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Miss Tousy will soon make her appearance again in these pages for a short time. Her own romance I should like to tell you some day. The firm of Fisher and Fox thrived famously during the first few months of their partnership, and that Tom might not be ashamed of Rita when in society, Mrs. Bays consented that she should have some new gowns, hats, and wraps.
She would listen to Dic because he was the stronger and could compel her to remain in the room; but when he should finish, she would go and would never speak to Miss Tousy again. "This is a terrible calamity I have brought upon us," said Dic, speaking with difficulty and constraint. "It is like blindness or madness, and means wretchedness for life to you and me."
Miss Tousy greeted Dic kindly when he presented himself at her door, and led him to the same cosey front parlor wherein Rita had imparted the story of her woes and of Dic's faithlessness. She left her guest in the parlor a moment or two, while she despatched a note to a friend in town. When she returned she said:
I'm ashamed to have kept you out so long." She looked her shame and blushed most convincingly. Upon hearing the knock, Dic hurried over to the window, and when Miss Tousy entered he deluded himself into the belief that his attitude of careless repose would induce her to conclude he had been standing there all the afternoon.
Dic and Billy walked down to Bays's with Miss Tousy, and waited on the corner till she emerged from the house, when they immediately joined her. "I gave her the messages," said Miss Tousy, "and she became quieter at once. 'Tell him I'll get well now, she whispered.
Next day, in the midst of Dic's struggles for peace, and at a time when he had almost determined to marry Sukey Yates, a letter came from Miss Tousy, asking him to go to see her. While waiting for the stage, Dic exhibited Miss Tousy's letter, and Billy feigned surprise.
"I prefer a person who intends wrong and does right to one who intends right and does wrong," replied Dic. "I know nothing so worthless and contemptible as mistaken good intentions. But we should not criticise Rita's mother." "No," returned Miss Tousy; "and I'll go to see Rita every day twice a day and will write to you fully by every mail." "I intend to remain at the inn till she recovers.
Then she smiled faintly, and said, 'Wouldn't it be romantic to be kidnapped? After that she was silent; and within five minutes she slept, for the first time since yesterday." Rita's illness proved to be typhoid fever, a frightful disease in those days of bleeding and calomel. Billy returned home after a few days, but Dic remained to receive his diurnal report from Miss Tousy.
You may perhaps deceive all the rest of the world so long as you live many a person has done it but yourself hopeless, Rita, perfectly hopeless." "I'm not deceiving myself," answered the wilful girl. "You don't know what he has done." "I don't care," retorted Miss Tousy warmly. "If he were my lover, I I tell you, Rita Bays, I'd forgive him. I'd keep him.
"Ach, well," she cried, "you and your kitchen-range! It was that that did it! The masons could have redd out the fireplace to make room for't in the afternoon before it comes hame. They could have done't brawly, but ye wouldna hear o't oh no; ye bude to have the whole place gutted out yestreen. I had to boil everything on the parlour fire this morning; no wonder I'm a little tousy!"
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