“Nonsense. There are a lot of interesting young men. I’m not in love with any one.”
“Some consolation, Ann. Ann, I heard a bit of gossip again yesterday. It is something that I heard last summer from one of the boys and worried over, then thought that I had traced it to a person who makes up anything, I’m told, out of whole cloth. But it came from another source this time, and I’m going to Father with it, how soon I haven’t made up my mind.”
“Is it about yourself, Maurice?”
“Yes; have you heard it?”
“I heard something, but it came from an unreliable source. It seems so unbelievable, too. It is nothing to your discredit, Maurice.”
Ann added the last statement, for she thought that Maurice might refer to some other report, about some college escapade or affairs among the young folks.
Maurice was silent and they glided along without a word for some distance.
“Who told you and what was said?” he finally asked.
“It was Mrs. Lewis, that woman who, I am told, is such an indefatigable gossip; but I’d rather not speak of the matter first.”
“She seizes on an unpleasant report and holds on to it like a dog to a bone!” said Maurice. “I heard it first through her, when I came back from the West this summer, not from her directly, though. It is going to make considerable difference to me, Ann, whether it is true or not.”