In the 1920s Paulita Maxwell explained, "An old story that identifies me as Billy the Kid's sweetheart has been going the rounds for many years. Perhaps it honors me; perhaps not.... But I was not Billy the Kid's sweetheart. I liked him very much--oh, yes--but I did not love him. He was a nice boy, at least to me, courteous, gallant, always respectful. I used to meet him at dances; he was, of course, often at our house. But he and I had no thoughts of marriage."
Paulita added: "But if I had loved the Kid and he had loved me, I will say that I would not have hesitated to marry him and follow him through danger, poverty, or hardship to the ends of the earth in spite of anything he had ever done or what the world might have pleased to think of me. That is the way of Spanish girls when they are in love."