with a quick turn of her strong, slender wrist slapped and patted
chunk after chunk of the butter into a more compressed form. The
sleeves of her dress were rolled almost to her shoulders and under the
white, moist flesh of her arms the fine muscles showed plainly. The
strong curves of her back and shoulders bent and sprung under the
graceful sweep of her arms and her round breasts rose and fell with
quickened breath from her energetic movements.

"Now, you're making me work _too_ hard," she laughed; and she panted
as she rested her hand for a second against the edge of the bowl and
looked up at Everett from under a black tendril curl that had fallen
down across her forehead.

"Miss Rose Mary Alloway, you are one large, husky--witch," calmly
remarked the hungry man as he finished disposing of the last half of
one of the thin bread and butters. "Here I sit enchanted by--by a
butter-paddle, when you and I both know that not two miles across the
meadows there runs a train that ought to put me into New York in a
little over forty-eight hours. Won't you, won't you let me go--back to
my frantic and imploring employers?"

"Why no, I can't," answered Rose Mary as she pressed a yellow cake of
butter on to a blue plate and deftly curled it up with her paddle into
a huge yellow sunflower. "Uncle Tucker captured you roaming loose out
in his fields and he trusts you to me while he is at work and I must
keep you safe. He's fond of you and so are the Aunties and Stonewall
Jackson and Shoofly and Sniffer and--"

"And anybody else?" demanded Everett, preparing to dispose of the last
bite.