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Miss Mayfield uttered a faint sigh. He looked into her anxious cheeks and eyes, his arm stole round her; their lips met for the first time in one long lingering kiss. Then, I fear, for the second time. "Jeff," said Miss Mayfield, suddenly becoming practical and sweetly possessory, "you must have your hands bound up in cotton." "Yes," said Jeff cheerfully. "And you must go instantly to bed."
With one of those rare impulses of an overtasked gentle nature, Jeff turned upon her almost savagely. "My father was a gambler, and shot himself at a gambling table." Miss Mayfield rose hurriedly. "I I beg your pardon, Mr. Jeff." Jeff was silent. "You know you MUST know I did not mean " No reply. "Mr. Jeff!"
Ah, hah, and they tell me you air preachin' the gospel now. Which one o' the gospels air you preachin', Luke or John? Wall, no diffunce, either of 'em is good enough, I reckon. I never tried to preach." "I wish you'd try to look over your stock of mail matter," said Tom. "I'll do that, too. What was the other name. Mayfield? Well, that's a familiar name to me.
Briggs!" said Miss Mayfield plaintively, "don't, please don't spoil the best compliment I've had in many a year. You thought I was a child, I know, and well, you find," she said audaciously, suddenly bringing her black eyes to bear on him like a rifle, "you find well?" What Jeff thought was inaudible but not invisible.
Jeff! I ought not to have walked down here alone. I'm very, very tired, and so so miserable." What woman could withstand the anguish of that honest boyish face? I fear Miss Mayfield could, for she looked at him over her handkerchief, and said: "Perhaps you had something to say to your friend, and I've sent him off."
It was an infelicitous act of precaution, for at that very moment Miss Mayfield slowly passed beneath its open window, and seeing her chair in the sunny angle, dropped into it for rest and possibly meditation. Consequently she overheard every word of the following colloquy.
Murray said he had, unseen, witnessed the marriage of Thurston Willcoxen and Marian. That spring, eight years before, she knew Mr. Willcoxen and Miss Mayfield had been together on a visit to the capital. Thurston had gone to Europe, Marian had returned home, but had never seemed the same since her visit to the city.
"Of course you can stay as long as you want to," said Jasper, "but I reckon you'll have to put on some homespun and a checked hickory shirt or two, befo' you kin put up with our fare." "Now, please, don't worry about that," Mrs. Mayfield spoke up. "We can eat parched corn if necessary. We have come from the city to rest, and " "Rest," Jasper broke in, looking at the young fellow.
"Mebbee he's drunk," said Bill audibly; "a drop or two afore breakfast sometimes upsets his kind." "I was saying, Bill," said Mr. Mayfield, becoming utterly limp and weak again under Bill's cold gray eyes, "that I've changed my mind, and shall stop here awhile. My daughter seems already benefited by the change. You can take my traps from the boot and leave them here."
He rose up before her, his old bashful, stammering, awkward self. "I didn't know YOU lived here, Miss Mayfield." "If you had sent word you were coming," said Miss Mayfield, recovering her color brightly in one cheek. The possibility of having sent a messenger in advance to advise Miss Mayfield of his projected visit did not strike Jeff as ridiculous.
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