h peccadilloes. You interrupt." She goes on opening and
reading her letters. "Well, I didn't expect the Macklines _could_; but
everybody seems to be coming."

Campbell: "You pay them too much attention altogether. It spoils them;
and one of these days you'll be getting some of them in love with you,
and _then_ what will you do?"

Mrs. Campbell, with affected distraction: "What _are_ you talking about?
I'd refer them to you, and you could kill them. I suppose you killed
lots of people in California. That's what you always gave me to
understand." She goes on with her letters.

Campbell: "I never killed a single human being that I can remember; but
there's no telling what I might do if I were provoked. Now, there's that
young Welling. He's about here under my feet all the time; and he's got
a way lately of coming in through the window from the piazza that's very
intimate. He's a nice fellow enough, and sweet, as you say. I suppose he
has talent, too, but I never heard that he had set any of the adjacent
watercourses on fire; and I don't know that he could give the Apollo
Belvedere many points in beauty and beat him."

Mrs. Campbell: "_I_ do. Mrs. and Miss Rice accept, and her friend Miss
Greenway, who's staying with her, and--yes! here's one from Mr. Welling!
_Oh_, how glad I am! Willis, dearest, if I _could_ be the means of
bringing those two lovely young creatures together, I should be _so_
happy! _Don't_ you think, now, he _is_ the most delicate-minded, truly
refined, exquisitely modest young fellow that ever was?" She presses the
unopened note to her corsage, and leans eagerly forward entreating a
sympathetic acquiescence.

Campbell: "Well, as far as I can remember my own youth, no. But what
does he say?"

Mrs. Campbell, regarding the letter: "I haven't looked yet. He writes
the _most_ characteristic hand, for a man, that I ever saw. And he has
the divinest taste in perfumes! Oh, I wonder what _that_ is? Like a
memory--a regret." She presses it repeatedly to her pretty nose, in the
endeavor to ascertain.

Campbell: "Oh, hello!"

Mrs. Campbell, laughing: "Willis, you _are_ delightful. I should like to
see you really jealous once."

Campbell: "You won't, as long as I know my own incomparable charm. But
give me that letter, Amy, if you're not going to open it. I want to see
whether Welling is going to come."

Mrs. Campbell, fondly: "Would you _really_ like to open it? I've half a
mind to let you, just for a r