doughty colonel, lover of god horses, barred from racing by his love for
Frank's inexorable aunt.

But the other members of the party he had told about--the Holtons--she
was not so sure that she would care for them. Frank, himself, when he
had told her of them, had spoken of the father without much enthusiasm,
and she felt quite sure that she could never like the daughter. She had
noticed, she believed, that when it came to talk of her her friend had
hesitated with embarrassment. Could it be possible that this young lady
who had had the chances she, herself, had been denied, for education and
for everything desirable, would seem to him, when she appeared upon the
scene, less lovely, less desirable, than a simple little mountain maid
like poor Madge Brierly? The thought seemed quite incredible and the
worry of it quite absorbed her for a time and drove away forebodings
about the possible hatred of Joe Lorey for Layson and his possible
expression of resentment. She even ceased her wonderings about the
footsteps which had gone down the road, that morning, and which, so far
as she could see, had not come back again.




CHAPTER VI


They were, indeed, the great imprints of Joe Lorey's hob-nailed boots,
quite as she suspected. Long before the sun had risen the young
mountaineer, distressed by worries which had made his night an almost
sleepless one, had risen and wandered from his little cabin, lonelier in
its far solitude, even than the girl's. For a time he had crouched upon