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 do