s--oh--heaps different!" She nodded her lovely head in
firm conviction. "It's heaps different and I'm goin' to know more about
such things as clo'es. I ain't plumb _poverty_ poor, like lots o' folks,
here in th' mountings. I got land down in th' valley I get rent
from--fifty dollars, every year! I'm goin' to find out about such
things."

He looked at her, almost worried. It would be a pity, he thought
instantly, for this charming child of nature to become sophisticated and
be fashionably gowned; but, of course, he made no protest.

"You can learn a little something about such things if you stay right
here," said he. "I'm going to have visitors, sometime before the
summer's over, at my camp. My aunt, Miss Alathea, will be here, and our
old friend, Colonel Sandusky Doolittle. He's a great horseman."

Instantly the girl showed vivid interest, not, as he had thought she
would, in his aunt, Miss Alathea, but in the Colonel from the
Bluegrass, who also was a horseman.

"Horseman, is he?" she exclaimed, her eyes alight.

"Yes; he's famous as a judge of horses."

"At them races that they tell about? Oh, I'd like to see one of them
races!"

"Yes, he goes to races, everywhere, although he always means to stop
immediately after the next one. It has been the races which have kept
him poor and kept him single."

"How've they kept him poor?"

He told her about betting, while she listened, wide-eyed with amazement
at the mention of the sums involved.

"How've they kept him single?"

"He's been in love with my Aunt Alathea for a good many years, but she
won't marry him until he keeps his promise to avoid the race-tracks."

"What makes your aunt hate hawsses?"

"Oh, she loves good horses, but the Colonel always bets, and, as I have
said, it keeps him poor. It's the gambling that she hates, and not the
horses. Every year he plans to keep away from all horse-racing for her
sake; every year he tries to do it, but quite fails."

She laughed heartily. "An' she thinks he loves th' races more than he
does her?" she asked. Then, more soberly: "I don't know's I blame her,
none. When's she comin'? I'll be powerful glad to see her."

"I don't know just when she's coming, but she's promised me to have the
Colonel bring her up here. I want to have her see the beauty of the
mountains."

"I'll like him, sure, whether I like her or not."

He was astonished. "But you said you would be sure to love her!"

"Uh-huh; but I'd be surer