"Agatha?" repeated Betty.
"Mrs. Peabody," explained Mr. Gordon. "She and I went to school together. Last year I happened to run across her brother out in the mines. He told me that Agatha had married, rather well, I understood, and was living on a fine, large farm. What did he say they called their place? 'Bramble Farm'—yes, that's it."
"Bramble Farm," echoed Betty. "It sounds like wild roses, doesn't it, Uncle Dick? But suppose Mrs. Peabody doesn't want me to come to live with her?"
"Bless your heart, child, this is no permanent arrangement!" exclaimed her uncle vigorously. "You're my girl, and mighty proud I am to have such a bonny creature claiming kin with me. I've knocked about a good bit, and sometimes the going has been right lonesome."
He seemed to have forgotten the subject of Bramble Farm for the moment, and something in his voice made Betty put out a timid hand and stroke his coat sleeve silently.
"All right, dear," he declared suddenly, throwing off the serious mood with the quick shift that Betty was to learn was characteristic of him. "If your old bachelor uncle had the slightest idea where he would be two weeks from now, he'd take you with him and not let you out of his sight. But I don't know; though I strongly suspect, and it's no place to take a young lady to. However, if we can fix it up with Agatha for you to spend the summer with her, perhaps matters will shape up better in the fall. I'll tell her to get you fattened up a bit; she ought to have plenty of fresh eggs and milk."
Betty made a wry face.
"I don't want to be fat, Uncle Dick," she protested. "I remember a fat girl in school, and she had an awful time. Is Mrs. Peabody old?"
Mr. Gordon laughed.
"That's a delicate question," he admitted. "She's some three or four years younger than I, I believe, and I'm forty-two. Figure it out to suit yourself."