“You had better not put either--” “But I must. You're one or the other, you know. You're dear--to your family,--and you're Marcia: you can't deny it. The only question is whether you're the dearest of all the Miss Marcias. I may be mistaken, you know. We'll err on the safe side: Dear Marcia:” He wrote it down. “That looks well, and it reads well. It looks very natural, and it reads like poetry,--blank verse; there's no rhyme for it that I can remember. Dear Marcia: Will you go sleigh-riding with me to-morrow afternoon, at two o'clock sharp? Yours--yours? sincerely, or cordially, or affectionately, or what? The 'dear Marcia' seems to call for something out of the common. I think it had better be affectionately.” He suggested it with ironical gravity. “And _I_ think it had better be 'truly,'” protested the girl. “'Truly' it shall be, then. Your word is law,--statute in such case made and provided.” He wrote, “With unutterable devotion, yours truly, Bartley J. Hubbard,” and read it aloud. She leaned forward, and lightly caught it away from him, and made a feint of tearing it. He seized her hands. “Mr. Hubbard!” she cried, in undertone. “Let me go, please.” “On two conditions,--promise not to tear up my letter, and promise to answer it in writing.” She hesitated long, letting him hold her wrists. At last she said, “Well,” and he released her wrists, on whose whiteness his clasp left red circles. She wrote a single word on the paper, and pushed it across the table to him. He rose with it, and went around to her side. “This is very nice. But you haven't spelled it correctly. Anybody would say this was No, to look at it; and you meant to write Yes. Take the pencil in your hand, Miss Gaylord, and I will steady your trembling nerves, so that you can form the characters. Stop! At the slightest resistance on your part, I will call out and alarm the house; or I will--.” He put the pencil into her fingers, and took her soft fist into his, and changed the word, while she submitted, helpless with her smothered laughter. “Now the address. Dear--” “No, no!” she protested. “Yes, yes! Dear Mr. Hubbard. There, that will do. Now the signature. Yours--” “I _won't_ write that. I won't, indeed!” “Oh, yes, you will. You only think you won't. Yours gratefully, Marcia Gaylord. That's right. The Gaylord is not very legible, on account of a slight tremor in the writer's arm, resulting from a constrained posture, perhaps. Thanks, Miss Gaylord. I will be here promptly at the hour indicated--”