over, so as to put you on your
guard."

"Yes," sighed Mrs. Hoch, rocking vigorously as she spoke, "everybody
knows I'm no gossip. I believe if you can't say nothing good about
nobody, you should keep your mouth shut, but I says to Celie as soon
as I heard this, 'Celie,' says I, 'it's our duty to tell that poor
thing what we know.'"

I started to speak, to stop whatever revelation she wished to make,
but I might as well have attempted to stem a torrent with a leaf
bridge.

"We've heard things for a long time," Mrs. Hoch went on, "but we
didn't want to say nothin', 'specially as you seemed such friends, her
runnin' here and all. But we noticed she hain't been comin' lately,
and then our Willie, he hears things a lot over at the station, and
he says it's common talk over there that your husband and that Draper
girl are planning to elope. They take the same train every morning
together, come home on the same one at night, and they are as friendly
as anything."

"Mrs. Hoch," I snapped out, "if I had known what you were going to
say, I would not have allowed you to speak. Your words are an insult
to my husband and myself. You will please to remember never to say
anything like this to me again."

Mrs. Hoch rose to her feet, her face an unbecoming brick red. Her
daughter's black eyes snapped with anger.

"Come, Celie," the elder woman said, "I don't stay nowhere to be
insulted, when all I've tried to do is give a little friendly warning
to a neighbor."

Mother and daughter hurried down the path, chattering to each other,
like two angry squirrels.

"Horrid, stuck-up thing," I heard Celie say spitefully, as they went
through the fence. "I hope Grace Draper does take him away from
her. She's got a nerve, I must say, talkin' to us like that. I don't
believe she cares anything about her husband, anyway."

She might have changed her mind had she seen me fly to my room as soon
as she was safely out of sight, lock the door, and bury my face in the
pillows, that neither my mother-in-law nor Katie should hear the sobs
I could not repress.

"Dicky! Dicky! Dicky!" I moaned. "Have I really lost you?"

Of course I knew better than to believe the statement of the
elopement. I had seen and heard enough of village life to realize how
the slightest circumstance was magnified by the community loafers.
That Dicky and the girl took the same train, going and coming from
the city, was a fact borne out by my own observations. I had rem