“Yes, miss! You know I reckoned—at least what your father said, made me kalkilate that you”—
Miss Mayfield, still smiling, knitted her brows and went on: “I slept so well last night,” she said gratefully, “and feel so much better this morning, that I ventured out. I seem to be drinking in health in this clear sunlight.”
“Certainly miss. As I was sayin', your father says his daughter is in the coach; and Bill says, says he to me, 'I'll pack—I'll carry the old—I'll bring up Mrs. Mayfield, if you'll bring up the daughter;' and when we come to the coach I saw you asleep—like in the corner, and bein' small, why miss, you know how nat'ral it is, I”—
“Oh, Mr. Jeff! Mr. 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. Miss Mayfield saw enough of it in his eye to protest with a faint color in her cheek. Thus does Nature betray itself to Nature the world over.
The color faded. “It's a dreadful thing to be so weak and helpless, and to put everybody to such trouble, isn't it, Mr. Jeff? I beg your pardon—your aunt calls you Jeff.”
“Please call me Jeff,” said Jeff, to his own surprise rapidly gaining courage. “Everybody calls me that.”
Miss Mayfield smiled. “I suppose I must do what everybody does. So it seems that we are to give you the trouble of keeping us here until I get better or worse?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Therefore I won't detain you now. I only wanted to thank you for your gentleness last night, and to assure you that the bear-skin did not give me my death.”