"Really? How funny!" came in a chorus from the delighted auditors.
"Yes—on both sides; and the clergyman had never had it, so the ceremony had to be postponed."
Patty's blood froze. She recognized the tale. It was one of her own offspring, only shorn of its unessential adornments.
"Where in the world did you hear any such absurd thing as that?" she demanded severely.
"I heard Lucille Carter tell it at a fudge party up in Bonnie Connaught's room last night," answered the sophomore, stoutly, sure that the source was a reputable one.
Patty groaned. "And I suppose that every blessed one of that dozen girls has told it to another dozen by this time, and that it's only bounded by the boundaries of the campus. Well, there's not a word of truth in it. Lucille Carter doesn't know what she is talking about. That's a likely story, isn't it?" she added with fine scorn. "Does Professor Winters look like a man who'd ever dare propose to a girl, let alone marry her?" And she stalked out of the room and up to the single where Lucille lived.
"Lucille," said Patty, "what do you mean by spreading that story about Professor Winters's bride's mumps?"
"You told it to me yourself," answered Lucille, with some warmth. She was a believing creature with an essentially literal mind, and she had always been out of her element in the lofty imaginative realms of local color.
"I told it to you!" said Patty, indignantly. "You goose, you don't mean to tell me you believed it? I was just playing local color."
"How should I know that? You told it as if it were true."