On Christmas Eve the great logs blazed at Chericoke. From the open door the red light of the fire streamed through the falling snow upon the broad drive where the wheel ruts had frozen into ribbons of ice. The naked boughs of the old elms on the lawn tapped the peaked roof with twigs as cold and bright as steel, and the two high urns beside the steps had an iridescent fringe around their marble basins.
In the hall, beneath swinging sprays of mistletoe and holly, the Major and his hearty cronies were dipping apple toddy from the silver punch bowl half hidden in its wreath of evergreens. Behind them the panelled parlour was aglow with warmth, and on its shining wainscoting Great-aunt Emmeline, under her Christmas garland, held her red apple stiffly away from the skirt of her amber brocade.
The Major, who had just filled the rector's glass, let the ladle fall with a splash, and hurried to the open door.
“They're coming, Molly!” he called excitedly, “I hear their horses in the drive. No, bless my soul, it's wheels! The Governor's here, Molly! Fill their glasses at once—they'll be frozen through!”
Mrs. Lightfoot, who had been watching from the ivied panes of the parlour, rustled, with sharp exclamation, into the hall, and began hastily dipping from the silver punch bowl. “I really think, Mr. Lightfoot, that the house would be more comfortable if you'd be content to keep the front door closed,” she found time to remark. “Do take your glass by the fire, Mr. Blake; I declare, I positively feel the sleet in my face. Don't you think it would be just as hospitable, Mr. Lightfoot, to open to them when they knock?”
“What, keep the door shut on Christmas Eve, Molly!” exclaimed the Major from the front steps, where the snow was falling on his bare head. “Why, you're no better than a heathen. It's time you were learning your catechism over again. Ah, here they are, here they are! Come in, ladies, come in. The night is cold, but the welcome's warm.—Cupid, you fool, bring an umbrella, and don't stand grinning there.—Here, my dear Miss Lydia, take my arm, and never mind the weather; we've the best apple toddy in Virginia to warm you with, and the biggest log in the woods for you to look at. Ah, come in, come in,” and he led Miss Lydia, in her white wool “fascinator,” into the house where Mrs. Lightfoot stood waiting with open arms and the apple toddy. The Governor had insisted upon carrying his wife, lest she chill her feet, and Betty and Virginia, in their long cloaks, fluttered across the snow and up the steps. As they reached the hall, the Major caught them in his arms and soundly kissed them. “It isn't Christmas every day, you know,” he lamented ruefully, “and even our friend Mr. Addison wasn't steeled against rosy cheeks, though he was but a poor creature who hadn't been to Virginia. But come to the fire, come to the fire. There's eggnog to your liking, Mr. Bill, and just a sip of this, Miss Lydia, to warm you up. You may defy the wind, ma'am, with a single sip of my apple toddy.” He seized the poker and, while Congo brought the glasses, prodded the giant log until the flames leaped, roaring, up the chimney and the wainscoting glowed deep red.
“What, not a drop, Miss Lydia?” he cried, in aggrieved tones, when he turned his back upon the fire.
Miss Lydia shook her head, blushing as she untied her “fascinator.” She was fond of apple toddy, but she regarded the taste as an indelicate one, and would as soon have admitted, before gentlemen, a liking for cabbage.
“Don't drink it, dear,” she whispered to Betty, as the girl took her glass; “it will give you a vulgar colour.”
Betty turned upon her the smile of beaming affection with which she always regarded her family. She was standing under the mistletoe in her light blue cloak and hood bordered with swan's-down, and her eyes shone like lamps in the bright pallor of her face.
“Why, it is delicious!” she said, with the pretty effusion the old man loved. “It is better than my eggnog, isn't it, papa?”
