he did so, Nattie screamed; but too late. On the crowning