wholesome exercise, and Rita will furnish
everything else needful to your happiness."

They walked silently back to the store. Dic, uninvited, entered and sat
down on a box. Billy distributed the morning mail and hummed Maxwelton
Braes. Then he arranged goods on the counter. Dic followed the little
old fellow with his eyes, but neither spoke. The younger man was waiting
for his friend to speak, and the friend was silent because he did not
feel like talking. He loved Dic and Rita with passionate tenderness. He
had almost brought them up from infancy, and all that was best in them
bore the stamp of his personality. Between him and Dic there was a
feeling near akin to that of father and son, but unfortunately Rita was
not a boy. Still more unfortunately the last year had added to her
already great beauty a magnetism that was almost mesmeric in its effect.
There had also been a ripening in the sweet tenderness of her gentle
manner, and if you will remember the bachelor heart of which I have
spoken, you will understand that poor Billy Little couldn't help it at
all, at all. God knows he would have helped it. The fault lay in the
girl's winsomeness; and if Billy's desire to send Dic off to New York
was not an unmixed motive, you must not blame Billy too severely.
Neither must you laugh at him; for he had the heart of a boy, and the
most boyish act in the world is to fall in love. Billy had never
misunderstood Rita's tenderness and love for him. There was no designing
coquetry in the girl. She had always since babyhood loved him, perhaps
better even than she loved her parents, and she delighted to show him
her affection. Billy had never been deceived by her preference, and of
course was careful that she should not observe the real quality of his
own regard for her. But the girl's love, such as she gave, was sweet to
him--oh, so sweet, this love of this perfect girl--and he, even he, old
and gray though he was, could not help longing for that which he knew
was as far beyond his reach as the bending rainbow is beyond the hand of
a longing child. He was more than fifty in years, but his heart was
young, and we, of course, all agree that he was very foolish
indeed--which truth he knew quite as well as we.

So this disclosure of Dic's was a shock to Billy, although it was the
thing of all others he most desired should come to pass.

"Are you angry, Billy Little?" asked Dic, feeling somewhat inclined to
laugh, though standing slig