Dic stopped for dinner at the inn with Billy Little, and told him that Mrs. Bays refused her consent.

"Did you expect anything else?" asked Billy.

"Yes, I did," answered Dic.

"Even Rita will be valued more highly if you encounter difficulties in getting her," replied his friend.

"I certainly value her highly enough as it is," said Dic, "and Mrs. Bays's opposition surprises me a little. I know quite as well as she—better, perhaps—that I am not worthy of Rita. No man is. But I am not lazy. I would be willing to die working for her. I am not very good; neither am I very bad. She will make me good, and I don't see that any one else around here has anything better to offer her. The truth is, Rita deserves a rich man from the city, who can give her a fine house, servants, and carriages. It is a shame, Billy Little, to hide such beauty as Rita's under a log-cabin's roof in the woods."

"I quite agree with you," was Billy's unexpected reply. "But I don't see any chance for her catching that sort of a man unless her father goes in business with Fisher at Indianapolis. Even there the field is not broad. She might, if she lived at Indianapolis, meet a stranger from Cincinnati, St. Louis, or the East, and might marry the house, carriages, and servants. I understand Bays—perhaps I should say Mrs. Bays—contemplates making the move, and probably you had better withdraw your claim and give the girl a chance."

Dic looked doubtingly at his little friend and said, "I think I shall not withdraw."

"I have not been expecting you would," answered Billy. "But what are you going to do about the Chief Justice?"

"I don't know. What would you do?"

Billy Little paused before answering. "If you knew what mistakes I have made in such matters, you would not ask advice of me."

Dic waited, hoping that Billy would amplify upon the subject of his mistakes, but he waited in vain. "Nevertheless," he said, "I want your advice."

"I have none to give," responded Billy, "unless it is to suggest in a general way that in dealing with women boldness has always been considered the proper article. Humility is sweet in a beautiful woman, but it makes a man appear sheepish. The first step toward success with all classes of persons is to gain their respect. Humility in a man won't gain the respect of a hound pup. Face the world bravely. Egad! St. George's little affair with the fiery dragon grows pale when one thinks of the icy dragoness of duty and justice you must overthrow before you can rescue Rita. But go at the old woman as if you had fought dragons all your life. Tell her bluntly that you want Rita; that you must and will have her, and that it is not in the power of duty and justice to keep her from you. Be bold, and you will probably get the girl, together with her admiration and gratitude. I guess there is no doubt they like it—boldness. But Lord bless your soul, Dic, I don't know what they like. I think the best thing you can do is to go to New York with Sampson, the horse-dealer. He sails out of here in a few days, and if you will go with him he will pay you five hundred dollars and will allow you to take a few horses on your own account. You will double your money if you take good horses."

"Do you really think he would pay me five hundred dollars?" asked Dic.

"Yes, I believe he will. I'll see him about it."

"I believe I'll go," said Dic. "That is, I'll go if—"

"If Rita will let you, I suppose you are going to say," remarked Billy. "We'll name the new firm of horse-buyers Sampson and Sampson; for if you are not mindful this gentle young Delilah will shear you."

"I promised her I would not go. I cannot break my word. If she will release me, I will go, and will thank you with all my heart. Billy Little, you have done so much for me that I must—I must—"

"There you go. 'Deed if I don't leave you if you keep it up. You have four or five good horses, and I'll loan you five hundred dollars with which you may buy a dozen or fifteen more. You may take twenty head of horses on your own account, and should make by the trip fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars, including your wages. Why, Dic, you will be rich. Unless I am mistaken, wealth is greater even than boldness with icy dragonesses."

"Not with Rita."

"You don't need help of any sort with her," said Billy. "Poor girl, she is winged for all time. You may be bold or humble, rich or poor; it will be all one to her. But you want to get her without a fight. You don't know what a fight with a woman like the Chief Justice means. Carnage and destruction to beat Napoleon. I believe if you had two thousand dollars in gold, there would be no fight. Good sinews of war are great peace-makers."

"I know Rita will release me if I insist," said Dic.

"I'm sure she will," responded his friend.

"I will go," cried Dic, heroically determined to break the tender shackles of Rita's welding.

"Now you are a man again," said Billy. "You may cause her to cry a bit, but she'll like you none the less for that. If tears caused women to hate men, there would be a sudden stoppage in population." Billy sat contemplative for a moment with his finger tips together. "Men are brutes"—another pause—"but they salt the earth while women sweeten it. Personally, I would rather sweeten the earth than salt it; but a sweet man is like a pokeberry—sugarish, nauseating and unhealthful. My love for sweetness has made me a failure."

"You are not a failure, Billy Little. You are certainly of the salt of the earth," insisted Dic.

"A man fails when he does not utilize his capabilities to their limit," said Billy, philosophically. "He is a success when he accomplishes all he can. The measure of the individual is the measure of what should constitute his success. His capabilities may be small or great; if he but use them all, he is a success. A fishing worm may be a great success as a fishing worm, but a total failure as a mule. Bless me, what a sermon I have preached about nothing. I fear I am growing garrulous," and Billy looked into the fire and hummed Maxwelton's braes.

That evening Dic went to call on Rita and made no pretence of wishing to see Tom. That worthy young man had served his purpose, and could never again be a factor in Dic's life or courtship. Mrs. Bays received Dic coldly; but Mr. Bays, in a half-timid manner, was very cordial. Dic paid no heed to the coldness, and, after talking on the porch with the family for a few minutes, boldly asked Rita to walk across the yard to the log by the river. Rita gave her mother a frightened glance and hurried away with Dic before Justice could assert itself, and the happy pair sought the beloved sycamore divan by the river bank.

"In the midst of all my happiness," began Rita, "I'm very unhappy because I, in place of Patsy Clark, did not liberate you. I always intended to tell the truth. You must have known that I would."

"I never even hoped that you would not. I knew that when the time should come you would not obey me," returned Dic.

"In all else, Dic, in all else." There was the sweet, all-conquering humility of which Billy had spoken.

"In all else, Rita? Do you mean what you say?"

"Yes."

"I will put you to the test at once. For your sake and my own I should go with Sampson to New York, and I want you to release me from my promise. I would not ask you did I not feel that it is an opportunity such as I may never have again. It is now July; I shall be back by the middle of November, and then, Rita, you will go home with me, won't you?" For answer the girl gently put her hand in his. "And you will release me from my promise?"

She nodded her head, and after a short silence added: "I fear I have no will of my own. I borrow all from you. I cannot say 'no' when you wish 'yes'; I cannot say 'yes' when you wish 'no.' I fear you will despise me, I am so cheap; but I am as I am, and it is your fault that I have so many faults. You have made me what I am. Will it not be wonderful, Dic, if I, who clung to your finger in my babyhood, should be led by your hand from my cradle to—to my grave? I have never in all my life, Dic, known any real help but yours—and some from Billy Little. So you see my dependence upon you is excusable, and you cannot think less of me because I am so weak." She looked up to him with a tearful smile in which the past and the future contributed each its touch of sadness.

"Rita, come to the house this instant!" called Mrs. Bays (to Dic her voice sounded like a broken string in Billy Little's piano).

Dic and Rita went to the house, and Mrs. Bays, pointing majestically to a chair, said to her daughter:—

"Now, you sit there, and if you move, off to bed you go." The threat was all-sufficient.

Dic sat upon the edge of the porch thinking of St. George and the dragon, and tried to work his courage up to the point of attack. He talked ramblingly for a while to Mr. Bays; then, believing his courage in proper form, he turned to that gentleman's better nine-tenths and boldly began:—

"I want Rita, Mrs. Bays. I know I am not worthy of her" (here the girl under discussion flashed a luminous glance of flat contradiction at the speaker), "and I know I am asking a great deal, but—but—" But the boldness had evaporated along with the remainder of what he had to say, for with Dic's first words Justice dropped her knitting to her lap, took off her glasses, and gazed at the unfortunate malefactor with an injured, fixed, and icy stare. Dic retired in disorder; but he soon rallied his forces and again took up the battle.

"I'm going to New York in a few days," he said. "I will not be home till November. I have Rita's promise. I can, if I must, be satisfied with that; but I should like your consent before I go." Brave words, those, to the dragoness of Justice. But she did not even look at the presumptuous St. George. She was, as Justice should be, blind. Likewise she appeared to be deaf.

"May I have your consent, Mr. Bays?" asked Dic, after a long pause, turning to Rita's father.

