William Dean Howells

“ Campbell: "Well, that's what attracted me to you, Amy; your manliness."
Mrs. Campbell: "And I liked your finesse. You are awfully inventive, Willis. Why, Willis, I've just thought of something. Oh, it would be so good if you only would!"
Campbell: "Would what?" [Pg 26]
Mrs. Campbell: "Invent something now to get us out of the scrape."
Campbell: "What a brilliant idea! I'm not in any scrape. And as for Mr. Welling, I don't see how you could help him out unless you sent this letter to Miss Rice, and asked her to send yours back—"
Mrs. Campbell, springing to her feet: "Willis, you are inspired! ”

“ The presence of others will be nothing. It will be sweet to ignore them in my heart, and while I see you moving among them, and looking after their pleasure with that beautiful thoughtfulness of yours, to think, "She is mine, mine, mine!" ”

“ Of course it's a mistake; but he's a fellow who will enter into the joke too; he'll enjoy it; he'll—" He merges his sentence in a kiss on her upturned lips, and she clings to his hand with her right, pressing it fondly to her cheek. "I shall do it in a man's way; but I guess you'll approve of it quite as much."
Mrs. Campbell: "I know I shall. That's what I like about you, Willis: your being so helplessly a man always." ”

“ 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 [Pg 46] admires Mrs. Campbell more than anybody."
Mrs. Campbell: "Don't try to stop him; he's fiendish when he begins teasing." ”

“ For one that can never be thine?"
I thank you, and thank you a thousand times over, for this proof of your trust in me, and of your love—our love. You shall be the sole keeper of our secret—it is so sweet to think that no one even suspects it!—and it shall live with you, and if you will, it shall die with me. Forever yours, Arthur Welling.'" Campbell turns the note over, and picking up the envelope, examines the address. "Well, upon my word! It's to you, Amy—on the outside, [Pg 20] anyway. ”

“ It really makes you wish for a leisure class. It's only the drive and hurry of American life that make our men seem wanting in the convenances; and if they had the time, with their instinctive delicacy, they would be perfect: it would come from the heart: they're more truly polite now. Willis, just look at this!"
Campbell, behind his paper: "Look at what?" ”

“ 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 from the toast-rack before him: "Well, let's see." He reads [Pg 19] aloud: "'Oh, my darling! How can I live till I see you? ”

“ You haven't the slightest evidence that it's for Miss Rice, or that it isn't intended for you, and it's my duty to find out. And nobody is authority but Mr. Welling. And I'm going to him with the corpus delicti." [Pg 23]
Mrs. Campbell: "But how can you? Remember how sensitive, how shrinking he is. Don't, Willis; you mustn't. It will kill him!"
Campbell: "Well, that may save me considerable bother. If he will simply die of himself, I can't ask anything better." He goes on eating his breakfast.
Mrs. Campbell, admiring him across the table: "Oh, Willis, how perfectly delightful you are!" ”

“ 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 [Pg 45] 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. ”

“ Welling. Do you happen to know where I laid my revolver?"
Mrs. Campbell: "Oh, Willis, what are you going to do? You see it's a mistake."
Campbell: "Mr. Welling has got to prove that. I'm not going to have young men addressing my wife as Oh their darling, without knowing the reason why. It's a liberty."
Mrs. Campbell, inclined to laugh: "Ah, Willis, how funny you are!"
Campbell: "Funny? I'm furious."
Mrs. Campbell: "You know you're not. Give me the letter, dearest. I know it's for Margaret Rice, and I shall see her, and just feel round and find out if it isn't so, and—"
Campbell: "What an idea! ”

“ But that shows that where people have nothing to do but attend to their social duties they are always prompt—even the men; women, of course, reply early anyway, [Pg 8] and you don't really care for them; but in town the men seem to put it off till the very last moment, and then some of them call when it's over to excuse themselves for not having come after accepting. ”

“ MR. WELLING EXPLAINS.
Miss Greenway: "Why, of course! [Pg 53] How stupid I should be to take such a thing in the wrong way!"
Welling: "And I'm so glad now I didn't try to lie to you about it."
Miss Greenway: "It wouldn't have been of any use. You couldn't have carried off anything of that sort. The truth is bad enough for you to carry off. Promise me that you will always leave the other thing to me."
Welling: "I will, darling; I will, indeed."
Miss Greenway: "And now we must tell Margaret, of course."
X
MISS RICE ”

“ A gallery of striking studies in the humblest quarters of American country life. No one has dealt with this kind of life better than Miss Wilkins. Nowhere are there to be found such faithful, delicately drawn, sympathetic, tenderly humorous pieces.—N. Y. Tribune. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.
☞For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price. ”

“ 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 [Pg 28] can save me! Oh, Willis! Willis! Willis! ”

“ Welling: "No; worse! She'll think we've been trying to hoax her, and she'll be in a towering rage; and she'll show the note to Miss Greenway, and you'll be ruined. Oh poor Mr. Welling! Oh, what a fatal, fatal—mix!" She abandons herself in an attitude of extreme desperation upon a chair, while the men stare at her, till Campbell breaks the spell by starting forward and ringing the bell on the table.
Mrs. Campbell: "What are you doing, Willis?"
Campbell: "Ringing for Jane." As Jane appears: "Did you give Miss Rice the note?"
[Pg 39]
IV
JANE ”

“ Rice's, and say to her that the letter you left for Miss Rice is not for her, but another lady, and Mrs. Campbell sent it by mistake. Get it and bring it back here, dead or alive, even if Mrs. Rice has to pass over your mangled body in the attempt."
Jane, tasting the joke, while Mrs. Campbell [Pg 41] gasps in ineffective efforts to reinforce her husband's instructions: "I will that, sir."
V
MRS. CAMPBELL; WELLING; CAMPBELL
Campbell: "And now, while we're waiting, let's all join hands and dance round the table. You're saved, Welling. So are you, Amy. And so am I—which is more to the point." ”

“ These stories have a light felicitous touch that is well-nigh the perfection of polished story-telling. They are stamped with an exquisite refinement of the art, and every telling point is delicately emphasized.—Boston Transcript. AMERICANISMS AND BRITICISMS, with Other Essays on Other Isms. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00. A racy, delightful little book.... It is a long time since we have met with such a combination of keen yet fair criticism, genuine wit, and literary grace. ”

“ Campbell: "No, no! Listen, Amy! You must stay and see those ladies. It's all well enough to leave it to me, but what about poor Welling? He hasn't done anything—except cause the whole trouble."
Mrs. Campbell: "I am very sorry, but I can't help it. I must go." Campbell continues to prevent her flight, and she suddenly whirls about and makes a dash at the open window. "Oh, very well, then! I can get out this way." At the same moment Miss Rice and Miss Greenway appear before the window on the piazza. "Ugh! ”

“ Campbell: "I shall do nothing but exclaim. The Curwens accept, of course—the very first letter. That means Mrs. Curwen; that is one, at any rate. The New York Addingses do, and the Philadelphia Addingses don't; I hardly expected they would, so soon after their aunt's death, but I thought I ought to ask them. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, naturally; it was more a joke than anything, sending their invitation. Mrs. and the Misses Carver regret very much; well, I don't. Professor and Mrs. Traine are very happy, and so am I; he doesn't go everywhere, and he's awfully nice. Mr. ”

“ Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25. Always there is a freedom from commonplace, and a power to hold the interest to the close, which is owing, not to a trivial ingenuity, but to the spell which her personages cast over the reader's mind as soon as they come within his ken.—Atlantic Monthly. ”