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Sounds from a Distant "C."
21

a wooden chair, a high stool, desk, instruments—that is all—Oh! and me!"

"Last but not least," said "C;" "but what a contrast to my office! Mine is all windows, and in cold days like this the wind whistles in until my very bones rattle! The outward view is fine. As I sit I see a stable, a carpenter's shop, the roof of the new Town Hall that has ruined the town, and——"

"Excuse me,"—some one at another office on the line here broke in—and with more politeness than is sometimes shown in interrupting conversations on the wire—"I have a message to send," and forthwith began calling.

At this Nattie resumed her interrupted occupation of bewailing her spoiled dress, but at the same time she had a feeling of pleased surprise at the affability of "C" at "X n."

"I wonder," she thought, as she took up her book again, and tried to bury the remembrance of her accident therein, "I do wonder if this 'C' is he or she!"

Soon, however, she heard "X n" "call" once more, and this time she laid her book aside very readily.

"You did not describe the principal part of your office—yourself!" "C" said, when she answered the "call."