"Yes," he replied, "yes, Dic, I will be glad—" Justice at the moment recovered sight and hearing, and gazed stonily at its mate. The mate, after a brief pause, continued in a different tone:—

"That is, I don't care. You and mother fix it between you. I don't know anything about such matters." Mr. Bays leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and examined his feet as if he had just discovered them. After a close scrutiny he continued:—

"Rita's the best girl that ever lived. I don't care where you look, there's not another like her in all the world. She has never caused me a moment of pain—" Rita moved her chair to her father's side and took his hand—"she has brought me nothing but happiness, and I would—" He ceased speaking, and no one has ever known what Mr. Bays "would," for at that interesting point in his remarks his worthy spouse interrupted him—

"Nothing brings you pain. You shirk it and throw it all on me. Lord knows the girl has brought trouble enough to me. I have toiled and worked and suffered for her. I bear the burdens of this house, and if my daughter is better than other girls,—I don't say she is, and I don't say she isn't,—but if she is better than other girls, I say it is because I have done my duty by her."

Truth compels me to admit that she had done her duty toward the girl with a strenuous sincerity that often amounted to cruelty, but in the main she had done her best for Rita.

Dic had unintentionally turned the tide of battle on Mr. Bays, and that worthy sufferer, long used to the anguish of defeat, and dead to the shame of cowardice, rose from his chair and beat a hasty retreat to his old-time sanctuary, the barn. Dic did not retreat; single-handed and alone, he took lance in hand and renewed the attack with adroit thrusts of flattery and coaxing. After many bouts a compromise was reached and an armistice declared between the belligerent powers until Dic should return from New York. This armistice was virtually a surrender of the Bays forces, so that evening when Dic started home Rita accompanied him to the gate beneath the dark shadow of a drooping elm, and the gate's the place for "a' that and a' that."

Next morning bright and early Dic went to town to see Sampson, the horse-dealer. He found him sitting on the inn porch.

"Well, you're going to take the horses for me, after all?" asked that worthy descendant of one of the tribes.

"Billy Little said you would give me five hundred dollars. That is a very large sum. You first offered me only one hundred."

"Yes," returned Sampson; "I had a talk with Little. Horses are in great demand in New York, and I want an intelligent man who can hurry the drove through to Harrisburg, where I'll meet them. If we get them to New York in advance of the other dealers, we should make a profit of one hundred dollars a head on every good horse. You will have two other men with you, but I will put you in charge. Don't speak of the five hundred dollars you're to have; the others are to receive only fifty dollars each."

The truth is, Billy had contributed four hundred dollars of the sum Dic was to receive, and four hundred dollars was one-tenth of all Billy's worldly goods.

Dic completed his arrangements with Sampson, which included the privilege of taking twenty horses on his own account, and then, as usual, went to see Billy Little.

"Well, Billy Little," said Dic, joyfully, "I'm going. I've closed with Sampson. He gives me five hundred dollars, and allows me to take twenty horses of my own. I ought to get fine young horses at twenty-five dollars a head."

"Sure," answered Billy, "that would amount to—how many have you of your own?"

"Four," answered Dic.

"Then you'll want to buy sixteen—four hundred dollars. Here is the money," and he handed him a canvas shot-bag containing the gold.

"Now, Billy Little," said Dic, "I want to give you my note for this money, bearing the highest rate of interest."

"All right," responded our backwoods usurer, "I'll charge you twelve per cent. I do love a good interest. There is no Antonio about me. I'll lend no money gratis and bring down the rate of usance. Not I."

The note signed, Dic looked upon himself as an important factor in the commercial world, and felt his obligation less because of the high rate of interest he was paying.

The young man at once began looking for horses, and within three days had purchased sixteen "beauties," as Billy Little called them, which, with his own, made up the number he was to take. His adventurous New York trip raised him greatly in the estimation of Mrs. Bays. It brought her to realize that he was a man, and it won, in a degree, her reluctant respect. The ride over the mountains through rain and mud and countless dangers was an adventure worthy to inspire respect. The return would be easier than the eastward journey. Dic would return from New York to Pittsburg by canal boat and stage. From Pittsburg, if the river should be open, he would go to Madison by the Ohio boats. From Madison he would come north to Columbus on the mail stage, and at Columbus he would be within twenty-five miles of home.

As I have told you, Mrs. Bays grew to respect Dic; and being willing to surrender, save for the shame of defeat, she honestly kept the terms of her armistice. Thus Rita and Dic enjoyed the sycamore divan by the river's edge without interference.

On the night before his departure he gave Rita the ring, saying, "This time it is for keeps."

"I hope so," returned the girl, with a touch of doubt in her hesitating words.

He spoke buoyantly of his trip and of the great things that were sure to come out of it, and again Rita softly hoped so; but intimated in a gentle, complaining tone of voice that something told her trouble would come from the expedition. She felt that she was being treated badly, though, being such a weak, selfish, unworthy person,—so she had been taught by her mother to believe,—she deserved nothing better. Dic laughed at her fears, and told her she was the one altogether perfect human being. Although by insistence he brought her to admit that he was right in both propositions, he failed to convince her in either, and she spoke little, save in eloquent sighs, during the remainder of the evening.

After the eventful night of Scott's social, Rita's surrender of self had grown in its sweetness hour by hour; and although Dic's love had also deepened, as his confidence grew apace he assumed an air of patronage toward the girl which she noticed, but which she considered quite the proper thing in all respects.

There was no abatement of his affection this last evening together, but she was sorry to see him so joyful at leaving her. Their situation was simply a repetition of the world-wide condition: the man with many motives and ambitions, the woman with one—love.

After Dic had, for the twentieth time, said he must be going, the girl whispered:—

"I fear you will carry away with you the memory of a dull evening, but I could not talk, I could not. Oh, Dic—" Thereupon she began to weep, and Dic, though pained, found a certain selfish joy in comforting her, compared to which the conversation of Madame de Stael herself would have been poor and commonplace. Then came the gate, a sweet face wet with tears, and good-by and good-by and good-by.

Dic went home joyful. Rita went to her room weeping. It pained him to leave her, but it grieved her far more deeply, and she began then to pay the penalty of her great crime in being a woman.

Do not from the foregoing remark conclude that Dic was selfish in his lack of pain at parting from Rita. He also lacked her fears. Did the fear exist in her and not in him because her love was greater or because she was more timid? Had her abject surrender made him over-confident? When a woman gives as Rita did she should know her man, else she is in danger. If he happens to be a great, noble soul, she makes her heaven and his then and there. If he is a selfish brute, she will find another place of which we all stand in wholesome dread.



A CHRISTMAS HEARTH LOG

CHAPTER VIII

A CHRISTMAS HEARTH LOG

On the morning of Dic's departure, Billy Little advised him to invest the proceeds of his expedition in goods at New York, and to ship them to Madison.

"You see," said Billy, "you will make your profit going and coming, and you will have a nice lump of gold when you return. Gold means Rita, and Rita means happiness and ploughing."

"Not ploughing, Billy Little," interrupted Dic.

"We'll see what we will see," replied Billy. "Here is a list of goods I advise you to buy, and the name of a man who will sell them to you at proper prices. You can trust him. He wouldn't cheat even a friend. Good-by, Dic. Write to me. Of course you will write to Rita?"

"Indeed I shall," replied Dic in a tone expressive of the fact that he was a fine, true fellow, and would perform that pleasant duty with satisfaction to himself and great happiness to the girl. You see, Dic's great New York journey had caused him to feel his importance a bit.

"I wish you would go up to see her very often," continued our confident young friend; "if I do say it myself, she will miss me greatly. When I return, she shall go home with me. Mrs. Bays has almost given her consent. You will go often, won't you, Billy Little? Next to me, I believe she loves you best of all the world."

Billy watched Dic ride eastward on the Michigan road, and muttered to himself:—

"'Next to me'; there is no next, you young fool." Then he went in to his piano and caressed the keys till they yielded their ineffable sweetness in the half-sad tones of Handel's "Messiah"; afterward, to lift his spirits, they gave him a glittering sonata from Mozart. But it is better to feel than to think. It is sweeter to weep than to laugh. So when he was tired of the classics, he played over and over again, in weird, minor, improvised variations, his love of loves, "Annie Laurie," and tears came to his eyes because he was both happy and sad. The keys seemed to whisper to him, so gently did he touch them, and their tones fell, not upon his ears, but upon his heart, with a soothing pathos like the sough of an old song or a sweet, forgotten odor of a day that is past.

