Page:Dream Life - Mitchell - 1899? Altemus.djvu/70

 60 DREAM-LIFE.

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 sis-