e goes the wretch, now!" she broke off.
"Don't look at him!" She set her husband the example of averting his face
from the sight of Stoller sullenly pacing up the middle aisle of the
grove, and looking to the right and left for a vacant table. "Ugh! I hope
he won't be able to find a single place."

Mrs. Adding gave one of her pealing laughs, while Rose watched March's
face with grave sympathy. "He certainly doesn't deserve one. Don't let us
keep you from offering Miss Triscoe any consolation you can." They got
up, and the boy gathered up the gloves, umbrella, and handkerchief which
the ladies let drop from their laps.

"Have you been telling?" March asked his wife.

"Have I told you anything?" she demanded of Mrs. Adding in turn.
"Anything that you didn't as good as know, already?"

"Not a syllable!" Mrs. Adding replied in high delight. "Come, Rose!"

"Well, I suppose there's no use saying anything," said March, after she
left them.

"She had guessed everything, without my telling her," said his wife.

"About Stoller?"

"Well-no. I did tell her that part, but that was nothing. It was about
Burnamy and Agatha that she knew. She saw it from the first."

"I should have thought she would have enough to do to look after poor old
Kenby."

"I'm not sure, after all, that she cares for him. If she doesn't, she
oughtn't to let him write to her. Aren't you going over to speak to the
Triscoes?"

"No, certainly not. I'm going back to the hotel. There ought to be some
steamer letters this morning. Here we are, worrying about these strangers
all the time, and we never give a thought to our own children on the
other side of the ocean."

"I worry about them, too," said the mother, fondly. "Though there is
nothing to worry about," she added.

"It's our duty to worry," he insisted.

At the hotel the portier gave them four letters. There was one from each
of their children: one very buoyant, not to say boisterous, from the
daughter, celebrating her happiness in her husband, and the loveliness of
Chicago as a summer city ("You would think she was born out there!"
sighed her mother); and one from the son, boasting his well-being in
spite of the heat they were having ("And just think how cool it is here!"
his mother upbraided herself), and the prosperity of 'Every Other Week'.
There was a line from Fulkerson, praising the boy's editorial instinct,
and ironically proposing March's resignation in his favor.

"I do believe we