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MRS. CAMPBELL,springing to her feet: “Willis, you are inspired! Oh, how perfectly delightful! And it’s so delicate of you to think of that! I will just enclose his note–give it here, Willis–and he need never know that it ever went to the wrong address. Oh, I always felt that you were truly refined, anyway.” He passively yields the letter, and she whirls away to a writing-desk in the corner of the room. “Now, I’ll just keep a copy of the letter–for a joke; I think I’ve a perfect right to”–scribbling furiously away–“and then I’ll match the paper with an envelope–I can do that perfectly–and then I’ll just imitate his hand–such fun!–and send it flying over to Margaret Rice. Oh, how good! Touch the bell, Willis;” and then–as the serving-maid appears–“Yes, Jane! Run right across the lawn to Mrs. Rice’s, and give this letter for Miss Margaret, and say it was left here by mistake. Well, it was, Willis. Fly, Jane! Oh, Willis, love! Isn’t it perfect! Of course she’ll have got his formal reply to my invitation, and be all mixed up by it, and now when this note comes, she’ll see through it all in an instant, and it will be such a relief to her; and oh, she’ll think that he’s directed both the letters to her because he couldn’t think of any one else! Isn’t it lovely? Just like anything that’s nice, it’s ten times as nice as you expected it to be; and–“

CAMPBELL:“But hold on, Amy!” He lifts a note from the desk. “You’ve sent your copy. Here’s the original now. She’ll think you’ve been playing some joke on her.”

MRS. CAMPBELL,clutching the letter from him, and scanning it in a daze: “What! Oh, my goodness! It is! I have! Oh, I shall die! Run! Call her back! Shriek, Willis!” They rush to the window together. “No, no! It’s too late! She’s given it to their man, and now nothing can save me! Oh, Willis! Willis! Willis! This is all your fault, with that fatal suggestion of yours. Oh, if you had only left it to me I never should have got into such a scrape! She will think now that I’ve been trying to hoax her, and she’s perfectly implacable at the least hint of a liberty, and she’ll be ready to kill me. I don’t know what she won’t do. Oh, Willis, how could you get me into this!”

CAMPBELL,irately: “Get you into this! Now, Amy, this is a little too much. You got yourself into it. You urged me to think of something–“

MRS. CAMPBELL:“Well, do, Willis, do think of something, or I shall go mad! Help me, Willis! Don’t be so heartless–so unfeeling.”

CAMPBELL:“There’s only one thing now, and that is to make a clean breast of it to Welling, and get him to help us out. A word from him can make everything right, and we can’t take a step without him; we can’t move!”

MRS. CAMPBELL:“I can’t let you. Oh, isn’t it horrible!”

CAMPBELL:“Yes; a nice thing is always ten times nicer than you expected it to be!”

MRS. CAMPBELL:“Oh, how can you stand there mocking me? Why don’t you go to him at once, and tell him the whole thing, and beg him, implore him, to help us?”

CAMPBELL:“Why, you just told me I mustn’t!”

MRS. CAMPBELL:“You didn’t expect me to say you might, did you? Oh, how cruel!” She whirls out of the room, and Campbell stands in a daze, in which he is finally aware of Mr. Arthur Welling, seen through the open window, on the veranda without. Mr. Welling, with a terrified and furtive air, seems to be fixed to the spot where he stands.