she thought to escape unseen
from the house and run after him. But darkness was rapidly falling, and
she feared the black, terrible forest.

We talk a great deal about the real things of after life; but the real
things of life, the keen joys and the keenest pains, come to a man
before his first vote, and to a woman before the days of her mature
womanhood.

THE BACHELOR HEART

CHAPTER II

THE BACHELOR HEART

Rita's first great pain kept her sleepless through many hours. She
resolved that when Dic should come again she would throw off the
restraint that so hurt and provoked her, and would show him, at whatever
cost, that she had not intended her hard words for him.

The next day seemed an age. She sought all kinds of work to make the
time pass quickly. Churning, usually irksome, was a luxury. She swept
every nook and corner of the house, and longed to sweep the whole farm.

That evening she did not wait till Dic was in sight to put on her
ribbon. She changed it many times from her throat to her hair and back
again, long before the sun had even thought of going down.

Her new attitude toward Dic had at least one good effect: it took from
her the irritation she had so often felt against herself. Losing part of
her self-consciousness in the whirl of a new, strong motive, wrought a
great change, not only in her appearance, but also in her way of looking
at things--herself included. She was almost satisfied with the image her
mirror reflected. She might well have been entirely satisfied. There was
neither guile nor vanity in the girl's heart, nor a trace of deceit in
her face; only gentleness, truth, and beauty. She had not hitherto given
much thought to her face; but with the change in her way of seeing Dic,
her eyes were opened to the value of personal beauty. Then she began to
wonder. Regret for her hard words to Dic deepened her longing for
beauty, in the hope that she might be admired by him and more easily
forgiven. Billy Little, who had seen much of the world, once said that
there was a gentleness and beauty about Rita at this time which he
believed no other woman ever possessed. She was child and woman then,
and that combination is hard to beat, even in a plain girl. Poor old
Billy Little! He was more than thirty years her senior, but I believe
there is no period in the life of a bachelor, however case-hardened he
may be, when his heart is entirely safe from the enemy. That evening
Rita sat on the po