With the quickness of David at the switch, I slipped a blotting-pad over the dedication, and then, "Pray be seated," I said coldly, but she remained standing, all in a twitter and very much afraid of me, and I know that her hands were pressed together within the muff.
But there was still that accursed dedication, lying, you remember, beneath the blotting-pad. I had no longer any desire to crush her with it.
I had forgotten all about the book!" And then after reflection she added, "Pooh!" Had she not added Pooh I might have spared her, but as it was I raised the blotting-pad rather haughtily and presented her with the sheet beneath it.
Still with his head down, he began shaving off the topmost layer of paper from the blotting-pad under his hand.
He suddenly looked down again at the blotting-pad. "Yes--the marriage."
His hand was in the drawer, almost before his mind had conceived the hope; and rising to his new situation, he wrote, sitting in his father's chair and using his father's
blotting-pad, his pitiful apology and farewell:-
She was sitting behind her screen this morning, scribbling idly on the
blotting-pad, for there had been a lull in the business, when the door opened, and the polite, 'Bonjour, monsieur,' of M.
I rejoice, however, to perceive that he wrote with a broad-pointed quill pen, and I can hardly doubt that we will find some impression upon this
blotting-pad. Ah, yes, surely this is the very thing!"