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88 "No, no!" he answered, his eyes almost starting from his head between his determination to wind himself up to the point, and the tightness of his grasp on the chair. "It's—it's my heart, you know!"

"You don't mean to say you have heart disease?" said Nattie, seeing danger fast approaching, and taking refuge in obtusity.

"No, I—I beg pardon—not a—not a bodily heart disease, you know, but a mental one!" and he relaxed his grasp on the chair with one hand to tug at his necktie as if being hung, and disliking the sensation.

"That is something I never heard of," Nattie said dryly; then thinking, "I'll drown him in music," she asked hastily,

"Do you like the First Kiss?" The bounce of an India rubber ball is no comparison to the agility with which Quimby jumped from his chair at this question.

"Oh! Bless my soul! Wouldn't I?" he gasped.

"I will play it to you," exclaimed Nattie, instantly aware of the indiscretion of her question, and she thundered as loud as she could on the piano, while Quimby, with a very red face, subsided into the chair again. But not long did he remain subsided; whether it was the music that inspired