“If anything can be better than your eggnog, my dear,” replied the Governor, courteously, “it is the Major's apple toddy.” The Major bowed, and Betty gave a merry little nod. “If you hadn't put it so nicely, I should never have forgiven you,” she laughed; “but he always puts it nicely, Major, doesn't he? I made him the other day a plum pudding of my very own,—I wouldn't even let Aunt Floretta seed the raisins,—and when it came on burnt, what do you think he said? Why, I asked him how he liked it, and he thought for a minute and replied, 'My dear, it's the very best burnt plum pudding I ever ate.' Now wasn't that dear of him?”
“Ah, but you should have heard how he put things when he was in politics,” said the Major, refilling his glass. “On my word, he could make the truth sound sweeter than most men could make a lie.”
“Come, come, Major,” protested the Governor. “Julia, can't you induce our good friend to forbear?”
“He knows I like to hear it,” said Mrs. Ambler, turning from a discussion of her Christmas dinner with Mrs. Lightfoot.
“Then you shall hear it, madam,” declared the Major, “and I may as well say at once that if the Governor hasn't told you about the reply he made to Plaintain Dudley when he asked him for his political influence, you haven't the kind of husband, ma'am, that Molly Lightfoot has got. Keep a secret from Molly! Why, I'd as soon try to keep a keg full of brandy from following an auger.”
“Auger, indeed!” exclaimed the little old lady, to whom the Major's facetiousness was the only serious thing about him. “Your secrets are like apples, sir, that hang to every passer-by, until I store them away. Auger, indeed!”
“No offence, my dear,” was the Major's meek apology. “An auger is a very useful implement, eh, Governor; and it's Plaintain Dudley, after all, that we're concerned with. Do you remember Plaintain, Mrs. Ambler, a big ruddy fellow, with ruffled shirts? Oh, he prided himself on his shirts, did Plaintain!”
“A very becoming weakness,” said Mrs. Ambler, smiling at the Governor, who was blushing above his tucks.
“Becoming? Well, well, I dare say,” admitted the Major. “Plaintain thought so, at any rate. Why, I can see him now, on the day he came to the Governor, puffing out his front, and twirling his white silk handkerchief. 'May I ask your opinion of me, sir?' he had the audacity to begin, and the Governor! Bless my soul, ma'am, the Governor bowed his politest bow, and replied with his pleasantest smile, 'My opinion of you, sir, is that were you as great a gentleman as you are a scoundrel, you would be a greater gentleman than my Lord Chesterfield.' Those were his words, ma'am, on my oath, those were his words!”
“But he was a scoundrel!” exclaimed the Governor. “Why, he swindled women, Major. It was always a mystery to me how you tolerated him.”
“And a mystery to Mrs. Lightfoot,” responded the Major, in a half whisper; “but as I tell her, sir, you mustn't judge a man by his company, or a 'possum by his grin.” Then he raised a well-filled glass and gave a toast that brought even Mr. Bill upon his feet, “To Virginia, the home of brave men and,” he straightened himself, tossed back his hair, and bowed to the ladies, “and of angels.”
The Governor raised his glass with a smile, “To the angels who take pity upon the men,” he said.
“That more angels may take pity upon men,” added the rector, rising from his seat by the fireside, with a wink at the doctor.
And the toast was drunk, standing, while the girls ran up the crooked stair to lay aside their wraps in a three-cornered bedroom.
As Virginia threw off her pink cloak and twirled round in her flaring skirts, Betty gave a little gasp of admiration and stood holding the lighted candle, with its sprig of holly, above her head. The tall girlish figure, in its flounces of organdy muslin, with the smooth parting of bright brown hair and the dovelike eyes, had flowered suddenly into a beauty that took her breath away.
“Why, you are a vision—a vision!” she cried delightedly.
Virginia stopped short in her twirling and settled the illusion ruche over her slim white shoulders. “It's the first time I've dressed like this, you know,” she said, glancing at herself in the dim old mirror.
“Ah, I'm not half so pretty,” sighed Betty, hopelessly, “Is the rose in place, do you think?” She had fastened a white rose in the thick coil on her neck, where it lay half hidden by her hair.
