"How's Dic?" he asked. "I haven't seen him for a fortnight. I've been wondering what has become of him." The girl's face turned red—painfully so to Billy—as she replied:—
"I—I haven't seen him either for—for a very long time—three days." She stopped talking and Billy remained silent. After a long pause she spoke up briskly, as if she had just remembered something.
"Oh, I almost forgot—there is something I want, and—and after all, you're right. I want—I want—won't you—will you—I say, Billy Little, won't you let me have a sheet of writing paper and a pot of ink, and won't you cut this pen for me?"
Billy took the quill and turned to go behind the counter. The girl was dancing nervously on her toes. "But say, Billy Little, I can't pay you for them now. Will—will—you trust me?"
Billy did not reply, but went to the letter-paper box.
"You had better take more than one sheet, Rita," he said softly. "If you're going to write a love-letter to Dic, you will be sure to spoil the first sheet, perhaps the second and third."
Billy's head blushed vividly after he had spoken, for his remark was a prying one. The girl had no thought of writing a love-letter, and she resented the insinuation. She was annoyed because she had betrayed her purpose in buying the paper. But she loved Billy Little too dearly to show her resentment, and remained silent. The girl, Billy, and Dic differing as much as it is possible for three persons to differ, save in their common love for books and truth, had been friends ever since her babyhood, and Billy was the only person to whom she could easily lay bare her heart. Upon second thought she concluded to tell him her trouble.
"It was this way, Billy Little," she began, and after stumbling over many words, she made a good start, and the little story of her troubles fell from her lips like crystal water from a babbling spring.
After her story was finished—and she found great relief in the telling—Billy said:—
"Of course I'll trust you. I'd trust you for the whole store if you wanted to buy it. I'd trust you with my soul," he added after a pause. "There's not a false drop of blood in your veins."