"Well, big guns of the Estill calibre don't go off on slight occasions," persisted Rob, with his mouth half-full of the adored "stuffing," and as he reached for a tall glass of ruby-colored plum-jelly, Maud quickly said:—
"Won't you have a bit of the cake, Rob?"
"Thanks—yes," said he, as he helped himself to the last solitary quarter of that frosted dainty; "and I would be pleased to taste a morsel of that chicken also," he mumbled.
"What choice, sir?" she asked sarcastically.
"The running-gears, if you please," he replied with polite gravity.
With a gesture of scorn and disgust, Maud passed him the carcass of the fowl; then, after filling a large platter with crusts, bones, and egg-shells, she placed them before him with the injunction to help himself. Retiring to the window, she watched him devour cake, chicken, jam, and potatoes with an appetite that knew no discrimination.
"I am afraid you have not done justice to my dishes," she said, as Rob at length arose from the table.
"Oh, now don't give us any more sarcasm," said he, while picking his teeth with a broom-split. "It is so long from breakfast to noon, Maud, that I just get faint waiting on that slow old dinner-bell."
"No doubt; but you remember how ravenously hungry you were last week, when the pup got the bell-rope in his mouth and summoned you in from the field at nine in the morning," she retorted, laughingly.
"Well, that was a cloudy day," he said, good-naturedly; then, taking his straw hat from its hook on the porch, he hurried away to the field.