The Major read the letter aloud to his wife while she sat knitting by the fireside, with Mitty holding the ball of yarn on a footstool at her feet. “What do you think of that, Molly?” he asked when he had finished, his voice quivering with excitement. “Red pepper plasters!” returned the old lady, contemptuously. “As if I hadn't been making them for Cupid for the last twenty years. Red pepper plasters, indeed! Why, they're no better than mustard ones. I reckon I've made enough of them to know.” “I don't mean that, Molly,” explained the Major, a little crestfallen. “I was speaking of the letter. That's a fine letter, now, isn't it?” “It might be worse,” admitted Mrs. Lightfoot, coolly; “but for my part, I don't care to have my grandson upon terms of equality with any of that rascal Jones's blood. Why, the man whips his servants.” “But he isn't upon any terms, my dear. He refused to shake hands with him, didn't you hear that? Perhaps I'd better read the letter again.” “That is all very well, Mr. Lightfoot,” said his wife, clicking her needles, “but it can't prevent his being in classes with him, all the same. And I am sure, if I had known the University was so little select, I should have insisted upon sending him to Oxford, where his great-grandfather went before him.” “Good gracious, Molly! You don't wish the lad was across the ocean, do you?” “It matters very little where he is so long as he is a gentleman,” returned the old lady, so sharply that Mitty began to unwind the worsted rapidly. “Nonsense, Molly,” protested the Major, irritably, for he could not stand opposition upon his own hearth-rug. “The boy couldn't be hurt by sitting in the same class with the devil himself--nor could Champe, for that matter. They are too good Lightfoots.” “I am not uneasy about Champe,” rejoined his wife. “Champe has never been humoured as Dan has been, I'm glad to say.” The Major started up as red as a beet. “Do you mean that I humour him, madam?” he demanded in a terrible voice. “Do pray, Mr. Lightfoot, you will frighten Mitty to death,” said his wife, reprovingly, “and it is really very dangerous for you to excite yourself so--you remember the doctor cautioned you against it.” And, by the time the Major was thoroughly depressed, she skilfully brought out her point. “Of course you spoil the child to death. You know it as well as I do.” The Major, with the fear of apoplexy in his mind, had no answer on his tongue, though a few minutes later he showed his displeasure by ordering his horse and riding to Uplands to talk things over with the Governor. “I am afraid Molly is breaking,” he thought gloomily, as he rode along. “She isn't what she was when I married her fifty years ago.” But at Uplands his ill humour was dispelled. The Governor read the letter and declared that Dan was a fine lad, “and I'm glad you haven't spoiled him, Major,” he said heartily. “Yes, they're both fine lads and do you honour.”