Leap Year

This small image, featured in a section among cartoons, limericks, and poems, same as the comic strip featuring the giant letter, is the last visual reminder of the prominence of the letter contained in this edition of the weekly publication. It depicts a man at a social event, presumably a dance, holding out a card to a woman as a sign that he cannot dance with her immediately. In this case the dance card functions as a visual correspondence between partygoers and as a contract of who will dance with whom in the future. "Leap Year" acts as a small reminder that letters had become so popularized that they were not only sent great distances, but also used in day to day conversation between people in communal spaces. Wilkie Collins also shows us a similar instance when Rachel uses her letter to convey her refusal to the Sergeant though they are both within in the same house at the time.