"B-by Jove," Billy said, as he explained the matter, "it's too bad that I must g-go, when I'm enjoying m-my-self t-t-tip-top. I wish that lawsuit was in Gu-Guinea."
Then turning to Ann Eliza he asked how she would get home if he did not return.
"Oh, don't trouble about me. I can take care of myself," Ann Eliza said, with a bounce up in her chair, which set every loose hair of her frowzy head to flying.
"M-m-maybe they'll send the ca-carriage," Billy went on, "and if they do-don't, m-may be you can g-go with T-Tom as far as his house, and then you wo-won't be afraid."
Tom could have killed the little man for having thus made it impossible for him not to see his sister safely home. He had fully intended to forestall Dick, and go with Jerrie if Harold did not come, for though she had refused him, he wished to keep her as a friend, hoping that in time she might be lead to consider. He liked to hear her voice—to look into her face—to be near her, and the walk in the moonlight, with her upon his arm, had been something very pleasant to contemplate, and now it was snatched from him by Billy's ill-advised speech, and old Peterkin's red-haired daughter thrust upon him. It was rather hard, and Tom's face was very gloomy and dark for the remainder of the evening, while they sat upon the piazza and laughed, and talked, and said the little nothings so pleasant to the young and so meaningless to the old who have forgotten their youth.
Jerrie was the first to speak of going. She had hoped that Harold might possibly come for her, but as the time passed on, and he did not appear, she arose to say good-night to Nina, while Dick hastened forward and announced his intention to accompany her.
"No, Dick, no; please don't," she said. "I am not a bit afraid, and I would rather you did not go."
But Dick was persistent.
"You know you accepted my service this morning," he said, and his face, as he went down the steps with Jerrie on his arm, wore a very different expression from that of poor Tom, who, with Ann Eliza coming about to his elbow, stalked moodily along the road, scarcely hearing and not always replying to the commonplace remarks of his companion, who had never been so happy in her life, because never before had she been out alone in the evening with Tom Tracy as her escort.