"Don't think I mean to blame you. I know women will talk, and I do not believe any of you meant the least harm, or dreamed of things going as far as they have. Indeed, Louise [!] attaches no importance to it whatever. She says it is only idle gossip, and will die out if let alone, and she did not wish me to take any notice of it; but I felt that I must do so on my own account, if not on hers. I don't care what trash gets into such journals as that," and he looked scornfully at the unhappy newspaper, which we wished we had never touched with a pair of tongs; "but I do not want our friends and neighbours to think more meanly of me than I deserve, when I have it in my power to put a stop to it at once. Mr. Dana, is it true that you and Mrs. Williams were ever in love with each other?" "It is not," replied Mr. Dana, who began to take courage under the skilful peroration of his chief. "I was never on any terms with Mrs. Williams, when she was Miss Latham, but those of the very slightest, and, of course, most respectful acquaintance. I don't believe we ever exchanged a dozen words." "I believe you," murmured Blanche Livermore, who sat next to me, and whose unruly tongue nothing could long subdue; and indeed we had none of us supposed that Loulie Latham conducted her love-affairs by means of conversation. "Did you dance the german with her at the Eliot Hall Assembly on January 4, 188-?" "I regret very much that I never had the pleasure of dancing the german with Mrs. Williams. At the party to which you refer I danced with Miss Wilmerding." We all remembered Alice Wilmerding and her red hair, just the shade of Loulie Latham's, but which had not procured her an artist for a husband; indeed, it had not procured any at all, for she was still single. "Neither," pursued Willie Williams, "is there any truth in the report that Louise was obliged to marry me for a support. She had no need to do so, being possessed of very sufficient means of her own, as I can show by her bank-account at that date." How he had got hold of every scrap we had said to one another, and even of all we had thought, we could not imagine then, but we afterward found out that he had procured every item from the editor of that horrid paper, under threats of instant personal and legal attack; and as to how this person happened to know so much, I can only advise you not to say or think anything you would be ashamed to have known while there are such papers in existence.