. Campbell: "What's all wrong, Jane?"

Jane: "Please, ma'am, may I have a drink of water? I'm so dry I can't
speak."

Mrs. Campbell: "Yes, certainly."

Campbell: "Of course."

Welling: "Here." They all pour glasses of water and press them to her
lips.

Jane, pushing the glasses away, and escaping from the room: "They
thought Mrs. Campbell was in a great hurry for Miss Rice to have the
letter, and they sent off the man with it to meet her."

VII

_MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL_

Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, merciful goodness!"

Welling: "Gracious powers!"

Campbell: "Another overruling providence. Now you _are_ in for it, my
boy! So is Amy. And so am I--which is still more to the point."

Mrs. Campbell: "Well, now, what shall we do?"

Campbell: "All that we can do now is to await developments: they'll
come fast enough. Miss Rice will open her letter as soon as she gets it,
and she won't understand it in the least; how _could_ she understand a
letter in your handwriting, with Welling's name signed to it? She'll
show it to Miss Greenway--"

Welling: "Oh, don't say that!"

Campbell: "--Greenway; and Miss Greenway won't know what to make of it
either. But she's the kind of girl who'll form some lively conjectures
when she reads that letter. In the first place, she'll wonder how Mr.
Welling happens to be writing to Miss Rice in that affectionate
strain--"

Mrs. Campbell, in an appealing shriek: "Willis!"

Campbell: "--And she naturally won't believe he's done it. But then,
when Miss Rice tells her it's your handwriting, Amy, she'll think that
you and Miss Rice have been having your jokes about Mr. Welling; and
she'll wonder what kind of person you are, anyway, to make free with a
young man's name that way."

Welling: "Oh, I assure you that she admires Mrs. Campbell more than
anybody."

Mrs. Campbell: "Don't try to stop him; he's fiendish when he begins
teasing."

Campbell: "Oh, well! If she admires Mrs. Campbell and confides in you,
then the whole affair is very simple. All you've got to do is to tell
her that after you'd written her the original of that note, your mind
was so full of Mrs. Campbell and her garden-party that you naturally
addressed it to her. And then Mrs. Campbell can cut in and say that when
she got the note she knew it wasn't for her, but she never dreamed of
your caring for Miss Greenway, and was so sure it was for Miss Rice that
she sent her a copy of it. That will make it all