“It looks just lovely,” replied Virginia, heartily. “Do you hear some one in the drive?” She went to the window, and looked out into the falling snow, her bare shoulders shrinking from the frosted pane. “What a long ride the boys have had, and how cold they'll be. Why, the ground is quite covered with snow.” Betty, with the candle still in her hand, turned from the mirror, and gave a quick glance through the sloping window, to the naked elms outside. “Ah, poor things, poor things!” she cried.
“But they have their riding cloaks,” said Virginia, in her placid voice.
“Oh, I don't mean Dan and Champe and Big Abel,” answered Betty, “I mean the elms, the poor naked elms that wear their clothes all summer, and are stripped bare for the cold. How I should like to warm you, you dear things,” she added, going to the window. Against the tossing branches her hair made a glow of colour, and her vivid face was warm with tenderness. “And Jane Lightfoot rode away on a night like this!” she whispered after a pause.
“She wore a muslin dress and a coral necklace, you know,” said Virginia, in the same low tone, “and she had only a knitted shawl over her head when she met Jack Montjoy at the end of the drive. He wrapped her in his cape, and they rode like mad to the town—and she was laughing! Uncle Shadrach met them in the road, and he says he heard her laughing in the wind. She must have been very wicked, mustn't she, Betty?”
But Betty was looking into the storm, and did not answer. “I wonder if he were in the least like Dan,” she murmured a moment later.
“Well, he had black hair, and Dan has that,” responded Virginia, lightly; “and he had a square chin, and Dan has that, too. Oh, every one says that Dan's the image of his father, except for the Lightfoot eyes. I'm glad he has the Lightfoot eyes, anyway. Are you ready to go down?”
Betty was ready, though her face had grown a little grave, and with a last look at the glass, they caught hands and went sedately down the winding stair.
In the hall below they met Mrs. Lightfoot, who sent Virginia into the panelled parlour, and bore Betty off to the kitchen to taste the sauce for the plum pudding. “I can't do a thing on earth with Rhody,” she remarked uneasily, throwing a knitted scarf over her head as they went from the back porch along the covered way that led to the brick kitchen. “She insists that yours is the only palate in all the country she will permit to pass judgment upon her sauce. I made the Major try it, and he thinks it needs a dash more of rum, but Rhody says she shan't be induced to change it until she has had your advice. Here, Rhody, open the door; I've brought your young lady.”
The door swung back with a jerk upon the big kitchen, where before the Christmas turkeys toasting on the spit, Aunt Rhody was striding to and fro like an Amazon in charcoal. From the beginning of the covered way they had been guided by the tones of penetrant contempt, with which she lashed the circle of house servants who had gathered to her assistance. “You des lemme alont now,” was the advice she royally offered. “Ef you gwine ax me w'at you'd better do, I des tell you right now, you'd better lemme alont. Ca'line, you teck yo' eyes off dat ar roas' pig, er I'll fling dis yer b'ilin' lard right spang on you. I ain' gwine hev none er my cookin' conjured fo' my ve'y face. Congo, you shet dat mouf er yourn, er I'll shet hit wid er flat-iron, en den hit'll be shet ter stay.”
Then, as Mrs. Lightfoot and Betty came in, she broke off, and wiped her large black hands on her apron, before she waved with pride to the shelves and tables bending beneath her various creations. “I'se done stuff dat ar pig so full er chestnuts dat he's fitten ter bus',” she exclaimed proudly. “Lawd, Lawd, hit's a pity he ain' 'live agin des ter tase hese'f!”
“Poor little pig,” said Betty, “he looks so small and pink, Aunt Rhody, I don't see how you have the heart to roast him.”
“I'se done stuff 'im full,” returned Aunt Rhody, in justification.
“I hope he's well done, Rhody,” briskly broke in Mrs. Lightfoot; “and be sure to bake the hams until the juice runs through the bread crumbs. Is everything ready for to-morrow?”
