To ask for her heart and her hand,
With compliments worded so nicely,
A lifelong devotion I swore;
She's answered--and left me precisely
As wise as before!

It is true that I begged, when inditing
My note, a reply with all speed,
And MABEL, to judge from the writing,
Fulfilled my petition indeed!
The drift of this scrawl, so erratic,
I am wholly unable to guess--
It may be refusal emphatic,
Or can it be "Yes"?

"Affection" she'll feel for me "ever,"
But stay--if that blot is an "_n_"
It turns it at once into "never,"
Or is it a slip of the pen?
Her heart will a "truant (or true?) be,"
And what is the word just above?
It looks like--it cannot be--"booby"!
Perhaps it is "love."

A meeting must needs be awaited
To render these mysteries plain;
Perhaps in this letter she's stated
She never will see me again;
On one thing at least I've decided;--
Should she be my partner for life,