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Rh But Nattie shook her head dubiously.

"She is so inquisitive!" she remarked.

"Yes, and the most despicable character on earth to me, is a person whose chief object in life is gossip! why, life is too short to take care of our own affairs in! I wish you would leave her, and come and room with me!" exclaimed Cyn indignantly.

"Mrs. Simonson would not dare have me. She is afraid of Miss Kling, you know. But I wish I might, for I am tired of being here," Nattie replied discontentedly.

"Well, we will have our wire at all events, and for once something shall be that Miss Kling will not know," said Cyn exultantly.

Unconsciously the dreaded individual favored them, shortly after, by going to spend the evening with friends after her own heart—very genteel, but in reduced circumstances—and as the instruments were all ready, and they had only been waiting for her absence, Clem went to work. He was assisted by the willing Jo, who argued that running a wire was solid work, and not romantic, and by Quimby, who viewed the arrangement as another formidable link in the chain of his rival, and clamored wildly for a "telephone," because "anybody could use a telephone." But that, as Clem said, was exactly 12