ams, and I'll lose my
place if it is not paid. I _must_ have it. Can't you help me?"

"What on earth have you been doing with the money?" asked Tom, Sr. "I
have paid your tailor bills and your other bills to a sufficient amount,
in all conscience, and what could you have done with the money you got
from Williams and your salary?"

Tom tried to explain, and soon the Chief Justice joined in: "La, father,
there are so many temptations in town for young men, and our Tom is so
popular. Money goes fast, doesn't it, Tom? The boy can't tell what went
with it. Poor Tom! If your father was half a man, he'd get the money for
you; that's what he would. If your sister was not the most wicked,
selfish girl alive, she could settle all our troubles. Mr. Williams
would not press his brother-in-law or his wife's father. I have toiled
and suffered and worked for that girl all my life, and so has her
father, and so have you, Tom. We have all toiled and suffered and worked
for her, and now she's too ungrateful to help us. Oh, 'sharper than a
serpent's tooth,' as the Immortal Bard of Avon truly says."

Rita began to cry and rose from her chair, intending to leave the room,
but her mother detained her.

"Sit down!" she commanded. "At least you shall hear of the trouble you
bring upon us. I have been thinking of a plan, and maybe you can help us
carry it out if you want to do anything to help your father and brother.
As for myself, I don't care. I am always willing to suffer and endure.
'Blessed are they that suffer, for they shall inherit the kingdom of
heaven.'"

Tom pricked up his ears, Tom, Sr., put down his knife and fork to
listen, and Rita again took her seat at table.

"Billy Little has plenty of money," continued Mrs. Margarita, addressing
her daughter. "The old skinflint has refused to lend it to your father
or Tom, but perhaps he'll not refuse you if you ask him. I believe the
old fool is in love with you. What they all want with you I can't see,
but if you'll write to him--"

"Oh, I can't, mother, I can't," cried Rita, in a flood of tears.

I will not drag the reader through another scene of heart failure and
maternal raving. Rita, poor girl, at last surrendered, and, amid tears
of humiliation, wrote to Billy Little, telling of her father's distress,
her mother's commands, and her own grief because she was compelled to
apply to him. "You need not fear loss of your money, my friend," she
wrote, honestly believing that she t