Wise Miss Tousy
Upon first reading Dic's letter, Rita was stunned by its contents; but within a day or two her thoughts and emotions began to arrange themselves, and out of order came conclusion. The first conclusion was a surprise to her: she did not love Dic as she had supposed. A scornful indifference seemed to occupy the place in her heart that for years had been Dic's. With that indifference came a sense of change. Dic was not the Dic she had known and loved. He was another person; and to this feeling of strangeness was added one of scorn. This new Dic was a man unworthy of any pure girl's love; and although her composite emotion was streaked with excruciating pain, as a whole it was decidedly against him, and she felt that she wished never to see him again. She began a letter to him, but did not care to finish it, and returned the ring without comment, that being the only answer he deserved. Pages of scorn could not have brought to Dic a keener realization of the certainty and enormity of his loss. He returned the ring to Billy Little.
"I thank you for it, Billy, though it has brought grief to me as it did to you. I do not blame the ring; my loss is my own fault; but it is strange that the history of the ring should repeat itself. It almost makes one superstitious."
"Egad! no one else shall suffer by it," said Billy, opening the huge iron stove and throwing the ring into the fire.
Dic's loss was so heavy that it mollified Billy's anger, which for several days had been keen against his young friend. Billy's own pain and grief also had a softening effect upon his anger; for with Dic out of the way, Rita Bays, he thought, would soon become Mrs. Roger Williams, and that thought was torture to the bachelor heart.
Rita, bearing the name of his first and only sweetheart, had entered the heart of this man's second youth; and in the person of Dic he was wooing her and fighting the good fight of love against heavy odds. Dic, upon receiving the ring, was ready to surrender; but Billy well knew that many a battle had been won after defeat, and was determined not to throw down his arms.
Thinking over his situation, Dic became convinced that since Rita was lost to him, he was in honor bound to marry Sukey Yates. Life would be a desert waste, but there was no one to thank for the future Sahara but himself, and the self-inflicted sand and thirst must be endured. The thought of marrying Sukey Yates at first caused him almost to hate her; but after he had pondered the subject three or four days, familiarity bred contempt of its terrors. Once having accepted the unalterable, he was at least rid of the pain of suspense. He tried to make himself believe that his pain was not so keen as he had expected it would be; and by shutting out of his mind all thoughts of Rita, he partially succeeded.
Sunday afternoon Dic saw Sukey at church and rode home with her, resting that evening upon her ciphering log. He had determined to tell her that he would marry her; but despite his desire to end the suspense, he could not bring himself to speak the words. He allowed her to believe, by inference, what she chose, and she, though still in great doubt, felt that the important question was almost settled in her favor.
During the interim of four or five days Billy Little secretly called upon Miss Tousy, and incidentally dropped in to see Rita.
After discussing matters of health and weather, Billy said: "Rita, you must not be too hard on Dic. He was not to blame. Sukey is a veritable little Eve, and—"