White to his right mind a little and instead of going ahead and telling it he turned around to Julius and said: "Why our friend, Young, here, was telling me that----" "I _told_ you that it must be a mistake," Julius spoke up, looking awfully uncomfortable, "but I remember my wife saying that--oh, say, Marcella, explain--will you?" "Why, Julius Young," Marcella commenced in a married-lady tone, "you promised me that you wouldn't say a word about it; anyway we only suspected----" "Will _nobody_ tell me what has happened to Paul?" Miss Wilburn said in a low, strangled voice, like she couldn't get her breath good. "Ain't anything happened to him that _we_ know of," I told her, for Julius and the rest of them looked like they were speechless. "We thought _you_ knew it!" "Knew _what_? Oh, for the love of Heaven, tell me!" she said, poor thing! And I felt awful sorry for us all, but for Miss Wilburn and me in particular. I just couldn't tell her we thought he was _plumb_ dead, so I told her we thought he must be very sick or something. "He may be," she answered, not looking any happier. "I haven't heard from him since I've been here! Oh, it serves me right for acting such an idiot as to run off down here and forbid his writing to me! He may be desperately ill! How did you hear it?" "Ain't anybody heard it _yet_!" I told her, feeling so angry at Marcella and Julius and Mr. White for telling such a thing and so ashamed of myself for making it up that I couldn't think very well. I kept wishing in my mind that it was the first day of April so I could say "April Fool," or an earthquake would happen or _anything_ else to pass it off; but didn't anything happen, so I had to stand there with all of them looking at me and tell Miss Wilburn how Mammy Lou said _she_ believed she had been fooled because she looked so sad at the mention of marrying, but _I_ believed the gentleman was dead. Well, it took every one of us every step of the way home to explain it to her and to each other, each one of us talking as hard as we could; and Julius remarked what he'd do the next time he heard any such "sewing-society tales" under his breath. Just as we got in sight of the house poor Miss Wilburn was so worn out with grief and anxiety that she sat down on the big stump and laughed and cried as hard as she could. Mother saw her from the window and she and mammy ran down to where we were to see what it was all about. She patted Miss Wilburn on the back and on the head and said, "poor dear," while mammy said she would run right back to the house and brew her some strong tea, which was splendid when a body was distressed about a man. "There, dear, talk to us about him," mother said, after the whole story was told, "tell us about him, for talking will do you good. You've been unnaturally quiet about him since you've been here!"