When Woodward bade Puss good-bye, she looked at him sympathetically and said-- "Sometime when youer passin' by, I'd be mighty thankful ef you 'ud fetch me some maccaboy snuff." The young man, unhappy as he was, was almost ready to accuse Mrs. Poteet of humour, and he rode off with a sort of grim desire to laugh at himself and the rest of the world. The repose of the mountain fretted him; the vague blue mists that seemed to lift the valleys into prominence and carry the hills further away, tantalised him; and the spirit of spring, just touching the great woods with a faint suggestion of green, was a mockery. There was a purpose--a decisiveness--in the stride of his horse that he envied, and yet he was inclined to resent the swift amiability with which the animal moved away. But it was a wise steed, for when it came upon Sis Poteet standing by the side of the road, it threw up its head and stopped. Woodward lifted his hat, and held it in his hand. She gave him one little glance, and then her eyes drooped. "I wanted to ask you something," she said, pulling a dead leaf to pieces. Her air of humility was charming. She hesitated a moment, but Woodward was too much astonished to make any reply. "Are you very mad?" she asked with bewitching inconsequence. "Why should _I_ be mad, Miss Sis? I am glad you have given me the opportunity to ask your pardon for coming up here to worry you." "I wanted to ask you if pap--I mean, if father went to Atlanta to see you," she said, her eyes still bent upon the ground. "He said he wanted to see me on business," Woodward replied. "Did he say anything about me?" "Not that I remember. He never said anything about his business even," Woodward went on. "I told him about some of my little troubles, and when he found I was coming back here, he seemed to forget all about his own business. I suppose he saw that I wouldn't be much interested in anybody else's business but my own just then." Sis lifted her head and looked steadily at Woodward. A little flush appeared in her cheeks, and mounted to her forehead, and then died away. "Pap doesn't understand--I mean he doesn't understand everything, and I was afraid he had----Why do you look at me so?" she exclaimed, stopping short, and blushing furiously. "I ask your pardon," said the young man; "I was trying to catch your meaning. You say you were afraid your father----" "Oh, I am not afraid now. Don't you think the weather is nice?" Woodward was a little puzzled, but he was not embarrassed. He swung himself off his horse and stood beside her. "I told your father," he said, drawing very near to the puzzling creature that had so wilfully eluded him--"I told your father that I was coming up here to ask his daughter to marry me. What does the daughter say?" She looked up in his face. The earnestness she saw there dazzled and conquered her. Her head drooped lower, and she clasped her hands together. He changed his tactics. "Is it really true, then, that you hate me?"