Page:Wired Love (Thayer 1880).djvu/44

Rh you know we—that is, Mrs. Simonson, was going to have a new lodger?"

"No, is she?" asked Nattie.

"Yes, a young lady coming to-morrow, a—a sort of an actress—no, a prima donna, you know. A Miss Archer. If you and she should happen to like each other, it would be pleasant for you, now wouldn't it?" asked Quimby eagerly, with a devout hope that such might be, for then should he not be a gainer by seeing more often the young lady by his side, whose gray eyes had already made havoc in his honest and susceptible heart.

"It would be pleasant," acquiesced Nattie, in utter unconsciousness of Quimby's selfish hidden thought; "for I am lonely sometimes. Miss Kling is not—not"

"Oh, certainly! of course not!" Quimby responded sympathetically and understandingly, as Nattie hesitated for a word that would express her meaning. "They never are very adaptable—old maids, you know!"

"But it isn't because they are unmarried," said Nattie, perhaps feeling called upon to defend her future self, "but because they were born so!"

"Exactly, you know, that's why no fellow ever marries them!" said Quimby, with a glance of bashful admiration at his companion.