“Do you really care?” he cried, pressing the fluttering little hand in both of his. She lifted up her face, the soft brown eyes swimming in tears. “I wouldn't mind,” she replied, half laughing and half sobbing--“I wouldn't mind at all about the pedigree, and I know you're not an old selling-plater; but if you were, I am very sure that I would care for you.” The Lexington meeting was over, and the horsemen were scattered far and wide, from Chicago to Sheepshead Bay. Colonel Bill alone remained behind. As the days passed and he made no preparation to depart, old Elias's irritation grew apace, and the lives of the stable-boys under the increasing rigor of his rule became almost unendurable. The Colonel, however, saw very little of Elias or the stable-boys. Even his beloved horses no longer interested him. He passed the days walking the streets of Lexington, hoping by some chance to meet Miss Braxton, and it was not until late at night that he returned to the race-track, foot-sore and disappointed. He had been too deeply wounded and was too proud to make any further effort to visit the Elms, and he thought it would be unmanly and ungenerous to ask Miss Braxton to meet him away from her father's house. In the mean time the old General's wrath increased as the days passed. He was unused to any kind of opposition, and the Colonel's persistence irritated him beyond measure. The dream of his life was a brilliant marriage for his daughter, and no amount of argument could alter his opinion that Colonel Bill was a rude, unlettered stable-man. “Why, sir,” he would exclaim, over a mint-julep, to his friend Major Johnson, who always defended the Colonel vigorously, “the idea of such attentions to my daughter is preposterous--ludicrous! I will not permit it, sir--not for one moment. If he persists in annoying my family, sir,” and the purple hue of the General's face deepened, “I would no more hesitate to shoot him--no more, by gad!--than I would a rattlesnake.” After the fourth or fifth julep he did not always confine his conversation to his friend, and so his threats often found their way back to the object of his wrath, losing nothing by the journey. Although the Colonel's disposition was the sunniest, the strain to which he was being subjected was telling on his nerves, and once or twice he replied sharply to the tale-bearers. The little city was soon excited over the quarrel, and every movement of the principals was eagerly noted.