“This paper, then? Is it a legal form? Are you serious in making such a contract with me?”
The baronet nodded profoundly. “It bears my signature: it is complete, and irrevocable!”
“But my own name is not written here. You have left a blank.”
“For you to fill up, dearest creature! How could I write your name, when you have not told me what it is?”
“How, sir? You do not know my name?” exclaimed the lady, with an accent of surprise.
“Positively, I have not a notion of it. The servant did not announce it.”
“And you enter into this contract with one of whom you know nothing?”
“ ’Tis yourself, fairest of your sex, not your name that has importance for me,” panted the baronet complacently. “But you will tell it me? and lift that veil that obscures so much beauty?”
“Apparently, Sir Francis, it has obscured more than my beauty,” returned the lady dryly. She approached the table at which he sat, and added, “Give me your pen.”
Somewhat startled at the abruptness of her tone, the baronet complied with her request. She held the paper upon the desk with her left hand while she wrote a name in the blank space which Sir Francis had left for that purpose. His eye followed the swift movement of the pen, and when the writer laid it down, he read out the name mechanically—