Ambler, in dismay.
"What on earth does it matter to you whether the boys notice you or not?"
"It doesn't," sobbed Betty; "but you wouldn't like to sit against the wall,
mamma."
"You can make them suffer for it six years hence, daughter," suggested the
Governor, revengefully.
"But suppose they don't have anything to do with me then," cried Betty, and
wept afresh.
In the end, it was Uncle Bill who brought her to her feet, and, in doing
so, he proved himself to be the philosopher that he was.
"I tell you what, Betty," he exclaimed, "if you get up and stop crying,
I'll give you fifty cents. I reckon fifty cents will make up for any boy,
eh?"
Betty lay still and looked up from the floor.
"I--I reckon a dol-lar m-i-g-h-t," she gasped, and caught a sob before it
burst out.
"Well, you get up and I'll give you a dollar. There ain't many boys worth
a dollar, I can tell you."
Betty got up and held out one hand as she wiped her eyes with the other.
"I shall never speak to a boy again," she declared, as she took the money.
That was when she was thirteen, and a year later Dan went away to college.
VI
COLLEGE DAYS
"My dear grandpa," wrote Dan during his first weeks at college, "I think I
am going to like it pretty well here after I get used to the professors.
The professors are a great nuisance. They seem to forget that a fellow of
seventeen isn't a baby any longer.
"The Arcades are very nice, and the maples on the lawn remind me of those
at Uplands, only they aren't nearly so fine.
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