"Did you expect anything else?" asked Billy.
"Yes, I did," answered Dic.
"Even Rita will be valued more highly if you encounter difficulties in getting her," replied his friend.
"I certainly value her highly enough as it is," said Dic, "and Mrs. Bays's opposition surprises me a little. I know quite as well as she—better, perhaps—that I am not worthy of Rita. No man is. But I am not lazy. I would be willing to die working for her. I am not very good; neither am I very bad. She will make me good, and I don't see that any one else around here has anything better to offer her. The truth is, Rita deserves a rich man from the city, who can give her a fine house, servants, and carriages. It is a shame, Billy Little, to hide such beauty as Rita's under a log-cabin's roof in the woods."
"I quite agree with you," was Billy's unexpected reply. "But I don't see any chance for her catching that sort of a man unless her father goes in business with Fisher at Indianapolis. Even there the field is not broad. She might, if she lived at Indianapolis, meet a stranger from Cincinnati, St. Louis, or the East, and might marry the house, carriages, and servants. I understand Bays—perhaps I should say Mrs. Bays—contemplates making the move, and probably you had better withdraw your claim and give the girl a chance."
Dic looked doubtingly at his little friend and said, "I think I shall not withdraw."
"I have not been expecting you would," answered Billy. "But what are you going to do about the Chief Justice?"
"I don't know. What would you do?"
Billy Little paused before answering. "If you knew what mistakes I have made in such matters, you would not ask advice of me."
Dic waited, hoping that Billy would amplify upon the subject of his mistakes, but he waited in vain. "Nevertheless," he said, "I want your advice."