'She's only two inches t-taller than I am,' Billy said, and his father continued:
'Wall, if your heart's set on her go it, and quick, too, I'm goin' to have a smasher of a party in the fall, and Jerrie'll be just the one to draw, I can see her now, standin' there with the diamonds we'll give her sparklin' on her neck, and she lookin' like a queen, and the sinecure of all eyes. But for thunder's sake don't marry the old woman and all. Leave her to Harold, the sneak! I never did like him, and I'll be mad enough to kill him if he goes agin me in the suit, and I b'lieve he will.'
At this point Peterkin wandered off to the suit entirely and forgot Jerrie, who was to boost the house of Peterkin and make it 'fust-cut.' But not so Billy, and all the way from Shannondale to Springfield he was thinking of Jerrie, and wondering if it were possible that she could ever look upon him with favor. Like Tom and Dick, he could scarcely remember the time when he did not think Jerrie the loveliest girl in the world, and ever since he had grown to manhood he had meditated making her his wife, but had feared what his father might say, as he knew how much importance he attached to money. Now however, his father had signified his assent, and, resolving to lose no time, Billy, on his return next day to Le Bateau, seized the opportunity to take Jerrie home, as the occasion for declaring his love, which he did in a manly, straightforward manner, never hinting at any advantage it would be to her to be the wife of a millionaire, or offering any inducement in any way except to say that he loved her and would devote his life to making her happy. Tom Tracy Jerrie had scorned, Dick St. Claire she had pitied, but this little man she felt like ridiculing.
'Oh, Billy,' she said, laughing merrily. 'You can't be in earnest. Why I'm head and shoulders taller than you are. I do believe I could pick you up and throw you into the river. Only think how we should look together; people would think you my little boy, and that I should not like. So, I can never be your wife.'
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 cannot 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 quickly 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.