does it.

It is rather a pretty name to write. You are fond of making capital M's;
and sometimes you follow it with a capital A. Then you practise a little
upon a D, and perhaps back it up with a G. Of course it is the merest
accident that these letters come together. It seems funny to you--very.
And as a proof that they are made at random, you make a T or an R before
them, and some other quite irrelevant letters after it.

Finally, as a sort of security against all suspicion, you cross it
out,--cross it a great many ways, even holding it up to the light to see
that there should be no air of intention about it.

----You need have no fear, Clarence, that your hieroglyphics will be
studied so closely. Accidental as they are, you are very much more
interested in them than any one else.

----It is a common fallacy of this dream in most stages of life, that a
vast number of persons employ their time chiefly in spying out its
operations.

Yet Madge cares nothing about you, that you know of. Perhaps it is the
very reason, though you do not suspect it then, why you care so much for
her. At any rate she is a friend of Nelly's, and it is your duty not to
dislike her. Nelly too, sweet Nelly, gets an inkling of matters,--for
sisters are very shrewd in suspicions of this sort, shrewder than
brothers or fathers,--and, like the good, kind girl that she is, she
wishes to humor even your weakness.

Madge drops in to tea quite often: Nelly has something _in particular_