ving little heart." And the
fire crackled its entire approval.

"Very well, Dic," she would reply, laughing with delight, "if you really
want them, you may have them; they are all yours." And the fire smiled
rosily, beaming its benediction.

"But what will your father and mother say and Tom?" asked Dic.

"We'll not tell them," replied this tiny piece of Eve; and the fire
almost choked itself with spluttering laughter. So, with the fire as a
witness, the compact was made and remade many times, until she thought
she belonged to Dic and gloried in her little heart because of it.

Diccon and Rita's brother, Tom, even during their early childhood, when
they were hardly half so tall as the guns they carried, were companion
knights in the great wars waged by the settlers against the wild beasts
of the forests, and many a bear, wolf, wildcat, and deer fell before the
prowess of small Sir Diccon la Valorous and little Sir Thomas de
Triflin'. Out of their slaughter grew friendship, and for many years Sir
Thomas was a frequent guest upon the ciphering log of Sir Diccon, and
Sir Diccon spent many winter evenings on the hearth at Castle Bays.

As the long years of childhood passed, Dic began to visit the Bays home
more frequently than Tom visited the Brights'. I do not know whether
this change was owing to the increasing age of the boys, or--but Rita
was growing older and prettier every day, and you know that may have had
something to do with Dic's visits.

Dic had another boy friend--an old boy, of thirty-five or more--whose
name was William Little. He was known generally as Billy Little, and it
pleased the little fellow to be so called, "Because," said he, "persons
give the diminutive to fools and those whom they love; and I know I am
not a fool." The sweetest words in the German language are their home
diminutives. It is difficult to love a man whom one _must_ call Thomas.
Tom, Jack, and Billy are the chaps who come near to us.

Billy was an old bachelor and an Englishman. His family had intended him
for the church, and he was educated at Trinity with that end in view.
Although not an irreligious man, he had views on religion that were far
from orthodox.

"I found it impossible," he once remarked, "to induce the church to
change its views, and equally impossible to change my own; so the church
and I, each being unreasonably stubborn, agreed to disagree, and I threw
over the whole affair, quarrelled with my family, was in