Billy did his best to console Rita, though it was a hopeless task and full of peril for him. There was but one topic of interest to her. Rome and Greece were dull. What cared she about the Romans? Dic was not a Roman. Conversation upon books wearied her, and subjects that a few months ago held her rapt attention, now threw her into revery. I am sorry to say she was a silly, love-lorn young woman, and not in the least entitled to the respect of strong-minded persons. I would not advise you, my dear young girl, to assume Rita's faults; but if you should do so, many a good, though misguided man will mistake them for virtues and will fall at your feet. You will not deceive your sisters; but you won't care much for their opinion.

* * * * *

Soon after Dic's departure, Jim Fisher, Mrs. Bays's brother, renewed his offer to take Mr. Bays as a partner in the Indianapolis store. The offer was a good one and was honestly made. Fisher needed more capital, and to that extent his motive was selfish; but the business was prosperous, and he could easily have found a partner.

One Saturday evening he came up to talk over the matter with his brother-in-law. He took with him to Blue no less a person than Roger Williams—not the original, redoubtable Roger who discovered Rhode Island, but a descendant of his family. Williams was a man of twenty-five. Boston was his home, and he was the son of a father Williams who manufactured ploughs, spades, wagons, and other agricultural implements. The young man was his father's western representative, and Fisher sold his goods in the Indianapolis district. He dressed well and was affable with his homespun friends. In truth, he was a gentleman. He made himself at home in the cabin; but he had brains enough to respect and not to patronize the good people who dwelt therein.

Of course it will be useless for me to pretend that this young fellow did not fall in love with Rita. If I had been responsible for his going to Blue, you would be justified in saying that I brought him there for the purpose of furnishing a rival to Dic; but I had nothing to do with his going or loving, and take this opportunity to proclaim my innocence of all such responsibility. He came, he stayed till Tuesday, and was conquered. He came again two weeks later, and again, and still again. He saw, but did he conquer? That is the great question this history is to answer. Meantime Dic was leading a drove of untamed horses all day long, and was sleeping sometimes at a wretched inn, sometimes in the pitiless storm, and sometimes he was chasing stampeded horses for forty-eight hours at a stretch without sleeping or eating. But when awake he thought of Rita, and when he slept he dreamed of her, though in his dreams there was no handsome city man, possessed of a fine house, servants, and carriages, sitting by her side. Had that fact been revealed to him in a dream, the horses might have stampeded to Jericho for all he would have cared, and he would have stampeded home to look after more important interests.

But to return to Fisher's visits. After supper, Saturday evening, the question of the new store came up.

Fisher said: "If you can raise three thousand dollars, Tom, you may have a half-interest in the business. I have three thousand dollars now invested, and have credit for an additional three thousand with Mr. Williams. If we had six thousand dollars, we may have credit for six thousand more, twelve thousand in all, and we can easily turn our stock twice a year. Tom, it's the chance of your life. Don't you think it is, Margarita?"

"It looks that way, Jim," said Mrs. Bays; "but we haven't the three thousand dollars, and we must think it over carefully and prayerfully."

"Can't you sell the farm or mortgage it?" suggested Fisher. Tom, Jr., gazed intently into the tree-tops, and, in so doing, led the others to ask what he was seeking. There was nothing unusual to be seen among the trees, and Mrs. Bays inquired:—

"What on earth are you looking for, Tom?"

"I was looking to see if there was anybody roosting up there, waiting to buy this half-cleared old stump field."

"Tom's right," said his father. "I fear a purchaser will be hard to find, and I don't know any one who would loan me three thousand dollars. If we can find the money, we'll try it. What do you say, Margarita?" Mrs. Bays was still inclined to be careful and prayerful.

Since Rita had expressed to Billy Little her desire to remove to Indianapolis (on the day she bought the writing paper, which, by the way, she had never paid for) so vast a change had taken place within herself that she had changed her way of seeing nearly everything outside. Especially had she changed the point of view from which she saw the Indianapolis project, and she was now quite content to grow up "a ragweed or a mullein stalk," if she could grow in Dic's fields, and be cared for by his hand. I believe that when a woman loves a strong man and contemplates marriage with him, as she is apt to do, a comforting sense of his protecting care is no small part of her emotions. She may not consider the matter of her daily bread and raiment, but she feels that in the harbor of his love she will be safe from the manifold storms and harms that would otherwise beset her.

Owing to Rita's great change the conversation on the porch was fraught with a terrible interest. While the others talked, she, as in duty bound,—girls were to be seen and not heard in those days,—remained silent. Fortunately the fact that she was a girl did not preclude thinking. That she did plenteously, and all lines of thought led to the same question, "How will it affect Dic?" She could come to no conclusion. Many times she longed to speak, but dared not; so she shut her lips and her mind and determined to postpone discussing the question with herself till she should be in bed where she could think quietly. Meanwhile Williams seated himself beside her on the edge of the porch and rejoiced over this beautiful rose he had found in the wilderness. She being a simple country flower, he hoped to enjoy her fragrance for a time without much trouble in the plucking, and it looked as though his task would be an easy one. At first the girl was somewhat frightened at his grandeur; but his easy, chatty conversation soon dispelled her shyness, and she found him entertaining. He at first sight was charmed by her beauty. He quickly discovered that her nose, chin, lips, forehead, and complexion were faultless, and as for those wonderful eyes, he could hardly draw his own away from them, even for a moment. But after he had talked with her he was still more surprised to find her not only bright, but educated, in a rambling way, to a degree little expected in a frontier girl.

Williams was a Harvard man, and when he discovered that the girl by his side could talk on subjects other than bucolic, and that she could furthermore listen to him intelligently, he branched into literature, art, travel, and kindred topics. She enjoyed hearing him talk, and delighted him now and then with an apt reply. So much did her voice charm him that he soon preferred it even to his own, and he found himself concluding that this was not a wild forest rose at all, but a beautiful domestic flower, worthy of care in the plucking. They had several little tilts in the best of humor that confirmed Williams in the growing opinion that the girl's beauty and strength were not all physical. He talked much about Boston and its culture, and spoke patronizingly of that unfortunate portion of the world's people who did not enjoy the advantage of living within the sacred walls. Although Rita knew that his boast was not all vain, and that his city deserved its reputation, she laughed softly and said in apparent seriousness:—

"It is almost an education even to meet a person from Boston."

Williams looked up in surprise. He had not suspected that sarcasm could lurk behind those wonderful eyes, but he was undeceived by her remark, and answered laughingly:—

"That is true, Miss Bays."

"Boston has much to be proud of," continued the girl, surprised and somewhat frightened at the rate she was bowling along. She had never before talked so freely to any one but Billy Little and Dic. "Yes, all good comes out of Boston. I've been told that if you hear her church bells toll, your soul is saved. There is a saving grace in their very tones. It came over in the Mayflower, as you might transport yeast. If you walk through Harvard, you will be wise; if you stand on Bunker Hill, treason flees your soul forever; and if you once gaze upon the Common, you are safe from the heresy of the Quaker and the sin of witchcraft."

"I fear you are making a jest of Boston, Miss Bays," replied Williams, who shared the sensitiveness peculiar to his people.

"No," she replied, "I jest only at your boasting. Your city is all you claim for it; but great virtue needs no herald."

Williams remained silent for a moment, and then said, "Have you ever been in Boston?"

"I? Indeed, no," she answered laughingly. "I've never been any place but to church and once to a Fourth of July picnic. I was once at a church social, but it brought me into great trouble and I shall never go to another." Williams was amused and again remained, for a time, in silent meditation. She did not interrupt him, and at length he spoke stammeringly:—

"Pardon me—where did you learn—how comes it—I am speaking abruptly, but one would suppose you had travelled and enjoyed many advantages that you certainly could not have here."

"You greatly overestimate me, Mr. Williams. I have only a poor smattering of knowledge which I absorbed from two friends who are really educated men,—Mr. Little and Dic—Mr. Bright!"

"Are they old—elderly men?" asked Williams.

"One is," responded Rita.

"Which one?" he asked.

"Mr. Little."

"And the other—Mr. Bright—is he young?" asked the inquisitive Bostonian. There was no need for Rita to answer in words. The color in her cheeks and the radiance of her eyes told plainly enough that Mr. Bright was young. But she replied with a poor assumption of indifference:—

"I think he is nearly five years older than I." There was another betrayal of an interesting fact. She measured his age by hers.

"And that would make him—?" queried Williams.

"Twenty-two—nearly."

"Are you but seventeen?" he asked. Rita nodded her head and answered:—

"Shamefully young, isn't it? I used to be sensitive about my extreme youth and am still a little so, but—but it can't be helped." Williams laughed, and thought he had never met so charming a girl.

