And it was nearly an hour later, still, that the Honorable Gid loomed
in the doorway under the honeysuckle vines, a complacent smile
arranged on his huge face and gallantry oozing from every gesture and
pose.
"Why, Mr. Newsome, when did you come? How are you, and I'm glad to see
you!" exclaimed Rose Mary all in one hospitable breath as she beamed
at the Senator across her table with the most affable friendship. Rose
Mary felt in a beaming mood, and the Honorable Gid came under the
shower of her affability.
"Do have that chair by the door, and let me give you a glass of milk,"
she hastened to add as she took up a cup and started for the crocks
with a still greater accession of hospitality. "Sweet or buttermilk?"
she paused to inquire over her shoulder.
"Either handed by you would be sweet" answered the Senator with
praiseworthy ponderosity, and he shook out the smile veil until the
very roots of his hair became agitated.
"Yes, Mr. Rucker says my buttermilk tastes like sweet milk with honey
added," laughed Rose Mary, dimpling from over the tall jar. "He says
that because I always pour cream into it for him, and Mrs. Rucker
won't because she says it is extravagant. But I think a poet ought to
have a dash of cream in his life, if just to make the poetry run
smoother--and orators, too," she added as she poured half a ladleful
of the golden top milk into the foaming glass in her hand and gave it
to the Senator, who received it with a trembling hand and gulped it
down desperately; for this once in his life the Honorable Gideon
Newsome was completely and entirely embarrassed.
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