Mail.app annoyance

Wonder if anyone can help me with one of the small things that's really annoying me since switching to Mac.

When I hit Reply in Mail and start typing, my message obviously appears on the first line. The annoyance is that the message I'm replying to is on the second line when I want there to be at least a line's space between my message and theirs.

So I end up having to hit return and then cursor up every time just to put that space in myself. Is there a way of having this there automatically?

Thanks

 

Mail doesn't like a (basically) blank signature but after a bit of tinkering I got it to work. Thanks. Good thinking.