"Let me get it for you," I replied, turning back with her.
"You can't get it," she said, laughing; "you'll fall into the spring. But, then, you might hold it as a remembrance to temper the severity of the ducking yet to come."
"Miss Guinea," I made bold to say, standing at the door of the spring-house, "do you know that you talk with exceeding readiness?"
"Oh, do you mean that I am always ready to talk? I didn't think that of you."
I reached out and took the jar from her. "You know I didn't mean that," I said; and, looking up, with her eyes full of mischief, she asked: "What did you mean, then?"
"I mean that you talk easily and brightly—like a book."
"You'd better let me have the jar," she said, holding out her hands. "I'm afraid that you'll fall and break it, after that. You know that a man is never so likely to slip as he is when he's trying to compliment a woman."
"No, I don't know that, but I do know that a Southern woman ought to know the difference between flattery and a real compliment."
"Why a Southern woman?" she asked. She looked to me as if she were really in earnest and I strove to answer her earnestly.
"Because Southern women are not given to flirting; because they place more reliance in what a man says, and——"