"
She retorted, "Could one forget if one was married?"
He replied on the same tablet: "Not when he tried."
Podge rubbed it all off, and thought a minute, and then concluded that
evening's correspondence:
"You are an old tease!"
The next morning, as usual, she wrapped herself up warmly and took the
omnibus for her school, and saw him watching her out of the upper
window. That night, instead of any inquiries, he stalked down in his
worked slippers--the dead man's--and long dressing gown, and, after
smiling at all, took Podge Byerly's hand and looked at it. This time he
spoke in a sweet, modulated voice,
"Very pretty!"
She was about to reply, when he gave her the ivory tablet, and put his
finger on his lip.
She wrote, "Did you ever fight a duel?"
He shook his head "No."
She wrote again, "What else do they do in Arkansas?"
He replied, "They love."
Then Mr. Duff Salter sneezed very loudly, "Jericho! Jericho! Jericho!"
Podge ran off at such a serious turn of responses, but was too much of a
woman not to be lured back of her own will. He wrote later in the
evening this touching query:
"How do the birds sing now? Are they all dumb?"
She answered, "Many can hear who never heard them."
He wrote again, "Are you suspicious?"
She replied, "_Very_.
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