"Yes," he answered, "it is more or less a disgrace to be so young, but it is a fault easily overlooked." He paused for a moment while he inspected the heavens, and continued, still studying astronomy: "I mean it is not easily overlooked in some cases. Sometimes it is 'a monster of such awful mien' that one wishes to jump clear over the enduring and the pitying, and longs to embrace."

"We often see beautiful sunsets from this porch," answered Rita, "and I believe one is forming now." There was not a society lady in Boston who could have handled the situation more skilfully; and Williams learned that if he would flatter this young girl of the wilderness, he must first serve his probation. She did not desire his flattery, and gave him to understand as much at the outset. She found him interesting and admired him. He was the first man of his type she had ever met. In the matter of education he was probably not far in advance of Dic, and certainly was very far arrear of Billy Little. But he had a certain polish which comes only from city life. Billy had that polish, but it was of the last generation, was very English, and had been somewhat dimmed by friction with the unpolished surfaces about him. Dic's polish was that of a rare natural wood.

As a result of these conditions, Rita and Williams walked up the river on the following afternoon—Sunday. More by accident than design they halted at the step-off and rested upon the same rocky knoll where she and Dic were sitting when Doug Hill hailed them from the opposite bank of the river. The scene was crowded with memories, and the girl's heart was soon filled with Dic, while her thoughts were busy with the events of that terrible day. Nothing that Williams might say could interest her, and while he talked she listened but did not hear, for her mind was far away, and she longed to be alone.

One would suppose that the memory of the day she shot Doug Hill would have been filled with horror for her, but it was not. This gentle girl, who would not willingly have killed a worm, and to whom the sight of suffering brought excruciating pain, had not experienced a pang of regret because of the part she had been called upon to play in the tragedy of the step-off. When Doug was lying between life and death, she hoped he would recover; but no small part of her interest in the result was because of its effect upon Dic and herself. Billy Little had once expressed surprise at this callousness, but she replied with a touch of warmth:—

"I did right, Billy Little. Even mother admits that. I saved Dic's life and my own honor. I would do it again. I am sorry I had it to do, but I am glad, oh so glad, that I had strength to do it. God helped me, or I could never have fired the shot. You may laugh, Billy Little—I know your philosophy leads you to believe that God never does things of that sort—but I know better. You know a great deal more than I about everything else, but in this instance I am wiser than you. I know God gave me strength at the moment when I most needed it. That moment taught me a lesson that some persons never learn. It taught me that God will always give me strength at the last moment of my need, if I ask it of Him, as I asked that day."

"He gave it to you when you were born, Rita," said Billy.

"No," she replied, "I am weak as a kitten, and always shall be, unless I get my strength from Him."

"Well," said Billy, meaning no irreverence, "if He would not give to you, He would not give to any one."

"Ah, Billy Little," said the girl, pleased by the compliment—you see her pleasure in a compliment depended on the maker of it—"you think every one admires me as much as you do." Billy knew that was impossible, but for obvious reasons did not explain the true situation.

Other small matters served to neutralize the horror Rita might otherwise have felt. The affair at the step-off had been freely talked about by her friends in her presence, and the thought of it had soon become familiar to her; but the best cure was her meeting with Doug Hill a fortnight after the trial. It occurred on the square in the town of Blue River. She saw Doug coming toward her, and was so shaken by emotions that she feared she could not stand, but she recovered herself when he said in his bluff manner:—

"Rita, I don't want to have no more fights with you. You're too quick on trigger for Doug. But I want to tell you I don't hold no grudge agin' you. You did jes' right. You orter a-killed me, but I'm mighty glad you didn't. That shot of your'n was the best sermon I ever had preached to me. I hain't tasted a drap of liquor since that day, and I never will. I'm goin' to start to Illinoy to-morrow, and I'm goin' to get married and be a man. Better marry me, Rita, and go along."

"I'm sure you will be a man, Doug," responded Rita. "I don't believe I want to get married, but—but will you shake hands with me?"

"Bet I will, Rita. Mighty glad to. You've the best pluck of any girl on yarth, with all you're so mild and kitten-like, and the purtiest girl, too—yes, by gee, the purtiest girl in all the world. Everybody says so, Rita." Rita blushed, and began to move away from his honest flattery, so Doug said:—

"Well, good-by. Tell Dic good-by, and tell him I don't hold no grudge agin' him neither. Hope he don't agin' me. He ortent to. He's got lots the best of it—he won the fight and got you. Gee, I'd 'a' been glad to lose the fight if I could 'a' got you."

Thus it happened that these two, who had last met with death between them, parted as friends. Doug started for Illinois next day; and now he drops out of this history.

I have spoken thus concerning Rita's feeling about the shooting of Doug Hill to show you how easy it was for her, while sitting beside Williams that placid Sunday afternoon, to break in upon his interesting conversation with the irrelevant remark:—

"I once shot a man near this spot."

For a moment or two one might have supposed she had just shot Williams. He sprang to his feet as if he intended to run from her, but at once resumed his place, saying:—

"Miss Bays, your humor always surprises me. It takes me unawares. Of course you are jesting."

"Indeed, I am not. I have told you the truth. You will hear it sooner or later if you remain on Blue. It is the one great piece of neighborhood history since the Indians left. It is nothing to boast of. I simply state it as a fact,—a lamentable fact, I suppose I should say. But I don't feel that way about it at all."

"Did you kill him?" asked the astonished Bostonian.

"No, I'm glad to say he lived; but that was not my fault. I tried to kill him. He now lives in Illinois."

Williams looked at her doubtingly, and still feared she was hoaxing him. He could not bring himself to believe there dwelt within the breast of the gentle girl beside him a spirit that would give her strength to do such a deed under any conditions. Never had he met a woman in whom the adorable feminine weaknesses were more pronounced. She was a coward. He had seen her run, screaming in genuine fright, from a ground squirrel. She was meek and unresisting, to the point of weakness. He had seen her endure unprovoked anger and undeserved rebuke from her mother, and intolerable slights from Tom, that would surely have aroused retaliation had there been a spark of combativeness in her gentle heart. That she was tender and loving could be seen in every glance of her eyes, in every feature of her face, in every tone of her soft, musical voice. Surely, thought Williams, the girl could not kill a mouse. Where, then, would she find strength to kill a man? But she told him, in meagre outline, her story, and he learned that a great, self-controlled, modest strength nestled side by side with ineffable gentleness in the heart of this young girl; and that was the moment of Roger Williams's undoing, and the beginning of Rita's woe. Prior to that moment he had believed himself her superior; but, much to his surprise, he found that Roger occupied second place in his own esteem, while a simple country girl, who had never been anywhere but to church, a Fourth of July picnic, and one church social, with his full consent quietly occupied first. This girl, he discovered, was a living example of what unassisted nature can do when she tries. All this change in Williams had been wrought in an instant when he learned that the girl had shot a man. She was the only woman of his acquaintance who could boast that distinction.

What was the mental or moral process that had led him to his conclusions? We all know there is a fascination about those who have lived through a moment of terrible ordeal and have been equal to its demands. But do we know by what process their force operates upon us? We are fascinated by a noted duellist who has killed his score of men. We are drawn by a certain charm that lurks in his iron nerve and gleams from his cold eyes. The toreador has his way with the Spanish dons and senoritas alike. The high-rope dancer and the trapeze girl attract us by a subtle spell. Is it an unlabelled force in nature? I can but ask the question. I do not pretend to answer.

Whatever the force may be, Rita possessed it; and, linked with her gentleness and beauty, its charm was irresistible.

Here, at last, was the rich man from the city who could give Rita the fine mansion, carriages, and servants she deserved. Now that these great benefactions were at her feet, would Dic be as generous as when he told Billy Little that Rita was not for him, but for one who could give her these? Would he unselfishly forego his claim to make her great, and perhaps happy? Great love in a great heart has often done as much, permitting the world to know nothing of the sacrifice. I have known a case where even the supposed beneficiary was in ignorance of the real motive. Perhaps Billy Little could have given us light upon a similar question, and perhaps the beneficiary did not benefit by the mistaken generosity, save in the poor matter of gold and worldly eminence; and perhaps it brought years of dull heartache to both beneficiary and benefactor, together with hours of longing and conscience-born shame upon two sinless hearts.

After Rita had told her story, Roger's chatty style of conversation suddenly ceased. He made greater efforts to please than before, but the effort seemed to impair his power of pleasing. Rita, longing to be alone, had resolved many times to return to the house, but before acting upon that resolve she heard a voice calling, "Rita!" and a moment afterward a pair of bright blue eyes, a dimpled rosy face, and a plump little form constructed upon the partridge model came in sight and suddenly halted.

