Sitting in the sunshine, Mrs. Deans felt this comfortable self-satisfaction to be an unholy thing upon the part of the Whites. So she said abruptly:
"Isn't it a terrible thing about Homer Wilson? Well, it'll teach Marian a lesson; she set too much store on Homer altogether. I knowed what Homer Wilson was long before this came out!"
"Why, Jane, I never heard anything against Homer! What do you mean?" asked Mrs. White, looking over her spectacles at Mrs. Deans.
"Why, they say—but I don't want this mentioned, Ann; I want this kept particular confidential between us two, and no one else to be the wiser, though the talk's getting round, as others can tell beside me. But what folks tell is that if Myron Holder's young one ain't named Homer, it ain't because it hadn't ought to be."
"Well, my lands!" said Mrs. White, whilst her daughter said nothing, but got up and went out of the room.
"Yes," said Mrs. Deans, "that's what they say, and I could tell things. But standing in the light of one who's tried to do the best she can for everybody, I never said a word! But there—there's no use talking over them; the point was, I felt it a duty when I heard he was sitting up with your Ann."
Mrs. Deans paused—there was no reply—so she continued: "I felt you ought to know the truth of how things stood; so putting aside my own feelings, as I have to do very often, I came to let you know what sort of a fellow Homer Wilson is."
"To think of it!" said Mrs. White. "Truly 'this life is but a fleeting show!' Homer Wilson! What he has said to Ann I can't say, not knowing; but as for sitting up, whatever sitting up was done was done irregular, now and then, as luck chanced; there was nothing regular, no promising, no conversational lozenges, no buggy drives. No, Ann ain't no call to be worried, though it's terrible to think how he'll suffer when he knows Ann is not for him, can never be his; no, that hope is gone—no, Homer Wilson, thou must go thy ways withouten help from Ann."
Mrs. Deans felt exasperated. "Such stuff and nonsense," she thought. "Homer Wilson would never look at Ann White, if he could get another girl; Ann White, indeed!" She woke from her silence with a start.
"Well, I'm glad it's no worse," she said; "only you'd better tell Ann to be careful, for people are so ready with their tongues."