_Miss Reed_, flinging herself backward from the register, and hiding her face in her hands: “Oh, it wasn’t! it wasn’t! it wasn’t! How could you think so?” _Miss Spaulding_, rushing forward, and catching her friend in her arms: “What is the matter with you, Ethel Reed? What are you doing here, over the register? Are you trying to suffocate yourself? Have you taken leave of your senses?” _Grinnidge_: “Our fair friend on the other side of the wall seems to be on the rampage.” _Miss Spaulding_, shutting the register with a violent clash: “Ugh! how hot it is here!” _Grinnidge_: “Doesn’t like your conversation, apparently.” _Miss Reed_, frantically pressing forward to open the register: “Oh, don’t shut it, Nettie, dear! If you do I shall die! Do-o-n’t shut the register!” _Miss Spaulding_: “Don’t shut it? Why, we’ve got all the heat of the furnace in the room now. Surely you don’t want any more?” _Miss Reed_: “No, no; not any more. But—but— Oh, dear! what shall I do?” She still struggles in the embrace of her friend. _Grinnidge_, remaining quietly at the register, while _Ransom_ walks away to the window: “Well, what did you do?” _Miss Reed_: “There, there! They’re commencing again! _Do_ open it, Nettie. I _will_ have it open!” She wrenches herself free, and dashes the register open. _Grinnidge_: “Ah, she’s opened it again.” _Miss Reed_, in a stage-whisper: “That’s the other one!” _Ransom_, from the window: “Do? I’ll tell you what I did.” _Miss Reed_: “That’s Ol—Mr. Ransom. And, oh, I can’t make out what he’s saying! He must have gone away to the other side of the room—and it’s at the most important point!” _Miss Spaulding_, in an awful undertone: “Was that the hollow rumbling I heard? And have you been listening at the register to what they’ve been saying? O _Ethel_!” _Miss Reed_: “I haven’t been listening, exactly.” _Miss Spaulding_: “You have! You have been eavesdropping!” _Miss Reed_: “Eavesdropping is listening through a key-hole, or around a corner. This is very different. Besides, it’s Oliver, and he’s been talking about _me_. Hark!” She clutches her friend’s hand, where they have crouched upon the floor together, and pulls her forward to the register. “Oh, dear, how hot it is! I wish they would cut off the heat down below.” _Grinnidge_, smoking peacefully through the silence which his friend has absent-mindedly let follow upon his last words: “Well, you seem disposed to take your time about it.” _Ransom_: “About what? Oh, yes! Well”— _Miss Reed_: “’Sh! Listen.” _Miss Spaulding_: “I won’t listen! It’s shameful: it’s wicked! I don’t see how you can do it, Ethel!” She remains, however, kneeling near the register, and she involuntarily inclines a little more toward it.