eward."

Campbell: "Reward! What for?"

Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, I don't know. Being so nice."

Campbell: "That's something I can't help. It's no merit. Well, hand over
the letter."

Mrs. Campbell: "I should have thought you'd insist on _my_ opening it,
after that."

Campbell: "Why?"

Mrs. Campbell: "To show your confidence."

Campbell: "When I haven't got any?"

Mrs. Campbell, tearing the note open: "Well, it's no use trying any
sentiment with you, or any generosity either. You're always just the
same; a teasing joke is your ideal. You can't imagine a woman's wanting
to keep up a little romance all through; and a character like Mr.
Welling's, who's all chivalry and delicacy and deference, is quite
beyond you. That's the reason you're always sneering at him."

Campbell: "I'm not sneering at him, my dear. I'm only afraid Miss Rice
isn't good enough for him."

Mrs. Campbell, instantly placated: "Well, she's the only girl who's
anywhere _near_ it. I don't say she's faultless, but she has a great
deal of character, and she's very practical; just the counterpart of his
dreaminess; and she _is_ very, _very_ good-looking, don't you think?"

Campbell: "Her bang isn't so nice as his."

Mrs. Campbell: "No; and aren't his eyes beautiful? And that high,
serious look! And his nose and chin are perfectly divine. He looks like
a young god!"

Campbell: "I dare say; though I never saw an old one. Well, is he
coming? I'm not jealous, but I'm impatient. Read it out loud."

Mrs. Campbell, sinking back in her chair for the more luxurious perusal
of the note: "Indeed I shall not." She opens it and runs it hastily
through, with various little starts, stares, frowns, smiles of arrested
development, laughs, and cries: "Why--why! What does it mean? Is he
crazy? Why, there's some mistake. No! It's his hand--and here's his
name. I can't make it out." She reads it again and again. "Why, it's
perfectly bewildering! Why, there must be some mistake. He couldn't have
meant it. Could he have imagined? Could he have dared? There never has
been the slightest thing that could be tortured into--But of course not.
And Mr. Welling, of all men! Oh, I can't understand it! Oh, Willis,
Willis, Willis! What _does_ it mean?" She flings the note wildly across
the table, and catching her handkerchief to her face, falls back into
her chair, tumultuously sobbing.

Campbell, with the calm of a man accustomed to emotional superabundance,
lifting the note f