“Yo' didn't go huntin' me for three years to tell ME, a So'th'n girl, that So'th'n men know how to fight, did yo', co'nnle?” returned the young lady, with the slightest lifting of her head and drooping of her blue-veined lids in a divine hauteur. “They were always ready enough for that, even among themselves. It was much easier for these pooah boys to fight a thing out than think it out, or work it out. Yo' folks in the No'th learned to do all three; that's where you got the grip on us. Yo' look surprised, co'nnle.” “I didn't expect you would look at it--quite in--in--that way,” said Courtland awkwardly. “I am sorry I disappointed yo' after yo' 'd taken such a heap o' trouble,” returned the young lady with a puzzling assumption of humility as she rose and smoothed out her skirts, “but I couldn't know exactly what yo' might be expecting after three years; if I HAD, I might have put on mo'ning.” She stopped and adjusted a straying tendril of her hair with the sharp corner of the dead man's letter. “But I thank yo', all the same, co'nnle. It was real good in yo' to think of toting these things over here.” And she held out her hand frankly. Courtland took it with the sickening consciousness that for the last five minutes he had been an unconscionable ass. He could not prolong the interview after she had so significantly risen. If he had only taken his leave and kept the letter and locket for a later visit, perhaps when they were older friends! It was too late now. He bent over her hand for a moment, again thanked her for her courtesy, and withdrew. A moment later she heard the receding beat of his horse's hoofs on the road. She opened the drawer of a brass-handled cabinet, and after a moment's critical survey of her picture in the dead man's locket, tossed it and the letter into the recesses of the drawer. Then she stopped, removed her little slipper from her foot, looked at THAT, too, thoughtfully, and called “Sophy!” “Miss Sally?” said the girl, reappearing at the door. “Are you sure you did not move that ladder?” “I 'clare to goodness, Miss Sally, I never teched it!” Miss Sally directed a critical glance at her handmaiden's red-coifed head. “No,” she said to herself softly, “it felt nicer than wool, anyway!” CHAPTER III.