"Promise me," sobbed Rita; and I know you will love Dic better when I tell you that he promised. Then the girl's face came up, and, I grieve to say, the tears, having served their purpose, ceased at once.
Next morning Dic went to see Billy Little and told him he had come to have a talk. Billy locked the store door and the friends repaired to the river. There they found a shady resting-place, and Billy, lighting his pipe, said:—
"Blaze away."
"I know you will despise me," the young man began.
"No, I won't," interrupted Billy. "You are human. I don't look for unmixed good. If I did, I should not find it except once in a while in a woman. What have you been doing? Go on." Billy leaned forward on his elbows, placed the points of his fingers together, and, while waiting for Dic to begin, hummed his favorite stanza concerning the braes of Maxwelton.
"Well," responded Dic, "I've concluded not to go to New York."
Billy's face turned a shade paler as he took his pipe from his lips and looked sadly at Dic. After a moment of scrutiny he said:—
"I had hoped to get you off before it happened. It's all off now. You might as well throw Blackstone into Blue."
"What do you mean?" queried Dic. "Before what happened?"
"Before Rita happened," responded Billy.