"What is it, dear? Tell, me what is the matter lately? Trust me with it. Is it about Clem?"
With a determination, very brave and unselfish, but unfortunately entirely uncalled for, not to mar Cyn's happy love by her sorrow, Nattie checked the tears, of which she was ashamed, and answered,
"No! I am very weak and foolish. The idea of my crying like a school-girl! I am only unhappy because—because—I am nobody!"
And this was all the information the sympathetic and perplexed Cyn could obtain.
Sitting that night on a low cricket before the fire with her dark hair unbound—and it was fortunate for Jo's peace of mind that he could not see her just then, becauses she was such an interesting "study!"—Cyn thought it all over, and could not, as she told herself, make out what it was all about.
"I thought everything was going on so smoothly," she mused, "and now here is what Clem himself would term a cross on the wire! and no one can find out where it is! Doesn't she love him, I wonder? I should, if I was she! Does he love her? if he does not, he is no kind of a hero! Ah! I know what would test the matter! a crisis! Now, for instance, if the house would only get on fire, and Nat burn up—that is, almost—and Clem save her just in time—that is the sort of thing that brings
