fair, plump, rosy, and well over twenty; the third, pale-skinned and
dark, was still a very young girl. She it was who stitched magenta
hieroglyphics on a strip of perforated cardboard.

"Do lemme see, Poll," said the eldest of the trio, and laid down her
pen. "You 'AVE bin quick about it, my dear."

Polly, the brunette, freed her needle of silk and twirled the bookmark
by its ribbon ends. Spinning, the mystic characters united to form the
words: "Kiss me quick."

Her companions tittered. "If ma didn't know for certain 'twas meant for
your brother John, she'd never 'ave let you make it," said the second
blonde, whose name was Jinny.

"Girls, what a lark it 'ud be to send it up to Purdy Smith, by Ned!"
said the first speaker.

Polly blushed. "Fy, Tilly! That wouldn't be ladylike."

Tilly's big bosom rose and fell in a sigh. "What's a lark never is."

Jinny giggled, agreeably scandalized: "What things you do say. Till!
Don't let ma 'ear you, that's all."

"Ma be blowed!--'Ow does this look now, Polly?" And across the wax-cloth
Tilly pushed a copybook, in which she had laboriously inscribed a
prim maxim the requisite number of times.

Polly laid down her work and knitted her brows over the page.