"Please," pleaded the girl, not letting go.
"I don't intend to keep it, Bessie, on my word of honor."
Confident that she had secured her object, the girl released the ruffle and stepped back.
"Thank you, Mr. Moore," said she, waiting expectantly.
"Oh, not at all, Mistress Dyke. What are you waiting for?"
"For that."
"But you do not get this, Mistress Dyke."
"But you promised, sir."
"I did not say I would give it to you," explained Moore, genially. "I merely promised that I would not keep it. Well, I won't. I happen to have your card in my pocket--it's a wonder it is n't the mitten you have presented me with so often--and this card I shall pin on the ruffle, which I shall then hang on this candelabra, where it will remain until found by some one, and what they will think of you then is beyond my power to imagine."
Moore suited the action to the word as he spoke, and the bundle of frills was securely perched on the candle-rack protruding from the wall a good seven feet from the floor before Bessie fully realized how completely she had been outwitted.