“Des es ready es ef 'twuz fer Kingdom Come, Ole Miss, en dar ain' gwine be no better dinner on Jedgment Day nurr, I don' cyar who gwine cook hit. You des tase dis yer sass—dat's all I ax, you des tase dis yer sass.”
“You taste it, Betty,” begged Mrs. Lightfoot, shrinking from the approaching spoon; and Betty tasted and pronounced it excellent, “and there never was an Ambler who wasn't a judge of 'sass,” she added.
Moved by the compliment, Aunt Rhody fell back and regarded the girl, with her arms akimbo. “I d'clar, her eyes do des shoot fire,” she exclaimed admiringly. “I dunno whar de beaux done hid deyse'ves dese days; hit's a wonner dey ain' des a-busin' dey sides ter git yer. Marse Dan, now, whynt he come a-prancin' roun' dese yer parts?”
Mrs. Lightfoot looked at Betty and saw her colour rise. “That will do, Rhody,” she cautioned; “you will let the turkeys burn,” but as they moved toward the door, Betty herself paused and looked back.
“I gave your Christmas gift to Uncle Cupid, Aunt Rhody,” she said; “he put it under the joists in your cabin, so you mustn't look at it till morning.”
“Lawd, chile, I'se done got Christmas gifts afo' now,” replied Aunt Rhody, ungratefully, “en I'se done got a pa'cel er no count ones, too. Folks dey give Christmas gifts same es de Lawd he give chillun—dey des han's out w'at dey's got on dey han's, wid no stiddyin' 'bout de tase. Sakes er live! Ef'n de Lawd hadn't hed a plum sight ter git rid er, he 'ouldn't er sont Ca'line all dose driblets, fo' he'd done sont 'er a husban'.”
“Husban', huh!” exclaimed Ca'line, with a snort from the fireplace. “Husban' yo'se'f! No mo' niggerisms fer me, ma'am!”
“Hold your tongue, Ca'line,” said Mrs. Lightfoot, sternly; “and, Rhody, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk so before your Miss Betty.”
“Husban', huh!” repeated the indignant Ca'line, under her breath.
“Hold your tongues, both of you,” cried the old lady, as she lifted her silk skirt in both hands and swept from the kitchen.
When they reached the house again, they heard the Major's voice, on its highest key, demanding: “Molly! Why, bless my soul, what's become of Molly?” He was calling from the front steps, and the sound of tramping feet rang in the drive below. Against the whiteness of the storm Big Abel's face shone in the light from the open door, and about him, as he held the horses, Dan and Champe and a guest or two were dismounting upon the steps.
As the old lady went forward, Champe rushed into the hall, and caught her in his arms.
“On my word, you're so young I didn't know you,” he cried gayly. “If you keep this up, Aunt Molly, there'll be a second Lightfoot beauty yet. You grow prettier every day—I declare you do!”
“Hold your tongue, you scamp,” said the old lady, flushing with pleasure, “or there'll be a second Ananias as well. Here, Betty, come and wish this bad boy a Merry Christmas.”
Betty looked round with a smile, but as she did so, her eyes went beyond Champe, and saw Dan standing in the doorway, his soft slouch hat in his hand, and a powdering of snow on his dark hair. He had grown bigger and older in the last few months, and the Lightfoot eyes, with the Lightfoot twinkle in their pupils, gave an expression of careless humour to his pale, strongly moulded face. The same humour was in his voice even as he held his grandfather's hand.
“By George, we're glad to get here,” was his greeting. “Morson's been cursing our hospitality for the last three miles. Grandpa, this is my friend Morson—Jack Morson, you've heard me speak of him; and this is Bland Diggs, you know of him, too.”
“Why, to be sure, to be sure,” cried the Major, heartily, as he held out both hands. “You're welcome, gentlemen, as welcome as Christmas—what more can I say? But come in, come in to the fire. Cupid, the glasses!”
