“I can’t help it, honey, when that girl goes on as she does!”
“Would you have such fears for a boy?”
“Lord, no! My nephews, Ralph’s boys, go hunting almost every day and keep the hotel down there at Wolf’s Gap supplied with game; but they are boys.”
“Well, and she’s a girl.”
“But they know how to take care of themselves.”
“And so does she, I have no doubt, a great deal better than they do. I like Philly. I am sure I shall like her very much. Where is she now?”
“Oh, gone out with her gun and dogs. What do I tell you? When she isn’t about some mischief she is dreaming of it.”
“I am her debtor for a delicious breakfast. I will not hear her blamed. I like Phil better the more I think of her. I admire her all the more for having such a dauntless spirit in such a little, fragile body.”
Gloria had scarcely spoken these words when there was a sudden and tumultuous entrance of a girl in a cap, jacket, short skirt, and long boots, with a game-bag slung over her shoulders, a fowling-piece in her hands, and a couple of dogs at her heels.
She set her gun down with a ringing clank in the corner, then pulled her game-bag off and threw it on the floor at the feet of the old lady, exclaiming: