Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/258

254 the neighbors had recognized his worth and character. As for Betsy, she was a universal favorite with her gay laughing nature and her ready good-humor.

Spottswood was always hearing her praises sung at the Court House by old and young. It was spoken of as a crying shame that such a girl should not be able to have guests in her own home, but not even Betsy's insouciance could withstand the mortification of having her friends see her father and Mam' Peachy and the unfortunate conditions in her home. It was the one cloud in the sunshine of Betsy's clear sky. Sometimes it seemed very black to the girl but her nature was so sunny, her outlook so gay, that she would quickly dispel the feeling. It was absurd in that big house not to have a parlor where she might receive her friends, but her father used one front room for his bed room and the other was the family sitting room where he sprawled all day and where he saw the persons who came to The Hedges on business. There were two small rooms downstairs in the main part of the house besides the dining room but one of them was Elizabeth's sewing room and the other one was full to overflowing with Rolfe's plunder, watermelon seeds drying on newspapers, old guns and fishing rods, discarded har-