"Oh, excuse me," said our little wood-nymph friend, Sukey Yates. "I did not know I was intruding. Your mother said you had come in this direction, and I followed."

"You are not intruding," replied Rita. "Come and sit by me. Mr. Williams, Miss Yates."

Miss Yates bowed and blushed, stammered a word or two, and sat by Rita on the rocky bench. She was silent and shy for a moment, but Williams easily loosened her tongue and she went off like a magpie. Billy used to say that Sukey was the modern incarnation of the ancient and immortal "Chatterbox."

After Sukey's arrival, Rita could be alone, and an hour passed before she returned to the house.

That evening Billy Little took supper with Mrs. Bays, and Rita, considering Williams her father's guest, spent most of the evening on the sycamore log with the bachelor heart.

"Dic gave me the ring again," she said, holding out her hand for inspection. Billy took the hand and held it while he said:—

"It's pretty there—pretty, pretty."

"Yes," she responded, looking at the back of her hand, "it's very pretty. It was good of you—but you need not be frightened; I'm not going to thank you. Where do you suppose he is at this moment?"

"I don't know," answered Billy. "I suppose he's between Pittsburg and New York."

"I had a letter from him at Pittsburg two weeks ago," said Rita; "but I have heard nothing since. His work must be very hard. He has no time to think of me."

"He probably finds a moment now and then for that purpose," laughed Billy.

"Oh, I don't mean that he doesn't think of me! Of course he does that all the time. I mean that he must have little time for writing."

"You must feel very sure of him when you say he thinks of you all the time. How often have you thought of him since he left?" asked Billy.

"Once," replied the girl, smiling and blushing.

"Do you mean all the time?" queried Billy.

She nodded her head. "Yes, all the time. Oh, Billy Little, you won't mind if I tell you about it, will you? I must speak—and there is no one else."

"What is it you want to say, Rita?" he asked softly.

"I hardly know—perhaps it is the great change that has taken place within me since the night of Scott's social and the afternoon I shot Doug Hill. I seem to be hundreds of years older. I must have been a child before that night."

"You are a child now, Rita."

"Oh, no," she replied, "trouble matures one."

"But you are not in trouble?"

"N-o—" she answered hesitatingly, "but—but this is what I want to say. Tell me, Billy Little, do you think anything can come between Dic and me? That is the thought that haunts me all the time and makes me unhappy."

"Do you feel sure of Dic?" asked Billy.

"Indeed, I do," she replied; "I am as sure of him as I am of myself."

"How about that fellow in there?" asked Billy, pointing toward the house with his thumb.

"How? In what way?" inquired the girl.

"Don't you find him interesting?" asked Billy.

For reply she laughed softly. The question was not worth answering. The bachelor heart had felt a strong twinge of jealousy on Williams's account, because it knew that with wealth, an attractive person, and full knowledge of the world, Williams would, in the long run, prove a dangerous rival to any man who was not upon the field. The fact that Rita dismissed him with a laugh did not entirely reassure the bachelor heart. It told only what was already known, that she loved Dic with all the intensity of her nature. But Billy also knew that many a girl with such a love in her heart for one man had married another. Rita, he feared, could not stand against the domineering will of her mother; and, should Williams ply his suit, Billy felt sure he would have a stubborn, potent ally in the hard Chief Justice. There was, of course, an "if," but it might easily be turned into a terrible "is"—terrible for Billy, Dic, and Rita. Billy had grown used to the thought that Rita would some day become Dic's wife, and after the first spasm of pain the thought had brought joy; but any other man than Dic was a different proposition, and Billy's jealousy was easily and painfully aroused. He endured a species of vicarious suffering while Dic was not present to suffer for himself. Soon he began to long for Dic's return that he might do his own suffering.

Billy's question concerning Williams had crystallized Rita's feeling that the "fellow in there" was "making up" to her, and when she returned to the house that evening, she had few words for Roger.

Monday Rita was unusually industrious during the day, but the evening seemed long. She was not uncivil to her father's guest, but she did not sit by him on the edge of the porch as she had done upon the first evening of his visit. He frequently came to her side, but she as frequently made an adroit excuse to leave him. She did not dislike him, but she had found him growing too attentive. This girl was honest from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and longed to let Williams understand that she was the property of another man to whom she would be true in the spirit and in the letter.

Tuesday morning the guests departed. Mrs. Bays urgently invited Williams to return, and he, despite Rita's silence, assured his hostess that he would accept her invitation. The Indianapolis project had been agreed upon, provided Bays could raise the money. If that could be done, the new firm would begin operations January first. That afternoon Rita went to the step-off and looked the Indianapolis situation in the face. It stared back at her without blinking, and she could evolve no plans to evade it. Dic would return in November—centuries off—and she felt sure he would bring help. Until then, Indianapolis, with the figures of her mother and Williams in the background, loomed ominously before her vision.

Williams's second visit was made ostensibly to Rita's father. The third, two weeks later, was made openly to her father's daughter. It was preceded by an ominous letter to Rita requesting the privilege of making the visit to her. Rita wished to answer at once by telling him that she could not receive him, but Rita's mother thought differently.

"Say to him," commanded Mrs. Bays, "that you will be pleased to see him. He is a fine young man with a true religious nature. I find that he has been brought up by a God-fearing mother. I would not have you receive him because he is rich, but that fact is nothing against him. I can't for the life of me understand what he sees in you, but if he—" she stopped speaking, and her abrupt silence was more emphatic than any words could have been. Rita saw at once the drift of her mother's intentions and trembled.

"But I would not be pleased to see him, mother," the girl responded pleadingly; "and if I write to him that I would, I should be telling a lie."

"I tell a lie," cried the stern old woman in apparent anguish. "Oh, my heart!" She sank to a chair, and gasping between her words, continued, "Oh, that I should have lived to be told by my own child that I'm a liar!" Her head fell backward, and one would have supposed dissolution near. Mr. Bays ran to fetch a cup of water, and Rita stood in deep trouble by her mother's side fanning her. "A liar! a liar!" moaned the dying woman.

"I did not say that, mother. I said—"

"A liar! yes, I'm a liar. My own daughter that I have loved and cherished in my own bosom, and have toiled and suffered for all my life, says I'm a liar."

"Mother, I protest, dear mother, hear me," began Rita, but mother interrupted her by closing her eyes and supposedly her ears as if she were on the point of passing over. The only signs of life in the old woman were her gasps for breath. The girl, who had no deceit in her heart, could not recognize it in others, least of all was she able to see it in her own mother, whose transcendent virtues had been dinned into her ears ever since she had possessed those useful organs. Out of her confiding trustfulness came a deadly fear for her mother's life. She fell on her knees and cried: "Forgive me, mother dear, forgive me. I was wrong. I'll write whatever you wish."

This surrender, I know, was weak in our heroine; but her words restored her mother to life and health, and Rita rejoiced that she had seen her duty and had performed it in time.

Justice was soon again in equilibrium, and Rita, amid a flood of tears, wrote to Williams, "I shall be pleased to see you," and he came.

She did not treat him cordially, though she was not uncivil, and Williams thought her reticence was due to modesty,—a mistake frequently made by self-sufficient men. The girl felt that she was bound by her letter, and that she could not in justice mistreat him. It was by her invitation he had come. He could not know that she had been forced to write the letter, and she could not blame him for acting upon it. She was relieved that he attempted no flattery, and felt that surely her lack of cordiality would prevent another visit. But she was mistaken. He was not a man easily rebuffed.

A fortnight later Mrs. Bays announced to her daughter the receipt of a letter from Mr. Williams, stating that he would be on hand next Saturday evening.

"He is trying to induce his father to loan us the money," said Mrs. Bays, "and your father and I want you to be particularly kind to him. Your father and I have suffered and worked and toiled for you all your life. Now you can help us, and you shall do so."

"Mother, I can't receive him. I can't talk to him. It will be wicked. It would not be honest; I can't, I can't," sobbed poor Rita. "I don't know much, but I know it is wrong for me to receive visits from Mr. Williams when there can be nothing between—between—"

"Why can't there be anything between you and Williams, girl? Why?" demanded Mrs. Bays.

"There are many reasons, mother," returned the weeping girl, "even if it were not for Dic—"

"Dic!" screamed the old woman, and an attack of heart trouble at once ensued, when Rita was again called upon to save her mother's life.

Thus Williams came the third time to visit Rita, and showed his ignorance of womankind by proposing marriage to a girl who was unwilling to listen. He was promptly but politely rejected, and won the girl's contempt by asking for her friendship if he could not have her love. The friendship, of course, was readily granted. She was eager to give that much to all the world.