“Ah, the ladies first,” suggested Dan, lightly; “grace before meat, you know. So here you are, grandma, cap and all. And Virginia;—ye gods!—is this little Virginia?”
His laughing eyes were on her as she stood, tall and lovely, beneath a Christmas garland, and with the laughter still in them, they blazed with approval of her beauty. “Oh, but do you know, how did you do it?” he demanded with his blithe confidence, as if it mattered very little how his words were met.
“It wasn't any trouble, believe me,” responded Virginia, blushing, “not half so much trouble as you took to tie your neckerchief.”
Dan's hand went to his throat. “Then I may presume that it is mere natural genius,” he exclaimed.
“Genius, to grow tall?”
“Well, yes, just that—to grow tall,” then he caught sight of Betty, and held out his hand again. “And you, little comrade, you haven't grown up to the world, I see.”
Betty laughed and looked him over with the smile the Major loved. “I content myself with merely growing up to you,” she returned.
“Up to me? Why, you barely reach my shoulder.”
“Well, up to the greater part of you, at least.”
“Ah, up to my heart,” said Dan, and Betty coloured beneath the twinkle in his eyes.
The colour was still in her face when the Major came out, with Mrs. Ambler on his arm, and led the way to supper.
“All of us are hungry, and some of us have a day's ride behind us,” he remarked, as, after the rector's grace, he stood waving the carving-knife above the roasted turkey. “I'd like to know how often during the last hour you've thought of this turkey, Mr. Morson?”
“It has had a fair share of my thoughts, I'm forced to admit, Major,” responded Jack Morson, readily. He was a hearty, light-haired young fellow, with a girlish complexion and pale blue eyes, as round as marbles. “As fair a share as the apple toddy has had of Diggs's, I'll be bound.”
“Apple toddy!” protested Diggs, turning his serious face, flushed from the long ride, upon the Major. “I was too busy thinking we should never get here; and we were lost once, weren't we, Beau?” he asked of Dan.
“Well, I for one am safely housed for the night, doctor,” declared the rector, with an uneasy glance through the window, “and I trust that Mrs. Blake's reproach will melt before the snow does. But what's that about being lost, Dan?”
“Oh, we got off the road,” replied Dan; “but I gave Prince Rupert the rein and he brought us in. The sense that horse has got makes me fairly ashamed of going to college in his place; and I may as well warn you, Mr. Blake, that when I get ready to go to Heaven, I shan't seek your guidance at all—I'll merely nose Prince Rupert at the Bible and give him his head.”
“It's a comfort to know, at least, that you won't be trusting to your own deserts, my boy,” responded the rector, who dearly loved his joke, as he helped himself to yellow pickle.
“Let us hope that the straight and narrow way is a little clearer than the tavern road to-night,” said Champe. “I'm afraid you'll have trouble getting back, Governor.”
“Afraid!” took up the Major, before the Governor could reply. “Why, where are your manners, my lad? It will be no ill wind that keeps them beneath our roof. We'll make room for you, ladies, never fear; the house will stretch itself to fit the welcome, eh, Molly?”
Mrs. Lightfoot, looking a little anxious, put forward a hearty assent; but the Governor laughed and threw back the Major's hospitality as easily as it was proffered.
“I know that your welcome's big enough to hold us, my dear Major,” he said; “but Hosea's driving us, you see, and he could take us along the turnpike blindfold. Why, he actually discovered in passing just before the storm that somebody had dug up a sugar berry bush from the corner of your old rail fence.”
“And we really must get back,” insisted Mrs. Ambler, “we haven't even fixed the servants' Christmas, and Betty has to fill the stockings for the children in the quarters.”
“Then if you will go, go you shall,” cried the Major, as heartily as he had pressed his invitation. “You shall get back, ma'am, if I have to go before you with a shovel and clear the snow away. So just a bit more of this roast pig, just a bit, Governor. My dear Miss Lydia, I beg you to try that spiced beef—and you, Mr. Bill?—Cupid, Mr. Bill will have a piece of roast pig.”
