“Mr. Paine, I am not on horseback now and you can't hold my bridle as you did Don's. If you will fill the coffee pot and put it on to boil. Thank you. I am glad to see that even you obey orders, sometimes.” I had cooked fish in out-of-door fashion often before, but I am quite sure I never took such pains as I did with these. They were not culinary triumphs, even at that, but my guest was kind enough to pronounce them delicious. The lunch basket contained two plates, but only one knife and fork. These I insisted upon her using and I got on very well with sharpened sticks and a spoon. The coffee was--well, it had one qualification, strength. We conversed but little during the meal. The young lady said she was too hungry to talk and I was so confounded with the strangeness of the whole affair that I was glad to be silent. Sitting opposite me, eating Dorinda's doughnuts and apple puffs and the fish that I--_I_ had cooked, was “Big Jim” Colton's daughter, the automobile girl, the heiress, the “incarnation of snobbery,” the young lady whose father I had bidden go to the devil and to whom, in company with the rest of the family, I had many times mentally extended the same invitation. And now we were picnicing together as if we were friends of long standing. Why, Nellie Dean could not appear more unpretentious and unconscious of social differences than this girl to-day! What would her parents say if they saw us like this? What would Captain Jed, and the rest of those in rebellion against the Emperor of New York, say? That I was a traitor, hand and glove with the enemy. Well, I was not; and I did not intend to be. But for her to-- She interrupted my meditations. “Mr. Paine,” she observed, suddenly, “you will excuse my mentioning it, but you are distinctly not entertaining. You have not spoken a word for five minutes. And you are not attending to my needs. The apple puffs are on your side of the--table.” I hastened to pass the paper containing the puffs. “I beg your pardon,” I said, hurriedly. “I--I was daydreaming, I guess.” “So I imagined. I forgive you; this lunch would tempt me to forgive greater sins than yours. Did that delightful old housekeeper of yours cook all these nice things?” “She did. So you think Dorinda delightful, do you?” “Yes. She is so sincere and good-hearted. And so odd and bright and funny. I could listen to her for hours.” “Humph! Well, if you were a member of her household you would have that privilege often. I doubt if her husband considers it such a privilege.” “Her husband? Oh, yes! I met him. He is a character, too, isn't he?” “Yes; a weak one.” She put down her coffee cup and sighed, contentedly. “I think I never tasted anything so good as this lunch,” she observed. “And I'm quite sure I never ate so much at one sitting. I am going to help you clear away, but please don't ask me to do it just now. Have you finished? You may smoke, if you like.”