Nothing cuts a man like ridicule, and sensitive as he was with regard to his size, Billy felt it to his heart's core; and as he stood nervously playing with the reins and looking at Jerrie sitting there so tall and erect in all the brightness of her wonderful beauty, it flashed upon him how impossible it was for that glorious creature ever to be his wife, and what a fool he had made of himself.
"For-gi-give me, Jerrie," he said, his chin beginning to quiver, and the great tears rolling down his face. "I know you ca-can't, and I ou-oughtn't to have ask-asked it, bu-but I d-did love you so much, that I f-forgot how impossible it was f-for one like you to lo-love one li-like me. I am so small and insig-insignificant, and st-stutter so. I wish I was dead," and laying his head upon the horse's neck, he sobbed aloud.
In an instant Jerrie was out of the dog-cart and at his side, talking to and trying to soothe him as she would a child.
"Oh, Billy, Billy," she said. "I am so sorry for you, and sorry I said those cruel words about your size. It was only in fun. Your size has nothing to do with my refusal. I know you have a big, kind heart, and next to Harold, and Dick, and Mr. Arthur, I like you better than any man I ever knew, but I can't be your wife. Don't cry, Billy; it hurts me so to see you and know that I have done it. Please stop and take me home as quick as possible."
With a great gulp, and a long sigh like a grieved child, Billy dried his tears, of which he was much ashamed, and helping Jerrie into the cart drove her rapidly to the door of the cottage.
"I should not like Tom, nor Dick, nor Harold to know this," he said to her, as he stood a moment with her at the gate.
"Billy!" she exclaimed, "do you know me so little as to think I would tell them, or any body? I have more honor than that," and she gave him her hand, which he held tightly as he looked into the sweet young face which could never be his, every muscle of his own quivering, and telling of the pain he was enduring.
"Good-by. I shall be more like a ma-man, and less a ba-baby when I see you again," and springing into his cart he drove rapidly away.
Jerrie found her grandmother seated at a table, and trying to iron.
"Grandma," she said, "this is too bad. I did not mean to stay so long. Put down that flat-iron this minute. I am coming there as soon as I lay off my hat."