By the time the Tokay was opened, the Major had grown very jolly, and he began to exchange jokes with the Governor and the rector. Mr. Bill and the doctor, neither of whom could have told a story for his life, listened with a kind of heavy gravity; and the young men, as they rattled off a college tale or two, kept their eyes on Betty and Virginia.
Betty, leaning back in her high mahogany chair, and now and then putting in a word with the bright effusion which belonged to her, gave ear half to the Major's anecdotes, and half to a jest of Jack Morson's. Before her branched a silver candelabrum, and beyond it, with the light in his face, Dan was sitting. She watched him with a frank curiosity from eyes, where the smile, with which she had answered the Major, still lingered in a gleam of merriment. There was a puzzled wonder in her mind that Dan—the Dan of her childhood—should have become for her, of a sudden, but a strong, black-haired stranger from whom she shrank with a swift timidity. She looked at Champe's high blue-veined forehead and curling brown hair; he was still the big boy she had played with; but when she went back to Dan, the wonder returned with a kind of irritation, and she felt that she should like to shake him and have it out between them as she used to do before he went away. What was the meaning of it? Where the difference? As he sat across from her, with his head thrown back and his eyes dark with laughter, her look questioned him half humorously, half in alarm. From his broad brow to his strong hand, playing idly with a little heap of bread crumbs, she knew that she was conscious of his presence—with a consciousness that had quickened into a living thing.
To Dan, himself, her gaze brought but the knowledge that her smile was upon him, and he met her question with lifted eyebrows and perplexed amusement. What he had once called “the Betty look” was in her face,—so kind a look, so earnest yet so humorous, with a sweet sane humour at her own bewilderment, that it held his eyes an instant before they plunged back to Virginia—an instant only, but long enough for him to feel the thrill of an impulse which he did not understand. Dear little Betty, he thought, tenderly, and went back to her sister.
The next moment he was telling himself that “the girl was a tearing beauty.” He liked that modest droop of her head and those bashful soft eyes, as if, by George, as if she were really afraid of him. Or was it Champe or Jack Morson that she bent her bewitching glance upon? Well, Champe, or Morson, or himself, in a week they would all be over head and ears in love with her, and let him win who might. It was mere folly, of course, to break one's heart over a girl, and there was no chance of that so long as he had his horses and the bull pups to fall back upon; but she was deucedly pretty, and if he ever came to the old house to live it would be rather jolly to have her about. He would be twenty-one by this time next year, and a man of twenty-one was old enough to settle down a bit. In the meantime he laughed and met Virginia's eye, and they both blushed and looked away quickly.
But when they left the dining room an hour later, it was not Virginia that Dan sought. He had learned the duties of hospitality in the Major's school, and so he sat down beside Miss Lydia and asked her about her window garden, while Jack Morson made desperate love to his beautiful neighbour. Once, indeed, he drew Betty aside for an instant, but it was only to whisper: “Look here, you'll be real nice to Diggs, won't you? He's bashful, you know, and besides he's awfully poor, and works like the devil. You make him enjoy his holidays, and I—well, yes, I'll let that fox get away next week, I declare I will.”
“All right,” agreed Betty, “it's a bargain. Mr. Diggs shall have a merry Christmas, and the fox shall have his life. You'll keep faith with me?”
“Sworn,” said Dan, and he went back to Miss Lydia, while Betty danced a reel with young Diggs, who fell in love with her before he was an hour older. The terms cost him his heart, perhaps, but there was a life at stake, and Betty, who had not a touch of the coquette in her nature, would have flirted open-eyed with the rector could she have saved a robin from the shot. As for Diggs, he might have been a family portrait or a Christmas garland for all the sentiment she gave him.
