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162 and delight when I discovered who those friends were! But I don't know as I should have dared to reveal myself, having been so often snubbed,"—with a roguish glance at Nattie—"if that story had not been told and the mystery solved. Imagine my dismay, though, at being called an 'odious creature,' and the surprise with which I listened to my own description! So earnest were you, that I actually, for a moment, thought my hair must have turned red!" and he ran his fingers through his curly locks with a rueful face.

The girls laughed, and Cyn exclaimed,

"What a pity it is you tore up that picture, Nat!"

"Yes," acquiesced Nattie, adding, in explanation, to Clem—"You remember that pen and ink sketch? My first act of vengeance was to destroy it!"

"Never mind, Jo will do another, will you not?" asked Clem, turning to that gentleman, who, upon being thus appealed to, arose, laid down the nut-cracker he held, and said with the utmost solemnity,

"Jo is ready to draw anything. But Jo is aghast and horrified at being mixed even in the slightest degree with anything so near approaching the romantic, as the affair in question. What