"I say the truth came out; but even now the town is full of
different stories, and different people believe different things.
But every friend of yours feels perfectly sure that Rowan was
unworthy of you, and that you did right in discarding him. It is
safe to say that he has few friends left among yours. He seldom
comes to town, and I hear that he works on the farm like a common
hand as he should. One day not long after you left I met him on
the street. He was coming straight up to speak to me as usual.
But I had the pleasure of staring him in the eyes and of walking
deliberately past him as though he were a stranger--except that I
gave him one explaining look. I shall never speak to him.
"His mother has the greatest sympathy of every one. They say that
no one has told her the truth: how could any one tell her such
things about her own son? Of course she must know that you dropped
him and that we have all dropped him. They say that she is greatly
saddened and that her health seems to be giving way.
"I do not know whether you have heard the other sensation regarding
the Meredith family. You refused Rowan; and now Dent is going to
marry a common girl in the neighborhood. Of course Dent Meredith
was always noted for being a quiet little bookworm, near-sighted,
and without any knowledge of girls. So it doesn't seem very
unnatural for him to have collected the first specimen that he came
across as he walked about over the country.
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