"They wont be muffins if you bake 'em in the reflector, Cynthy; they aren't half so good. Ah, do let me! I wont make a bit of muss."
"Where'll you do 'em? "
"In grandpa's room if you'll just clean off the top of the stove for me; now do, Cynthy! I'll do 'em beautifully, and you wont have a bit of trouble. Come!"
"It'll make an awful smoke, Flidda; you'll fill your grandpa's room with the smoke, and he wont like that, I guess. "
"O, he wont mind it," said Fleda. "Will you, grandpa?"
"What, dear?" said Mr. Ringgan, looking up at her from his paper, with a relaxing face which indeed promised to take nothing amiss that she might do.
"Will you mind if I fill your room with smoke?"
"No, dear!" said he, the strong heartiness of his acquiescence almost reaching a laugh; "no, dear! fill it with anything you like!"
There was nothing more to be said; and while Fleda in triumph put on an apron and made her preparations, Cynthy on her part, and with a very good grace, went to get ready the stove; which, being a wood stove, made of sheet iron, with a smooth, even top, afforded, in Fleda's opinion, the very best possible field for muffins to come to their perfection. Now Fleda cared little in comparison for the eating part of the business; her delight was, by the help of her own skill and the stove-top, to bring the muffins to this state of perfection; her greatest pleasure in them was over when they were baked.
A little while had passed. Mr. Ringgan was still busy with his newspaper, Miss Cynthia Gall going in and out on various errands, Fleda shut up in the distant room with the muffins and the smoke; when there came a knock at the door, and Mr. Ringgan's "Come in!" was followed by the entrance of two strangers, young, welldressed, and comely. They wore the usual badges of seekers after game, but their guns were left outside.