you to come sneaking into my kitchen at this hour in
the morning. You ought to be in bed."

A note of friendliness in her voice led him to open the door a little
wider.

"You're up too early, Clemmie."

"I've got a lot of work to do."

"If you ain't too busy, I'd like awful well to speak to you about
something."

"Well, I am busy, leastwise too busy to be bothered with your
nonsense."

"It ain't foolishness this time."

Something in his tone made her look up into the face framed in the crack
of the door.

"Josiah!" she cried at sight of the drawn features.

He threw open the door and entered.

"Mr. McGowan ain't sick this morning, is he?" she asked.

"No. Leastwise he wa'n't when I passed the time of night or early
morning with him on my way to bed."

"Are you sick, Josiah?"

"What I got might be called that, Clemmie. I'm sick of the hull damn
round of life," he said, despondently.

"Josiah Pott! How you do talk! What do you mean by it, anyhow?"

"Purty much as I say. I'm always bungling things of late. I--well----"

"Now, you set down in that chair, and stop staring at me for all the
world like an old wood-owl, 'most scaring the wits out of me. One would
think you'd gone clean out of your head. I never heard you talk so in
all my born days. If you ain't sick, you're in a heap of trouble. Now,
do as I tell you and set down. Tell me what's wrong, that is if that's
what you come down for."

"That's why I come down, Clemmie," he said, slouching into one of the
kitchen chairs. "I heerd you come down-stairs, and I just had to follow.
Fust of all, I want to tell you how bad I feel about them things I said
yesterday morning that hurt your feelings so."

"For the lan' sakes! Be that what's ailing you? I thought it was
something that amounted to something," she declared, the color rising
into her faded cheeks.

"That does amount to something. It means a lot to me. That ain't all,
but I wanted to get it off my chest fust. I was never intending less to
hurt nobody than when I said that to you. I thought 'twould cheer you
and Mack up a little; you was both looking a mite blue. You're a good
woman, Clemmie, and any man that'd insult you would have me to settle
with purty tolerable quick. You know how much I think of you."

"Be you beginning to propose again?" she asked, her arms akimbo. "If
that's what's ailing you, and you're asking my pardon just to get ready
to ask me----"

"Don't get mad, Clemmie. N