Brueton's bayou Author:John Habberton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: theless the bayou was reached much sooner than Thorneway had expected. Black Belle seemed more in haste than the other horses to reach home: so Thorneway was a l... more »ittle in advance when he rode to the front of the house, as seemed to be the custom. The mare suddenly uttered a whinny, and Thorneway, looking up, saw a flutter of white and blue. It was only a white muslin dress and blue ribbon, such as every country girl of the present generation owns, but above them was the face of Velce, and it seemed absolutely illumined at the sight of the returning guest. " The little flirt!" said Thorneway to himself; then he informed himself, with equal earnestness, that she wasn't anything of the sort, for the glee with which she sprang from the piazza and tripped down the slope to meet him was undoubtedly genuine, and so was the welcome in her face. CHAPTER V. AN INTERCHANGE OF VIEWS. " Hyah's de way it is," remarked sable Wike in the morning, as he lay on the floor of the carriage-house, taking care to be in the full rays of the sun. The old man had a few silver coins in his hand, and was moving them from place to place, as if playing a game of solitaire and betting for and against himself. " Dis hyah piece, dat's the brightest uv de lot, dat's Miss Velce, de good Lawd bless her! Dis hyah big piece—reckon it's a dollar—is Mass' Stranger, dat own de lame hoss. Dis udder dollar's de majah. Now, how's de udder fokes gwine to take sides ? S'pose Mass' Brueton go wid de stranger, like it 'peared he wuz gwine ter when I heerd de two uv 'em a-laffin' an' cuttin' up all alone by deyselves on de front po'ch las' night. Guess I'll put him dar. Den dere's de boys. Well, de majah beat Mass' Hurk in de hoss-race las' year, so I reckon Hurk'll stan' by de stranger, ef it hes to be dat away. Mass' R...« less