about it; it is embezzlement,
and Williams says the firm insists on prosecuting Tom and sending him to
the penitentiary if the money is not replaced. God only knows what we
are to do, Margarita. The farm is mortgaged for its full value, and so
far as I can see we are ruined, ruined." Tears began to flow over his
cheeks, and Rita, drawing his face down to hers, stood on tiptoe and
tried to kiss the tears away.

"Let me go to see Billy Little," she said in desperation. "He will lend
us the money; I know he will."

"Like h--he will," cried gentle Tom. "Dic asked him to loan me enough
money to pay my overdraft--said he would go on the note--but he refused
point blank; said the twenty-three hundred dollars he loaned father and
Uncle Jim Fisher was all the money he had. The miserly old curmudgeon!"

Mrs. Bays went weeping to Tom's side. "Poor Tom, my dear, dear son," she
whimpered, trying to embrace him.

Dear son roughly repulsed her, saying: "There's no need to go outside of
our family for help. If Rita wasn't the most selfish, ungrateful fool
alive, she'd settle all our troubles by one word."

"Would you have me sell myself, Tom?" asked the ungrateful sister.

"Of course I would!! sell yourself!! rot!! You'd be getting a mighty
good price. There's lots better-looking girls 'en you would jump at the
chance. Sell yourself? Ain't Williams a fine gentleman? Where's another
like him? Ain't he rich? Ain't he everything a girl could want in a
man--everything but a green country clodhopper?"

"All that may be true, Tom, but I can't marry him. I can't," returned
Rita, weeping and sobbing in her father's arms.

"Can't you, Rita?" asked Mr. Bays. "All that Tom says about him is true,
every word. Williams is good enough for any girl in the world but you.
No man is that. You would soon forget Dic."

"No, no, father, never, never, in all my life."

"And you would soon learn to like Williams," continued the distracted
father. "Please, Rita, try to do this and save me and Tom."

"She shall do it," cried Madam Jeffreys, taking courage from the
knowledge that at last her husband was her ally. She went to Rita and
pulled her from her father's arms. "She shall do it or go into the
street this very night, never to enter my house again. I'll never speak
to her again if she don't. It will pain me to treat my own flesh and
blood so harshly, but it is my duty--my duty. I have toiled and suffered
and endured for her sake all my life, a