George Washingtons Last Duel | Page 5

Miss Jemima's start,)--except, of course, by way of example, under certain peculiar circumstances, as I have stated to you." He bowed blandly.
Miss Jemima was speechless, so he pursued.
"I have sometimes been tempted to make a break for liberty, and have thought that if I could once get the rascal on the field, with my old pistols, I would settle with him which of us is the master."
"Do you mean that you would--would shoot him?" gasped Miss Jemima.
"Yes, madam, unless he should be too quick for me," replied the Major, blandly,--"or should order me from the field, which he probably would do."
The old lady turned and hastily left the room.

III.
Though Miss Jemima after this regarded the Major with renewed suspicion, and confided to her niece that she did not feel at all safe with him, the old gentleman was soon on the same terms with Rose that he was on with Margaret herself. He informed her that he was just twenty-five his "last grass," and that he never could, would, or should grow a year older. He notified Jeff and his friend Mr. Lawrence at the table that he regarded himself as a candidate for Miss Endicott's hand, and had "staked" the ground, and he informed her that as soon as he could bring himself to break an oath which he had made twenty years before, never to address another woman, he intended to propose to her. Rose, who had lingered at the table a moment behind the other ladies, assured the old fellow that he need fear no rival, and that if he could not muster courage to propose before she left, as it was leap-year, she would exercise her prerogative and propose herself. The Major, with his hand on his heart as he held the door open for her, vowed as Rose swept past him her fine eyes dancing, and her face dimpling with fun, that he was ready that moment to throw himself at her feet if it were not for the difficulty of getting up from his knees.
A little later in the afternoon Margaret was down among the rose-bushes, where Lawrence had joined her, after Rose had executed that inexplicable feminine manoeuvre of denying herself to oppose a lover's request.
Jeff was leaning against a pillar, pretending to talk to Rose, but listening more to the snatches of song in Margaret's rich voice, or to the laughter which floated up to them from the garden below.
Suddenly he said abruptly, "I believe that fellow Lawrence is in love with Margaret."
Rose insisted on knowing what ground he had for so peculiar an opinion, on which he incontinently charged his friend with being one of "those fellows who falls in love with every pretty girl on whom he lays his eyes," and declared that he had done nothing but hang around Margaret ever since he had come to the county.
What Rose might have replied to this unexpected attack on one whom she reserved for her own especial torture cannot be recorded, for the Major suddenly appeared around the verandah. Both the young people instinctively straightened up.
"Ah! you rascals! I catch you!" he cried, his face glowing with jollity. "Jeff, you'd better look out,--honey catches a heap of flies, and sticks mighty hard. Rose, don't show him any mercy,--kick him, trample on him."
"I am not honey," said Rose, with a captivating look out of her bright eyes.
"Yes, you are. If you are not you are the very rose from which it is distilled."
"Oh, how charming!" cried the young lady. "How I wish some woman could hear that said to me!"
"Don't give him credit before you hear all his proverb," said Jeff. "Do you know what he said in the dining-room?"
"Don't credit him at all," replied the Major. "Don't believe him--don't listen to him. He is green with envy at my success." And the old fellow shook with amusement.
"What did he say? Please tell me." She appealed to Jeff, and then as he was about to speak, seeing the Major preparing to run, she caught him. "No, you have to listen. Now tell me," to Jeff again.
"Well, he said honey caught lots of flies, and women lots of fools."
Rose fell back, and pointing her tapering finger at the Major, who, with mock humility, was watching her closely, declared that she would "never believe in him again." The old fellow met her with an unblushing denial of ever having made such a statement or held such traitorous sentiments, as it was, he maintained, a well established fact that flies never eat honey at all.
From this moment the Major conceived the idea that Jeff had been caught by his fair visitor. It had never occurred to him that any one could aspire to Margaret's hand. He had thought at one time that Jeff was in