CHAPTER IX.
UP RATTLESNAKE "I should think we might, I'm sure," said Joy pausing, with a crisp bit of halibut on her fork, just midway between her plate and her lips.
"You needn't shake your head so, Mother Breynton," said Gypsy, her great brown eyes pleading over her teacup with their very most irresistible twinkle.

"Now it isn't the slightest trouble to say yes, and you can just as well say it now as any other time, you know." "But it really seems to me a little dangerous, Gypsy,--up over those mountain roads on livery-stable horses." "But Tom says it isn't a bit dangerous, and Tom's been up it forty times.

Rattlesnake has the best roads of any of the mountains round here, and there are fences by all the precipices, Tom said, didn't you, Tom ?" "No," said Tom, coolly.

"There isn't a fence.

There are logs in some places, and in some there aren't." "Oh, what a bother you are! Well, any way it's all the same, and I'm not a bit afraid of stable horses.