"I suppose no one really means what they say on the wire. I am sure I do not!"
"But we mean what we say now," he replied, with an insinuating smile. "Next time I come we will be more sociable. But we have had a nice talk, ain't we?"
For a moment the repulsive person before her evercame the remembrance of the lost "C," and Nattie replied, sarcastically,
"I trust the talk has not been too much of an exercise for your brain!"
He looked at her doubtfully, and then laughed. "You are sort of a queer girl, ain't you? I wish though, I could stay and buzz you longer, but I have only time to get my train, so good-by."
"Good-by," said Nattie, betraying all her relief at his departure in the sudden animation of her voice, something so different from her preceding manner that he could but notice it, and he turned, looked at her, as if a suspicion of its true cause penetrated his mind at last, frowned, and then with that former look she did not understand crossing his face, nodded and ran for the depot, coming into violent collision with a fat Dutchman, looking perplexedly for a barber's shop. And thus the red hair, the bear's grease, the sham jewelry, and the obtrusive, fighting teeth disappeared forever from
