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R. STANWOOD sat down at the table where Nattie was looking over Cyn's album, and seemed to have become very thoughtful; Cyn meanwhile busied herself in dressing an ugly gash the ever-unfortunate Quimby had managed to inflict on his hand.

Suddenly Nattie was disturbed by Mr. Stanwood drumming with a pencil on the marble top of the table, and glancing up casually, observed his eyes fixed upon her with a peculiar expression, and at the same moment her ear seemed to catch a familiar sound. With a slight start she listened more attentively to his seemingly idle drumming. Yes—whether knowingly, or by accident, he certainly was making dots and dashes, and what is more, was making N's!

"I will soon ascertain if he means it or not! thought Nattie, and seizing a pair of scissors, the only adaptable instrument handy, she drummed out, slowly, on account of the imperfectness of her impromptu key—pretending all the while to be entirely absorbed in the album,