I tell you
now, Mr. Lightfoot, that, if I get sick, Betty Ambler is the only girl I'm
going to have inside the house."
"Very well, my dear," said the Major, meekly, "I'll try to remember; and,
in that case, I reckon we'd as well drop a hint to Dan, eh, Molly?"
Mrs. Lightfoot looked at him a moment in silence. Then she said "Humph!"
beneath her breath, and took up her knitting from the little table at her
side.
But Dan was living fast at college, and the Major's hints were thrown away.
He read of "the Ambler girls who are growing into real beauties," and he
skipped the part that said, "Your grandmother has taken a great fancy to
Betty and enjoys having her about."
"Here's something for you, Champe," he remarked with a laugh, as he tossed
the letter upon the table. "Gather your beauties while you may, for I
prefer bull pups. Did Batt Horsford tell you I'd offered him twenty-five
dollars for that one of his?"
Champe picked up the letter and unfolded it slowly. He was a tall, slender
young fellow, with curling pale brown hair and fine straight features. His
face, in the strong light of the window by which he stood, showed a tracery
of blue veins across the high forehead.
"Oh, shut up about bull pups," he said irritably. "You are as bad as a
breeder, and yet you couldn't tell that thoroughbred of John Morson's from
a cross with a terrier."
"You bet I couldn't," cried Dan, firing up; but Champe was reading the
letter, and a faint flush had risen to his face.
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