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 tr