"I hope you will not speak of this, even to your father or mother," said Williams. "Let it be hereafter as if I had never spoken. I regret that I did speak."

Rita gladly consented to comply with his request, since she was certain heart trouble would ensue, with probably fatal results, should her mother learn that she had refused the young man with the true religious nature.

Williams adroitly regained his ground by exciting Rita's ever ready sympathy, and hoped to remain in the battle upon the plane of friendship until another and more favorable opportunity should arise for a successful attack. His was a tenacious nature that held to a purpose by hook or by crook till victory crowned his efforts or defeat was absolute.

Williams continued to visit Rita, and Dic did not return till Christmas. During the last month of waiting the girl's patient longing was piteous to behold. To see her brought grief to Billy's heart, but it angered the Chief Justice.

Dic had written that he would be home by the middle of November, and Rita had counted the days, even the hours, up to that time; but when he did not arrive as expected, she had not even the poor comfort of computing time, for she did not know when to expect him. Each day of longing and fear ended in disappointment and tears, until at last, on the day before Christmas, she heard from the lips of Sukey Yates that Dic was at home. There was a touch of disappointment in receiving the news from Sukey, but the news was so welcome that she was glad to have it from any one.

Sukey had ridden over to see Rita. "Why, haven't you seen him yet?" cried the dimpler, in surprise. "I supposed, of course, he would come here first—before seeing me. Why, I'm quite proud."

"No," returned Rita; "I have not seen him."

"He'll come this evening, I'm sure," said Sukey, patronizingly. "I have company to-night. He's looking well, though he was sick for three or four weeks at an inn near Wheeling. His illness caused the delay in getting home. I just thought he never would come, didn't you?"

Rita was too happy to be disturbed by insinuations of any kind, and although she would have liked to be the first person to see Dic, she paid no heed to Sukey's suggestive remarks.

"He's as handsome as ever," continued Sukey, "and has a mustache. But you will see him for yourself this evening. Good-by. I must be going. Now come over real soon."

"I will," answered Rita, and Sukey left her musing happily upon the hearth log.

Mr. Bays had been in Indianapolis for several days. He had not raised the three thousand dollars, Williams, Sr., being at that time short of money. Mrs. Bays and Tom had that evening driven to town to meet the nominal head of the house. It was two o'clock when Sukey left Rita gazing into the fire and computing the minutes till evening, when she knew Dic would be with her. He might possibly come over for supper.

The weather was cold, and snow had been falling since noon. The sycamore log was under the snow, and she did not hope to have Dic to herself; but to have him at all would be joy sufficient, and she would dream of him until he should come. While dreaming, she turned her face toward the window to watch the falling snow. She did not see the snow, but instead saw a man. She did not scream with delight, as I suppose she should have done; she simply rose to her feet and waited in the fireplace till the door opened and Dic walked in. She did not go to him, but stood motionless till he came to her.

"Are you not glad to see me, Rita?" he asked. He could not see her eyes in the dark room, or he would have had no need to ask. "Are you not glad?" he repeated. She did not answer, but taking his face between her hands drew it down to hers with infinite tenderness and passion. Then, with her arms about his neck, she spoke the one word, "Glad?" and Dic knew.

After she had uttered the big word of one syllable, she buried her face on his breast and began to weep.

"Don't cry, Rita," pleaded Dic, "don't cry. I can't bear it."

"Ah, but let me cry for one little moment," she begged. "It is better than laughing, and it helps me so much." There was, of course, but one answer, and Dic, turning up her tear-stained face, replied eloquently.

After a chaotic period of several minutes they took their childhood's place upon the hearth log within the warm, bright fireplace. Dic stirred the fire, and the girl, nestling beside him, said:—

"Now tell me everything."

"Where shall I begin?" asked Dic; and after a pause in which to find a starting-point, he said:—

"I have brought you a little present. I wanted to keep it till to-morrow—Christmas—but I find I cannot." He produced a small gold watch with the word "Rita" engraved upon the lid. Rita was delighted; but after a moment or two of admiration she repeated her request.

Dic rapidly ran over the events of his trip. He had brought home twenty-six hundred dollars, and the gold was at that moment in Billy Little's iron-box. Of the wonders he had seen he would tell her at leisure. He had received her three letters, and had them in his pocket in a small leather case purchased expressly to hold them. They had never left his person. He had been ill at an inn near Wheeling, and was "out of his head" for three weeks; hence his failure to write during that time.

"Yes, Sukey told me you had been ill. I was sorry to learn it. Especially—especially from her," said the girl, with eyes bent demurely upon the hearth.

"Why from her?" asked Dic.

"Well, from any one," she replied. "I hoped you would come to see me first. You see, I am a very exacting, jealous, disagreeable person, Dic, and I wanted you to see me and tell me everything before you should go to see any one else."

"Indeed, I would," he returned. "I have come here first."

"Did you not go around by Sukey's and see her on your way home?" Rita asked.

"I did not," replied Dic. "She was in town and rode with mother and me as far as the Yates cross-path. She heard me telling mother I had been ill."

Dic did not tell Rita that Sukey had whispered to him in Billy Little's store that she, Sukey, had been going to town every day during the last fortnight in the hope that she might be the first one to see him, and that she was so wild with joy at his return that she could easily find it in her heart to kiss him right then and there in full view of a large and appreciative audience; and that if he would come over Christmas night when the folks were going to Marion, she would remain at home and—and would he come? Dic did not mention these small matters, and, in fact, had forgotten what Sukey had said, not caring a baw-bee how often she had gone to meet him or any one else, and having no intention to accept her hospitality Christmas night. Sukey's words had, for a moment, tickled his vanity,—an easy task for a pretty woman with any man,—but they had gone no deeper than his vanity, which, in Dic's case, was not very deep.



DIC LENDS MONEY GRATIS

CHAPTER IX

DIC LENDS MONEY GRATIS

Such an hour as our young friends spent upon the ciphering log would amply compensate for the trouble of living a very long life. "Everything," as Rita had asked, was told volubly, until Dic, perhaps by accident, clasped Rita's hand. His failure to do so earlier in the afternoon had been an oversight; but after the oversight had been corrected, comparative silence and watching the fire from the ciphering log proved a sufficiently pleasant pastime, and amply good enough for them. Good enough! I hope they have fireplaces and ciphering logs, soft, magnetic hands, and eloquent silence in paradise, else the place will surely be a failure.

Snow was falling furiously, and dark winter clouds obscured the sinking sun, bringing night before its time; and so it happened that Rita did not see her mother pass the window. The room was dark, save in the fireplace where Rita and Dic were sitting, illumined by the glow of hickory embers, and occasionally by a flickering flame that spluttered from the half-burned back-log. Unexpected and undesired, Mrs. Bays, followed closely by our friend Williams, entered through the front door. Dic sprang to his feet, but he was too slow by several seconds, and the newcomers had ample opportunity to observe his strict attention to the business in hand. Mrs. Bays bowed stiffly to Dic, and walked to the bed, where she deposited her wraps.

Williams approached Rita, who was still seated in the fireplace. She rose and accepted his proffered hand, forgetting in her confusion to introduce Dic. Roger's self-composure came to his relief.

"This must be Mr. Bright," said he, holding out his hand to Dic. "I have heard a great deal of you from Miss Bays during the last four months. We heard in town that you had returned. Since Rita will not introduce me, I will perform that duty for myself. I am Mr. Williams."

"How do you do," said Dic, as he took Roger's hand.

"I am delighted to meet you," said Williams, which, as we know, was a polite fiction. Dic had no especial occasion to dispute Williams's statement, but for some undefined reason he doubted its truth. He did not, however, doubt his own feelings, but knew that he was not glad to meet Williams. The words, "I have heard a great deal of you from Miss Bays during the last four months," had so startled him that he could think of nothing else. After the narrative of his own adventures, he had, in imitation of Rita, asked her to tell him "everything"; but the name of Williams, her four-months' friend, had not been mentioned. Dic could not know that the girl had forgotten Williams's very existence in the moment of her joy. Her forgetfulness was the best evidence that Williams was nothing to her; but, I confess, her failure to speak of him had an ugly appearance. Williams turned to Rita, and, with a feeling of satisfaction because Dic was present, handed her a small package, saying:—

"I have brought you a little Christmas gift."

Rita hesitatingly accepted the package with a whispered "Thank you," and Mrs. Bays stepped to her side, exclaiming:—

"Ah, how kind of you, Mr. Williams."

Rita, Mrs. Bays, and Williams were facing the fire, and Dic stood back in the shadow of the room. A deep, black shadow it was to Dic.

