“That will I, my darlin’ lady,” said the delighted mother. It was she who had the whole doing of it, and the pride of having suggested it. Rob stood by, quite pale, his eyes blazing with excitement, his mind half paralyzed with trouble and terror, hope to have, reluctance to take, fear of something unmanly, something dishonorable, intensified by the eagerness of expectation, with which he looked for what was to come. He stood “like a stock stane,” his mother said afterward, his lips parted, his eyes staring, in her way as she rushed to the desk at the other side of the room to find what was wanted. “You eedeeot!” she said, as she pushed him aside, in an angry undertone. Had he not the sense even to help in what was all for his own advantage? Margaret pulled off her black glove and took the pen in her hand. She knew she would write it very badly, very unevenly--not even in a straight line; but if she had to do it before she could run home, it was better to get it over. “Oh, but I never wrote anything before,” she said; “Mrs. Glen, what must I say?” “Nor me. I never wrote the like of that before,” cried Mrs. Glen; “and there’s Rob even--too happy to help us.” She had meant to use another word to describe his spasm of irresolution and apprehension, but remembered in time that he must not be contemned in Margaret’s eyes. “It will be just this, my bonnie dear: ‘I, Margaret Leslie, give my word before God and man, to marry Robert Glen as soon as I come of age. So help me God. Amen.’” “Don’t put that,” cried Rob, making a hasty step toward her. “Don’t let her put that.” But then he turned away in such passion and transport of shame, satisfaction, horror, and disgust as no words could tell, and covered his face with his hands. “Not that last,” said Margaret, stumbling, in her eagerness, over the words, and glad to leave out whatever she could. “Oh, it is very badly-written. I never could write well. Mrs. Glen, will that do?” “And now your bonnie name here,” said the originator of the scheme, scarcely able to restrain her triumph. And as Margaret, with a trembling hand, crossed the last t, and put a blot for a dot over the i, in her distracted signature, she received a resounding kiss upon her cheek which was as the report of a pistol to her. She gave a little cry of terror, and threw down the pen, and turned away. “Oh, good-bye!” she cried, “good-bye. I must not stay another moment. I must run all the way.”