"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."