‘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.

‘Billy!’ she exclaimed, ’do you know me so little as to think I would tell them, or anybody?  I have more honor than that,’ and she gave him her hand, which he held tightly in his while he looked earnestly into the sweet young face which could never be his, every muscle of his own quivering with emotion, and telling of the pain he was enduring.

’Good-bye.  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.’

Running up the stairs to her room, Jerrie put away her hat, and then, throwing herself upon the bed, cried for a moment as hard as she could cry.  The look on Billy’s face haunted her, and she pitied him now more than she had pitied Dick St. Claire.

‘Dick will get over it, and marry somebody else, but Billy never,’ she said.

Then, rising up, she bathed her eyes, and pushing back her tangled hair, stood for a moment before the mirror, contemplating the reflection of herself in it.

‘Jerrie Crawford,’ she said, ’you must be a mean, heartless, good-for-nothing girl, for it certainly is not your Dutch face, nor yellow hair, nor great staring eyes, which make men think that you will marry them; so it must be your flirting, coquettish manners.  I hate a flirt.  I hate you, Jerrie Crawford.’