When she went upstairs some hours later to put on her wraps, she had forgotten, indeed, that Diggs or his emotion was in existence. She tied on her blue hood with the swan's-down, and noticed, as she did so, that the white rose was gone from her hair. “I hope I lost it after supper,” she thought rather wistfully, for it was becoming; and then she slipped into her long cloak and started down again. It was not until she reached the bend in the staircase, where the tall clock stood, that she looked over the balustrade and saw Dan in the hall below with the white rose in his hand.
She had come so softly that he had not heard her step. The light from the candelabra was full upon him, and she saw the half-tender, half-quizzical look in his face. For an instant he held the white rose beneath his eyes, then he carefully folded it in his handkerchief and hid it in the pocket of his coat. As he did so, he gave a queer little laugh and went quickly back into the panelled parlour, while Betty glowed like a flower in the darkened bend of the staircase.
When they called her and she came down the bright colour was still in her face, and her eyes were shining happily under the swan's-down border of her hood. “This little lady isn't afraid of the cold,” said the Major, as he pinched her cheeks. “Why, she's as warm as a toast, and, bless my soul, if I were thirty years younger, I'd ride twenty miles tonight to catch a glimpse of her in that bonny blue hood. Ah, in my day, men were men, sir.”
Dan, who had come back from escorting Miss Lydia to the carriage, laughed and held out his arms.
“Let me carry you, Betty; I'll show grandpa that there's still a man alive.”
“No, sir, no,” said Betty, as she stood on tiptoe and held her cheek to the Major. “You haven't a chance when your grandfather's by. There, I'll let you carry the sleeping draught for Aunt Pussy; but my flounces, no, never!” and she ran past him and slipped into the carriage beside Mrs. Ambler and Miss Lydia.
In a moment Virginia came out under an umbrella that was held by Jack Morson, and the carriage rolled slowly along the drive, while the young men stood, bareheaded, in the falling snow.
“Keep a brave heart, Morson,” said Champe, with a laugh, as he ran back into the house, where the Major waited to bar the door, “remember, you've known her but three hours, and stand it like a man. Well I'm off to bed,” and he lighted his candle and, with a gay “good night,” went whistling up the stair.
In Dan's bedroom, where he had crowded for the holidays, he found his cousin, upon the hearth-rug, looking abstractedly into the flames.
As Champe entered he turned, with the poker in his hand, and spoke out of the fulness of his heart:—
“She's a beauty, I declare she is.”
Champe broke short his whistling, and threw off his coat.
“Well, I dare say she was fifty years ago,” he rejoined gravely.
“Oh, don't be an utter ass; you know I mean Virginia.”
“My dear boy, I had supposed Miss Lydia to be the object of your attentions. You mustn't be a Don Juan, you know, you really mustn't. Spare the sex, I entreat.”
Dan aimed a blow at him with a boot that was lying on the rug. “Shut up, won't you,” he growled.
“Well, Virginia is a beauty,” was Champe's amiable response. “Jack Morson swears Aunt Emmeline's picture can't touch her. He's writing to his father now, I don't doubt, to say he can't live without her. Go down, and he'll read you the letter.”
Dan's face grew black. “I'll thank him to mind his own business,” he grumbled.
“Oh, he thinks he's doing it.”
“Well, his business isn't either of the Ambler girls, and I'll have him to know it. What right has he got, I'd like to know, to come up here and fall in love with our neighbours.”
“Oh, Beau, Beau! Why, it was only last week you ran him away from Batt Horsford's daughter. Are you going in for a general championship?”
“The devil! Sally Horsford's a handsome girl, and a good girl, too; and I'll fight any man who says she isn't. By George, a woman's a woman, if she is a stableman's daughter!”
“Bravo!” cried Champe, with a whistle, “there spoke the Lightfoot.”
“She's a good girl,” repeated Dan, furiously, as he flung the other boot at his cousin. Champe caught the boot, and carefully set it beside the door. “Well, she's welcome to be, as far as I'm concerned,” he replied calmly. “Turn not your speaking eye upon me. I harbour no dark intent, Sir Galahad.”
“Damn Sir Galahad!” said Dan, and blew out the light.
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