ve
thought it possible to leave me here alone. Perhaps she may be getting
worried now."

Miss Mayfield had calculated over much on Jeff's recumbent position. To
her surprise and slight mortification, he rose instantly to his feet,
and said anxiously,

"Ef you think so, miss, p'raps I'm keeping you here."

"Not at all, Mr. Jeff. Your being here is a sufficient excuse for my
staying," she replied, with the large dignity of a small body.

Jeff, mentally and physically crushed again, came down a little heavier
than before, and reclined humbly at her feet. Second knock-down blow for
Miss Mayfield.

"Come, Mr. Jeff," said the triumphant goddess, in her first voice, "tell
me something about yourself. How do you live here--I mean; what do you
do? You ride, of course--and very well too, I can tell you! But you
know that. And of course that scarf and the silver spurs and the whole
dashing equipage are not intended entirely for yourself. No! Some young
woman is made happy by that exhibition, of course. Well, then, there's
the riding down to see her, and perhaps the riding out with her,
and--what else?"

"Miss Mayfield," said Jeff, suddenly rising above his elbow and his
grammar, "thar isn't no young woman! Thar isn't another soul except
yourself that I've laid eyes on, or cared to see since I've been yer. Ef
my aunt hez been telling ye that--she's--she--she--she--she--lies."

Absolute, undiluted truth, even of a complimentary nature, is
confounding to most women. Miss Mayfield was no exception to her sex.
She first laughed, as she felt she ought to, and properly might with any
other man than Jeff; then she got frightened, and said hurriedly, "No,
no! you misunderstand me. Your aunt has said nothing." And then she
stopped with a pink spot on her cheek-bones. First blood for Jeff!

Now this would never do; it was worse than the butterflies! She rose to
her full height--four feet eleven and a half--and drew her cloak over
her shoulders. "I think I will return to the house," she said quietly;
"I suppose I ought not to overtask my strength."

"You'd better let me go with you, miss," said Jeff submissively.

"I will, on one condition," she said, recovering her archness, with a
little venom in it, I fear. "You were going home, too, when I called to
you. Now, I do not intend to let you leave that bag behind that tree,
and then have to come back for it, just because you feel obliged to
go with me. Bring it with you on one arm,