CHAPTER XVI.
O. K.
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EAVING Clem, on their arrival at the hotel, to bear the burden of the green stuff they had brought from the woods, Cyn, with a trace of melancholy on her sunny face, followed Nattie to her room. For Cyn's joyous picnic, with its gay beginning, had ended sadly enough for her.
"I want to ask you something," Cyn said, with frank directness, as she carefully closed the door behind them. "And that is, are you, can you be foolish enough to imagine, that Clem and I are in love with each other?"
The small basket Nattie held in her hand fell to the floor, at this unexpected question. Had Cyn drawn forth a bowie-knife, and playfully clipped off her nose, she could not have been more astounded.
"If you can possibly reduce your eyes to their ordinary size, and give me a candid yes or no, I will be obliged," Cyn said, rather petulantly, after waiting in vain for an answer. The events of the day had sorely tried her usually even temper.
A little tremulously, while a burning flush covered her face, Nattie answered her,
