nity to go into business with Jim Fisher. I want
to borrow three thousand dollars, and I wonder if you will be willing to
lend me your money?"

"Yes," answered Dic, eagerly, "I am glad to lend it to you." He welcomed
the proposition as a blind man would welcome light. He was glad to help
his lifelong friend; but over and above that motive Mr. Bays's request
for money seemed to mean Rita. It certainly could mean nothing else; and
if the family moved to Indianapolis, it would mean Rita in the cosey
log-cabin up the river at once. Dic and his mother lived together, and,
even without Rita, the log house was a delightful home, warm in winter
and cool in summer; but the beautiful girl would transmute the log walls
to jasper, the hewed floors to beaten gold, and would create a paradise
on the banks of Blue. The thought almost made him dizzy. He had never
before felt so near to possessing her.

"Indeed I will," he repeated.

"I will pay you the highest rate of interest," said Mr. Bays.

"I want no interest, and you may repay the loan in one or ten years, as
you choose."

Rita, unable to repress her desire to speak, exclaimed: "Oh, Dic, please
don't," but Mrs. Bays gazed sternly over her glasses at her daughter and
suppressed the presumptuous, forward girl. The old lady, seeing Dic's
eagerness to lend the money, seized the opportunity to lessen her
obligation in the transaction and to make it appear that she was
conferring a favor upon Dic. If she and Mr. Bays would condescend to
borrow his money, she determined that Dic should fully appreciate the
honor they were doing him. Therefore, after a formulative pause, she
spoke to her daughter:--

"Mind your own affairs. Girls should be seen and not heard. Some girls
are seen altogether too much. Your father and Dic will arrange this
affair between themselves without your help. It is purely an affair of
business. Dic, of course, wishes to invest his money; and if your
father, after due consideration, is willing to help him, I am sure he
should feel obliged to us, and no doubt he will. He would be an
ungrateful person indeed if he did not. I am sure your father's note is
as good as the bank. He pays his just debts. He is my husband and could
not do otherwise. No man lives who has not at all times received his
dues from us to the last penny. If a penny is coming to us, we want it.
If we owe one, we pay it. My father, Judge Anselm Fisher, was the same
way. His maxim was, 'Justice