Mrs. Bays, taking the package from Rita's hand, opened it; and there, nestling in a bed of blue velvet, was a tiny watch, rich with jewels, and far more beautiful than the one Dic had brought from New York. Encircling the watch were many folds of a massive gold chain. Mrs. Bays held the watch up to the light of the firelight, and Dic, with an aching sensation in the region of his heart, saw its richness at a glance. He knew at once that the giver must be a man of wealth; and when Mrs. Bays delightedly threw the gold chain over Rita's head, and placed the watch in her unresisting hand, he remarked that he must be going. Poor, terrified Rita did not hear Dic's words. Receiving no reply, he took his hat from the floor where he had dropped it on entering the room several centuries before, opened the door, and walked out.

All that I have narrated as taking place after Williams entered upon the scene occurred within the space of two or three minutes, and Rita first learned that Dic was going when she heard the door close.

"Dic!" she cried, and started to follow him, but her mother caught her wrist and said sternly:—

"Stay here, Rita. Don't go to the door."

"But, mother—"

"Stay here, I command you," and Rita did not go to the door. Dic met Mr. Bays at the gate, paused for a word of greeting, and plunged into the snow-covered forest, while the words "during the last four months" rang in his ears with a din that was almost maddening.

"She might have told me," he muttered, speaking as if to the storm. "While I have been thinking of her every moment, she has been listening to him. But her letters were full of love. She surely loved me when I met her two hours ago. No woman could feign love so perfectly. She must love me. I can't believe otherwise. I will see her again to-night and she will explain all, I am sure. There is no deceit in her." His returning confidence eased, though it did not cure, his pain. It substituted another after a little time—suspense. It was not in his nature to brook suspense, and he determined again and again to see Rita that evening.

But his suspense was ended without seeing Rita. When he reached home he found Sukey, blushing and dimpling, before the fire, talking to his mother.

"Been over to see Rita?" she asked, parting her moist, red lips in a smile, showing a gleam of her little, white teeth, and dimpling exquisitely.

"Yes," answered Dic, laconically.

"Thought maybe you would stay for supper," she continued.

"No," replied Dic.

"Perhaps the other fellow was there," remarked Sukey, shrugging her plump shoulders and laughing softly. Dic did not reply, but drew a chair to the hearth.

"Guess they're to be married soon," volunteered Sukey. "He has been coming Saturdays and staying over Sunday ever since you left. Guess he waited for you to get out of the way. I think he's so handsome. Met him one Sunday afternoon at the step-off. I went over to see Rita, and her mother said she had gone to take a walk with Mr. Williams in that direction after dinner. I knew they would be at the step-off; it's such a lonely place. He lives in Boston, and they say he's enormously rich." During the long pause that followed Dic found himself entirely relieved of suspense. There was certainty to his heart's content. He did not show his pain; and much to her joy Sukey concluded that Dic did not care anything about the relations between Williams and Rita.

"Rita showed me the ring he gave her," continued Sukey. Dic winced, but controlled himself. It was his ring that Sukey had seen on Rita's finger, but Dic did not know that.

"Some folks envy her," observed the dimpler, staring in revery at the fire. "She'll have a fine house, servants, and carriages"—Dic remembered having used those fatal words himself—"and will live in Boston; but for myself—well, I never intend to marry, but if I do I'll take one of the boys around here, or I'll die single. The boys here are plenty good enough for me."

The big, blue eyes, covered by downcast lashes, were carefully examining a pair of plump, little, brown hands resting in her lap, but after a pause she flashed a hurried glance upon Dic, which he did not see.

When a woman cruelly wounds a man as Rita had wounded Dic, the first remedy that suggests itself to the normal masculine mind is another woman, and the remedy is usually effective. There may not be as good fish in the sea as the one he wants, but good fish there are, in great numbers. Balm of Gilead doubtless has curative qualities; but for a sore, jealous, aching, masculine heart I would every time recommend the fish of the sea.

Sukey, upon Mrs. Bright's invitation, remained for supper, and Dic, of course, was compelled to take her home. Upon arrival at the Yates mansion, Sukey invited Dic to enter. Dic declined. She drew off her mittens and took his hand.

"Why," she said, "your hands are like ice; you must come in and warm them. Please do," so Dic hitched his horse under a straw-covered shed and went in with the remedy. One might have travelled far and wide before finding a more pleasant remedy than Sukey; but Dic's ailments were beyond cure, and Sukey's smiles might as well have been wasted upon her brother snowman in the adjacent field.

Soon after Dic's arrival, all the family, save Sukey, adjourned to the kitchen, leaving the girl and her "company" to themselves, after the dangerous manner of the times.

If any member of the family should remain in the room where the young lady of the house was entertaining a friend, the visitor would consider himself persona non grata, and would come never again. Of course the Bays family had never retired before Dic; but he had always visited Tom, not Rita.

The most unendurable part of Williams's visits to Rita was the fact that they were made to her, and that she was compelled to sit alone with him through the long evenings, talking as best she could to one man and longing for another. When that state of affairs exists, and the woman happens to be a wife, the time soon comes when she sighs for the pleasures of purgatory; yet we all know some poor woman who meets the wrong man every day and gives him herself and her life because God, in His inscrutable wisdom, has permitted a terrible mistake. To this bondage would Rita's mother sell her.

Dic did not remain long with the tempting little remedy. While his hand was on the latch she detained him with many questions, and danced about him in pretty impatience.

"Why do you go?" she asked poutingly.

"You said Bob Kaster was coming," replied Dic.

"Oh, well, you stay and I'll send him about his business quickly enough," she returned.

"Would you, Sukey?" asked Dic, laughing.

"Indeed, I will," she responded, "or any one else, if you will stay."

She took his hand again, and, leaning against him, smiled pleadingly into his face. Her smiles were as sweet and enticing as she or any other girl could make. There were no redder lips, no whiter teeth, nor prettier dimples than Sukey's on all Blue River or any other river, and there could be no prettier, more tempting picture than this pouting little nymph who was pleading with our Joseph not to run away. But Dic, not caring to remain, hurriedly closed the door and went out into the comforting storm. After he had gone Sukey went to the ciphering log and sat gazing meditatively into the fire. Vexation and disappointment alternately held possession of her soul; but Dic was more attractive to her because he was unattainable, and she imagined herself greatly injured and deeply in love. She may have imagined the truth; but Sukey, though small in herself, had a large, comprehensive heart wherein several admirers might be accommodated without overtaxing its capacity, and soon she was comforting herself with Bob Kaster.

There was little rest for Dic that night. Had he been able to penetrate darkness and log walls, and could he have seen Rita sobbing with her face buried in her pillow, he might have slept soundly. But darkness and log walls are not to be penetrated by ordinary eyes.

Riding home from Sukey's, Dic thought he had learned to hate Rita. He swore mighty oaths that he would never look upon her face again. But when he had rested a little time in bed he recalled her fair face, her gentleness, her honesty, and her thousand perfections. He remembered the small hand he had held so tenderly a few hours since. Its magnetic touch, soft as the hand of a duchess, still tingled through his nerves. With these memories came an anguish that beat down his pride, and, like Rita, he clasped his hands over his head, turned his face to his pillow, and alas! that I should say it of a strong man, wept bitter, scalding tears.

Do the real griefs of life come with age? If Dic should live till his years outnumbered those of Methuselah, no pain could ever come to him worthy of mention compared to this. It awakened him to the quality and quantity of his love. It seemed that he had loved her ever since she lisped his name and clung to his finger in tottering babyhood. He looked back over the years and failed to see one moment in all the myriads of moments when he did not believe himself first in her heart as she had always been first in his; and now, after he had waited patiently, and after she, out of her own full heart, had confessed her woman's love, after she had given him herself in abject, sweet surrender, and had taken him for her own, the thought of her perfidy was torture to him. Then came again like a soothing balm the young memory of their last meeting. He recalled and weighed every word, act, and look. Surely, he thought, no woman could feign the love she had shown for him. She had not even tried to show her love. It had been irrepressible. Why should she wish to feign a love she did not feel? There was nothing she could gain by deceit. But upon the heels of this slight hope came that incontestable fact,—Williams. Dic could see her sitting with the stranger as she had sat with himself at the step-off. Williams had been coming for four months. She might be in his arms at that moment—the hour was still early—before the old familiar fireplace, while the family were in the kitchen. He could not endure the picture he had conjured, so he rose from his bed, dressed, stole softly from the house, and walked through the winter storm down the river to Bays's. Feeling like a thief, he crept to the window. The night being cold, the fire had not been banked, but threw its glow out into the room; and Dic's heart leaped for joy when he saw the room was empty. At that same moment Rita was in her own room, not twenty feet away from him, sobbing on her pillow and wishing she were dead.

