Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/114

110 the child. They will like her, I am sure, and it will mean something to the little thing to have a friend like Betsy." He looked upon his sister with admiration and affection. Betsy had been not much older than Rebecca when he left home and now she was a grown girl, pretty beyond belief, with a complexion like a Cherokee rose and grey eyes that twinkled like waters on a starry night.

"Oh, fine!" exclaimed Betsy. "I'd like to see somebody besides the cows and the pigs and old Mam' Peachy. I won't mind a bit being older than Rebecca. I'm mortal afraid of old Major Taylor and his stuck-up daughters, but I think Mr. Spot Taylor is as handsome as a king. He took a stone out of the grey colt's foot only last Sunday, and he was as politeful as could be."

"Polite!" corrected her mother, smiling at her daughter's enthusiasm.

"But he was more than polite."

"Mind out! Mind out!" cackled Aunt Peachy. "Them Taylor men ain't ter be trusted. They has a way er lovin' low an' marryin' high. Not that the Bolling blood ain't mo' fittin' than any er that there Taylor blood. They ain't no better'n mountain po' whites ter start wif. I hates the whole passel er them. I