Page:Hegan Rice--Mrs Wiggs of the cabbage patch.djvu/46

  "Well, let's hear it, anyway. What was it?"

"Some people were here last night from New Orleans; they asked if I knew you—said they knew you and Dick the year you spent there."

"Well?" said Redding.

Lucy evidently found it difficult to continue. "They said some horrid things then, just because you were Dick's friend."

"What were they, Lucy?"

"They told me that you were both as wild as could be; that your reputation was no better than his; that—forgive me, Robert, for even repeating it. It made me very angry, and I told them it was not true—not a word of it; that it was all Dick's fault; that he—"

"Lucy," interrupted Redding, peremptorily, "wait until you hear me! I have never lied to you about anything,