"I'm so glad to see you.I've just tired poor mother out--I'm always tiring people out--and she's gone back to the house to write letters.
Sit down,Mr.Jeff,do,please!"
Jeff,feeling uncomfortably large in Miss Mayfield's presence,painfully seated himself on the edge of a very low stone,which had the effect of bringing his knees up on a level with his chin,and affected an ease glaringly simulated.
"Or lie down,there,Mr.Jeff--it is so comfortable."Jeff,with a dreadful conviction that he was crashing down like a falling pine-tree,managed at last to acquire a recumbent position at a respectful distance from the little figure.
"There,isn't it nice?"
"Yes,Miss Mayfield."
"But,perhaps,"said Miss Mayfield,now that she had him down,"perhaps you too have got something to do.Dear me!I'm like that naughty boy in the story-book,who went round to all the animals,in turn,asking them to play with him.He could only find the butterfly who had nothing to do.I don't wonder he was disgusted.I hate butterflies."Love clarifies the intellect!Jeff,astonished at himself,burst out,"Why,look yer,Miss Mayfield,the butterfly only hez a day or two to--to--to live and--be happy!"Miss Mayfield crossed her knees again,and instantly,after the sublime fashion of her sex,scattered his intellect by a swift transition from the abstract to the concrete."But you're not a butterfly,Mr.Jeff.You're always doing something.You've been hunting.""No-o!"said Jeff,scarlet,as he thought of his gun in pawn at the "Summit.""But you do hunt;I know it."
"How?"
"You shot those quail for me the morning after I came.I heard you go out--early--very early.""Why,you allowed you slept so well that night,Miss Mayfield.""Yes;but there's a kind of delicious half-sleep that sick people have sometimes,when they know and are gratefully conscious that other people are doing things for them,and it makes them rest all the sweeter."There was a dead silence.Jeff,thrilling all over,dared not say anything to dispel his delicious dream.Miss Mayfield,alarmed at his readiness with the butterfly illustration,stopped short.They both looked at the prospect,at the distant "Summit Hotel"--a mere snow-drift on the mountain--at the clear sunlight on the barren plateau,at the bleak,uncompromising "Half-way House,"and said nothing.
"I ought to be very grateful,"at last began Miss Mayfield,in quite another voice,and a suggestion that she was now approaching real and profitable conversation,"that I'm so much better.This mountain air has been like balm to me.I feel I am growing stronger day by day.
I do not wonder that you are so healthy and so strong as you are,Mr.Jeff."Jeff,who really did not know before that he was so healthy,apologetically admitted the fact.At the same time,he was miserably conscious that Miss Mayfield's condition,despite her ill health,was very superior to his own.
"A month ago,"she continued reflectively,"my mother would never have 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.