"If I would let you, you could not make the alteration; see, your hand trembles! You would blot the parchment and spoil all this fine plan of mine.

Give me the quill, mother! Give me the quill!" She took the quill from Margaret's passive hand and sat down at the table.

Spreading the missive before her, she dipped the quill in the ink-well, and when she lifted it, a drop of ink fell upon the table within a hair's breadth of the parchment.
"Ah, Blessed Virgin!" cried Yolanda, snatching the missive away from the ink blot.

"If the ink had fallen on the parchment, we surely had been lost.

I, too, am trembling, and I dare not try to make the alteration now.