Besides, if he was at all fit for her, he must certainly be very handsome.

Suddenly Miss Wyett became the rage among the Bowerton girls.  Blushingly and gushingly they told her of their own loves, and they showed her their lovers, or pictures of those gentlemen.

Miss Wyett listened, smiled and sympathized, but when they sat silently expectant of similar confidences, they were disappointed, and when they endeavored to learn even the slightest particular of Helen Wyett’s love, she changed the subject of conversation so quickly and decidedly that they had not the courage to renew the attempt.

But while most Bowertonians despaired of learning much more about the Wyetts, and especially about Helen’s lover, there was one who had resolved not only to know the favored man, but to do him some frightful injury, and that was little Guzzy.

Though Guzzy’s frame was small, his soul was immense, and Helen’s failure to comprehend Guzzy’s greatness when he laid it all at her feet had made Guzzy extremely bilious and gloomy.

Many a night, when Guzzy’s soul and body should have been taking their rest, they roamed in company up and down the quiet street on which the Wyetts’ cottage was located, and Guzzy’s eyes, instead of being fixed on sweet pictures in dreamland, gazed vigilantly in the direction of Mrs. Wyett’s gate.

He did not meditate inflicting personal violence on the hated wretch who had snatched away Helen from his hopes—­no, personal violence could produce suffering but feeble compared with that under which the victim would writhe as Guzzy poured forth the torrent of scornful invective which he had compiled from the memories of his bilious brain and the pages of his “Webster Unabridged.”

At length there came a time when most men would have despaired.

Love is warm, but what warmth is proof against the chilling blasts and pelting rains of the equinoctial storm?

But then it was that the fervor of little Guzzy’s soul showed itself; for, wrapped in the folds of a waterproof overcoat, he paced his accustomed beat with the calmness of a faithful policeman.

And he had his reward.

As one night he stood unseen against the black background of a high wall, opposite the residence of Mrs. Wyett, he heard the gate—­her gate—­creak on its hinges.

It could be no ordinary visitor, for it was after nine o’clock—­it must be he.

Ha! the lights were out!  He would be disappointed, the villain!  Now was the time, while his heart would be bleeding with sorrow, to wither him with reproaches.  To be sure, he seemed a large man, while Guzzy was very small, but Guzzy believed his own thin legs to be faithful in an emergency.

The unknown man knocked softly at the front-door, then he seemed to tap at several of the windows.

Suddenly he raised one of the windows, and Guzzy, who had not until then suspected that he had been watching a house-breaker, sped away like the wind and alarmed the solitary constable of Bowerton.