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spectra 25️ a respected betting brand, stands out among Asian bookmakers and attracts a large number of players.⭐️ Nancy had jumped on a chair, and when Jethro pranced up to her again she promptly boxed his ear. The blow, delivered with such a soft paw, could not have been very severe, but the feelings of the pup were badly hurt. He did not yelp, but his brown eyes grew solemn and wistful and he ceased his antics. He put his forepaws on the rung of the chair and looked long and appealingly at Nancy. The cat sat down, her paws doubled under her, and apparently remained quite unmoved. But her heart may have been touched more than an observer would imagine, because from that time, she gradually grew more tolerant towards the pup. Now they were very good friends.,“Here, here! You mustn’t do that,” Billy gently coaxed, rising and taking her hand. “You’ll make me draw salt water, too. And it don’t help, you know. I’ll tell you what—you can work some, gather the flowers. I’ll show you how. Mother puts ’em fresh in all the rooms for Sunday.” He bustled her up the terrace steps, brought scissors and basket, and, starting her on her pleasant task, began to mow the lawn.,“He must have gone to Clarence in the barn,” concluded Maria, setting off at a run.,Several others were summoned and returned with remarkable reports. At last two high-pitched little voices called in concert down the[160] stair: “The Royal Seeress will rend the veil of futurity for William Bennett.”,There was a half-grown calf with an artificial hump for the “Water Buffalo”; and Harry and Clarence were cunningly strapped together for the Siamese Twins.，“You never give my cats a chance,” Billy complained.，On the wall hung a gilt-framed portrait, which rumor said represented Ebenezer Wopp, a wreath of carefully made wax flowers, a silver coffin-plate framed and bearing the name and date of demise of Mr. Wopp’s mother, and two or three colored chromos.，Nell Gordon’s eyes were wet with something else than mirth when Betty entered the house later with her pet in her arms. She had heard of the assault upon the innocent Moses and Jethro and resolved to assist mightily in the smiting of the Philistines. She also held a private consultation with her purse and decided to send off at once to a popular mail-order house for a pair of trousers for Moses of a distinctly different cut from those that had been his undoing.He was not more inquisitive than other boys, yet the mystery, the many uncanny tales told of the old house, fired him with a desire to know its secrets. Long before he was born a murder had left its stain there. The owners, suspected but unconvicted, moved away; and for years the house stared vacantly at passers. The coming of the Italians had only increased its bad name. Late travellers on the lonely road declared that shadowy forms and flickering lights passed the lower windows and down into the cavernous basement; yet no sounds ever came from behind the barred doors.

CHAPTER IX RED GOOSE FLESH,LITTLE by little they learned something of May Nell’s story. Her mother had intended to start for New York on the morning of the earthquake, having been called there by her own mother’s illness. Mrs. Smith, though held to the last by household business, had let her little daughter go to visit a widowed aunt and cousin, who lived in a down-town hotel, and who were to bring May Nell to meet her mother at the Ferry Building the next morning. But where at night had stood the hotel with its many human lives housed within, the next morning’s sunshine fell upon a heap of ruins burning fiercely. A stranger rescued May Nell, though her aunt and cousin had to be left behind, pinned to their fiery death.,On the wall hung a gilt-framed portrait, which rumor said represented Ebenezer Wopp, a wreath of carefully made wax flowers, a silver coffin-plate framed and bearing the name and date of demise of Mr. Wopp’s mother, and two or three colored chromos.,Billy organized a real estate syndicate, and sold lots to the Gang, “with or without liability to assessment, as the purchaser prefers.” A Board of Trade was organized to which all promised to defer, except Jimmy, who smiled in disdain. He leased the railroad and did a thriving carrying trade, timber for fencing and warehouses, dirt for filling, and so on; and was fast becoming “the millionaire of the crowd,” when the “Board” met and decided he should cut his tariff in half or leave the syndicate; and as Jimmy was heartily interested in the game, he accepted their decision and no longer smiled at the Board of Trade.,“Do you know that piece of music called ‘The Rose of Larst Summer’?” inquired the musical connoisseur.,“Moses, I hear yer Par comin’ with the hay,” announced Mrs. Wopp, suddenly. “You’ll hev to go help him with it.”,“Yes, yes, marmsey; but there’s night shops where a fellow can gobble education by the hunk, you know, and—” He paused. Even his own mother didn’t know the pang in his heart when he thought of Jean and Jimmy, and the others, going on together through the high school, perhaps the university.,“No ‘chase’ to-day, girls. I’ve got business in town.”,“Lady of the Lake?” she finished quickly in a question. “Do you know that, too? I love it.”,Yet the impression of the night had been deep enough to wake him before the sun rose. He dressed quickly, astonished the chickens with an early breakfast; put fresh sand in the coop; climbed the windmill tower to oil the bearings of the big wheel; and put the lawn mower in order, but remembered in time that to use it would wake the sleepers.,At this point Superintendent Stolway rang the bell for general assembly. As she drew the curtains, Mrs. Wopp reflected that she had nobly pumped from the well of truth, crystal waters for the mental refreshment of her scholars.,The gentle words, the tender touch, the comfort and hope in her words, unlocked his lips and he told what he had thought to keep forever untold..