home at three,' when it was delivered it read, 'John is dead beat, home at three.'"
"How was that possible?" asked Miss Archer, laughing,
"I suppose the sending operator did not leave space enough between the words; we leave a small space between letters, and a longer one between words," explained Nattie.
"The operator who received it must have been rather stupid not to have seen the mistake," Miss Archer said. "I have too good an opinion of your 'C' to believe it was he. But every profession has its comic side as well as its tricks, I suppose; mine, I am sure, does. But I am learning something every day, and I am determined," energetically, "to fight my way up!"
Stirred by Miss Archer's earnestness, there came to Nattie an uneasy consciousness that she herself was making no progress towards her only dreamed of ambition, and a shade crossed her face; but without observing it, Miss Archer continued,
"I always had a passion for the lyric stage, and now there is nothing to prevent—" did a slight shadow here darken also her sunny eyes, gone instantly?—"I shall make music my life's aim. Fortunately I have money of my own to enable me to study, and"