Dic's discovery of the empty room had no real significance, but it seemed a good omen, and he went home and slept.

Rita did not sleep. She knew the first step had been taken to separate her from Dic. She feared the separation was really effected. She had offended this manly, patient lover so frequently that surely, she thought, he would not forgive her this last and greatest insult. She upbraided herself for having, through stupidity and cowardice, allowed him to leave her. He had belonged to her for years; and the sweet thought that she belonged to him, and that it was her God-given privilege to give herself to him and to no other, pressed upon her heart, and she cried out in the darkness: "I will not give him up! I will not! If he will forgive me, I will fall upon my knees and beg him to try me once again."

Christmas was a long, wretched day for Dic. What it was to Rita you may easily surmise. Early after supper Dic walked over to see Sukey, and his coming filled that young lady's ardent little soul with delight. His reasons for going would be hard to define. Perhaps his chief motive was the hope of running away from himself, and the possibility of hearing another budget of unwelcome news concerning Rita and Williams. He dreaded to hear it; but he longed to know all there was to be known, and he felt sure Sukey had exhaustive knowledge on the subject, and would be ready to impart it upon invitation.

He had been sitting with Sukey half an hour when Tom Bays walked in. Thomas, of course, could not remain when he found the field occupied; and much to Dic's regret and Sukey's delight he took his departure, after a visit of ten minutes. Dic urged him to remain, saying that he was going soon, and Sukey added, "Yes, won't you stay?" But she was far from enthusiastic, and Thomas went home with disappointment in his heart and profanity on his lips.

When Tom entered the room where Rita was doing her best to entertain Williams, she said, "I thought you were going to see Sukey?"

"Dic's there," answered Tom, and Rita's white face grew whiter.

Tom started toward the back door on his way to the kitchen, where his father and mother were sitting, and Rita said, pleadingly:—

"Don't go, Tom; stay here with us. Please do." She forgot Williams and continued: "Please, brother. I don't ask much of you. This is a little thing to do for me. Please stay here," but brother laughed and went to the kitchen without so much as answering her.

When the door closed on Tom, Rita stood for a moment in front of the fireplace, and, covering her face with her hands, began to weep. Williams approached her, overflowing with consolation, and placed his hand caressingly upon her arm. She sprang from him as if she had been stung, and cried out:—

"Don't put your hand on me! Don't touch me!" She stepped backward toward the door leading upstairs to her room.

"Why, Rita," said Williams, "I did not intend anything wrong. I would not offend you for all the world. You are nervous, Rita, and—and—"

"Don't call me Rita," she interrupted, sobbing. "I hate—I hate—" she was going to say "I hate you," but said,—"the name."

He still approached her, though she had been retreating backward step by step. He had no thought of touching her; but as he came toward her, she lost self-control and almost screamed:—

"Don't touch me, I say! Don't touch me!" She had endured his presence till she could bear it no longer, and the thought of Dic sitting with Sukey had so wrought upon her that her self-control was exhausted. Williams walked back to the fireplace, and Rita, opening the stair door, hurriedly went to her room.



She was not one in whom the baser sort of jealousy could exist; but the thought of Dic, her Dic, sitting with Sukey, while she was compelled to endure the presence of the man she had learned almost to hate, burned her. Her jealousy did not take the form of hatred toward Sukey, and the pain it brought her was chiefly because it confirmed her in the belief that she had lost Dic. She did not doubt that Dic had loved her, and her faith in that fact quickened her sense of loss. She blamed no one but herself for the fact that he no longer loved her, and was seeking another. Still, she was jealous, though even that unholy passion could not be base in her.

Sukey smiled and dimpled at Dic for an hour or two with no appreciable effect. He sat watching the fire, seeing none of her little love signals, and went home quite as wretched as he had come. Evidently, Sukey was the wrong remedy, though upon seeing her charms one would have felt almost justified in warranting her,—no cure, no pay. Perhaps she was a too-willing remedy: an overdose of even the right drug may neutralize itself. As for myself, I love Dic better because his ailment responded to no remedy.

Next day, Tom, without at all deserving it, won Rita's gratitude by taking Williams out shooting.

After supper Rita said, "My head aches, and if I may be excused, I will go to my room."

But her mother vetoed the proposition:—

"Your head does not ache, and you will stay downstairs. Your father and I are going to church, and Mr. Williams will not want to be alone, will you, Mr. Williams?"

"Indeed, I hope Miss Bays will keep me company," answered this persistent, not-to-be-shaken-off suitor.

So Rita remained downstairs with Williams and listened to his apologies for having offended her the night before. She felt contrite, and in turn told him she was the one who should apologize, and said she hoped he would forgive her. Her gentle heart could not bear to inflict pain even upon this man who had brought so much suffering to her.

The next morning took Williams away, and Rita's thoughts were all devoted to formulating a plan whereby she might see Dic and beg his forgiveness after a fashion that would have been a revelation to Williams.

Several days of furious storm ensued, during which our Rita, for the first time in her life, was too ill to go abroad.

Mr. Bays had gone to Indianapolis with Williams, and returned on Thursday's coach, having failed to raise the three thousand dollars. At the supper table, on the evening of his return, Tom offered a suggestion.

"I'll tell you where you can get most of the money," he said. "Dic has twenty-six hundred dollars in Billy Little's box. He'll loan it to you."

"That's just the thing," cried Mrs. Bays, joyfully. "Tom, you are the smartest boy on Blue. It took you to help us out." One would have thought from her praise that Tom, and not Dic, was to furnish the money. Addressing her husband, she continued:—

"You go over and see him this evening. If he won't loan it to us after all we have done for him, he ought to be horsewhipped."

"What have we ever done for him?" asked Tom. The Chief Justice sought for an answer. Failing to find a better one, she replied:—

"He's had five hundred meals in this house if he's had one."

"And he's given us five hundred deer and turkeys if he's given us one," answered Tom.

"Well, you know, Tom, just as well as I do, that we have always been helping him. It is only your generous nature keeps you from saying so," responded Mrs. Bays. Tom laughed, and Tom, Sr., said:—

"I'll go over and see him this evening. I wonder where he has been? I haven't seen him but once since he came home."

"Guess Williams scared him off," suggested Tom.

Rita tried in vain to think of some plan whereby she might warn Dic against loaning the money, or prevent her father from asking it. After supper Tom went to town while his father went up to see Dic.

When the after-supper work was finished, Mrs. Bays took her knitting and sat before the fire in the front room. Rita, wishing to be alone, remained in the kitchen, watching the fire die down and cuddling her grief. She had been there but a few minutes when the outer door opened and in walked Dic.

"I have come to ask you if you have forgotten me?" he said.

The girl answered with a cry of joy, and ran to him.

"Ah, Dic, I have forgotten all else. Forgive me. Forgive me," she replied, and as the tears came, he drew her to his side.

"But, Rita—this man Williams?" he asked.

"I ... I know, Dic," she said between sobs, "I ... I know, but I can't ... can't tell you now. Wait till I can speak. But I love you. I ... can tell you that much. I will try to ... to explain when ... I can talk."

"You need explain nothing," said Dic, soothingly. "I want only to know that you have not forgotten me. I have suffered terribly these last few days."

"I'm so glad," responded the sobbing girl, unconscious of her apparent selfishness.

The kitchen fireplace was too small for a hearth log, so Dic and Rita took chairs before the fire, and the girl, regardless of falling tears, began her explanation.

"You see, it was this way, Dic," she sobbed. "He came with Uncle Jim, and then he came again and again. I did not want him—I am sure you know that I did not—but mother insisted, and I thought you would make it all right when you returned. You know mother has heart trouble, and any excitement may kill her. She is so—so—her will is so strong, and I fear her and love her so much. She is my mother, and it is my duty to obey her when—when I can. The time may come when I cannot obey her. It has come, several times, and when I disobey her I suffer terribly and always think how I would feel if she were to die."

Dic longed to enlighten her concerning the mother heart, but could not find it in his heart to attack even his arch-enemy through Rita's simple, unquestioning faith. That faith was a part of the girl's transcendent perfection, and a good daughter would surely make a good wife.

Rita continued her explanation: "He came many times to see me, and it seems as though he grew to liking me. Then he asked me to marry him, but I refused, Dic; I refused. I should have told him then that I had promised to be your wife—" here she gave Dic her hand—"but I was ashamed and—and, oh, I can't explain after all. I can't tell you how it all happened. I thought I could; but I really do not myself understand how it has all come about."