"She--she--would sue me for breach of promise you know, and take all--all my little property! And her terrific father--I don't know what he would not do to me! Only one thing could make me brave all!--If Miss Rogers--Nattie, would say it might have been, had not this fearful mistake occurred, I would face even old Fishblate and break all bonds." "Dear old fellow, I am afraid she--Nattie would have rejected you, in any case. She is--a flirt!" said Clem, somewhat savagely. "She leads people on, for the sake of dropping them, when it suits her convenience!" "I--now really, I--I cannot think that; even though she had rejected me, I could not think _that!_" said Quimby, loyally; then with sudden decision, "I will settle it now! If I had not put it off before, as I did, I might not have blundered into this awful fix, you know! I hear them in Cyn's room now; Cyn and Nattie; come with me! I--I will have witnesses, and no mistakes this time, you know!" "What are you going to do?" asked Clem, following his excited friend, rather reluctantly. "I am going to find out if she--Nattie--likes me, you know! if she does, I will brave Celeste--her fierce father--the law! if not--why then, I must be a martyr anyway, you know, and I don't care how big a one I am!" So saying, Quimby went across to Cyn's room, Clem, not exactly liking the position thrust upon him, but unwilling to refuse, accompanying him. Meanwhile, Nattie had pounced upon Cyn, the moment she returned, exclaiming, "Oh! Cyn! such a dreadful thing has happened!" "What? how? when?" asked Cyn, while, from the effects of the melodrama she had just been witnessing, visions of Clem, with a dozen bullets in his head, danced before her eyes. "Quimby! poor Quimby! I have ruined him!" was Nattie's remorseful and unintelligible answer. "Well, my dear, if you could possibly be a trifle lucid, perhaps I could understand the plot of the piece," said Cyn, decidedly relieved of her first surmise. Upon which Nattie, half laughing and half crying, explained. But the ludicrous side was too much for Cyn, and she could only laugh. "What a farce it would make!" she said, as soon as she could speak. "Oh, Cyn!" Nattie said, reproachfully. "Think how dreadful it is for Quimby, and for me, the un-meaning instrument of it all!" "Nonsense, my dear," said Cyn, more seriously, and bringing her philosophy to bear on the subject, "It was not your fault! she was determined to have him in any case! Had it been you, as he supposed, you would of course have declined the proffered honor, and she would have caught him in the rebound! If he has spirit enough, he can get out of marrying her in some way. If not--she will make him a good wife enough. Men, you know, as she says, prefer to marry women who don't know too much; so it is all right!" And with this Nattie was fain to be content. But she felt great pity for the poor fellow; perhaps because of the unhappiness in her own heart.