ay
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, improvis