d
with sand and muddy tracks gave him an excuse to give vent to his cross
feelings.

It was one of his theories that a little girl should always be kept as
fresh and dainty as a flower. He had never seen his own little daughter
in such a plight as this, and she had never been allowed to step outside
of her own room without her shoes and stockings.

"What does your mother mean," he cried, savagely, "by letting you run
barefooted around the country just like poor white trash? An' what are
you playing with low-flung niggers for? Haven't you ever been taught any
better? I suppose it's some of your father's miserable Yankee notions."

May Lilly, peeping around the corner of the house, rolled her frightened
eyes from one angry face to the other. The same temper that glared from
the face of the man, sitting erect in his saddle, seemed to be burning
in the eyes of the child, who stood so defiantly before him. The same
kind of scowl drew their eyebrows together darkly.

"Don't you talk that way to me," cried the Little Colonel, trembling
with a wrath she did not know how to express.

Suddenly she stooped, and snatching both hands full of mud from the
overturned pie, flung it wildly over the spotless white coat.

Colonel Lloyd gasped with astonishment. It was the first time in his
life he had ever been openly defied. The next moment his anger gave way
to amusement.

"By George!" he chuckled, admiringly. "The little thing has got spirit,
sure enough. She's a Lloyd through and through. So that's why they call
her the 'Little Colonel,' is it?"

There was a tinge of pride in the look he gave her haughty little head
and flashing eyes. "There, there, child!" he said, soothingly. "I didn't
mean to make you mad, when you were good enough to come and see me. It
isn't often I have a little lady like you pay me a visit."

"I didn't come to see you, suh," she answered, indignantly, as she
started toward the gate. "I came to see May Lilly. But I nevah would
have come inside yo' gate if I'd known you was goin' to hollah at me an'
be so cross."

She was walking off with the air of an offended queen, when the Colonel
remembered that if he allowed her to go away in that mood she would
probably never set foot on his grounds again. Her display of temper had
interested him immensely.

Now that he had laughed off his ill humour, he was anxious to see what
other traits of character she possessed. He wheeled his horse across the
walk to b