. Of another:
"Oh! Oh! honey, he won't do. He ain't our kind." Or, "Betty, let him go,
my Lamb. De Frenches don't pick up dat kine o' stick."
Happily for Cabell Graeme, he had the old woman's approval. In the first
place, he was related to the Frenches, and this in her eyes was a
patent of gentility. Then, he had always been kind to little Betty and
particularly civil to herself. He not only never omitted to ask after
her health, but also inquired as to her pet ailments of "misery in her
foot" and "whirlin' in her head," with an interest which flattered her
deeply. But it went further back than that Once, when Betty was a little
girl, Cabell, then a well-grown boy of twelve, had found her and her
mammy on the wrong side of a muddy road, and wading through, he had
carried Betty across, and then wading back, had offered to carry Mam'
Lyddy over, too.
"Go way f'om heah, boy, you can't carry me."
"Yes, I can, Mam' Lyd-
dy. You don't know how strong I am." He squared
himself for the feat.
She laughed at him, and with a flash in his gray eyes he suddenly
grabbed her.
"I 'll show you."
There was quite a scuffle. She was too heavy for him, but he won her
friendship then and there, and as he grew up straight and sturdy, the
friendship ripened. That he teased her and laughed at her did not in the
least offend her. No one else could have taken such a liberty with
her, but Cabell's references to old Caesar's declining health, and his
innuendoes whenever she was "fixed up" that she was "looking around" in
advance only amused her. It made no difference to her that he was poor,
while several others of Betty's beaux were rich. He was "a gent'man,"
and she was an aristocrat.
At times they had pitched battles, but each knew that the other was an
ally.
Cabell won his final victory by an audacity which few would have dared
venture on. Among h-