"I should 'rile' you, too, if I were with you long, for I get 'riled' myself sometimes." "Do you, now?" asked Mr. Tuggar, looking at her admiringly. "Well, I'm mighty glad to hear it." "O Daddy! glad to hear that I do wrong?" "Can't help it, Miss Annie. I kinder like to know you're a little bit of a sinner. 'Tain't often I meet with a sinner, and I kind o' like 'em. My wife says she's a 'great sinner,' but she means she's a great saint. 'Twouldn't do for me to tell her she's a 'sinner.' Then Miss Eulie says she's a 'great sinner,' and between you and me that's the only fib I ever caught Miss Eulie in. Good Lord! there's no more sin in Miss Eulie's heart than there is specks of dirt on the little white ruff she wears about her neck that looks like the snow we had last April around the white hyacinths. She's kind of a half-sperit anyhow. Now your goodness, Miss Annie, is another kind. Your cheeks are so red, and eyes so black, and arms so round and fat--I've seen 'em when you was over here a-beatin' up good things for the old man--that you make me think of red and pink posies. I kinder think you might be a little bit of a sinner--just enough, you know, to make you understand how I and him there can be mighty big ones, and not be too hard on us for it." "Mr. Tuggar, you are the man of all others to plead my cause." "Now look here, young gentleman, you must do yer own pleadin'. It would be a 'sinful waste of time' though, as my wife would say--eh, Miss Annie? I never had no luck at pleadin' but once, and that was the worst luck of all." Annie's face might well suggest "red posies" during the last remarks, and its expression was divided between a frown and a laugh. "But I want you to understand," continued Daddy Tuggar, straightening himself up with dignity, and addressing Gregory, "that I'm not a mean cuss. All who know me know I'm a well-meanin' man. I try to do as I'd be done by. If I'm going through a man's field and find his bars down, so the cattle would get in the corn, I'd put 'em up--" "Yes, Daddy, that is what you always say," interrupted Annie; "but you can't go through the fields any more and put up bars. You should try to do the duties that belong to your present state."