“Sure, ma’am,” said I, “I’m going, and you’re going, and we’re all going ... aren’t we?”
“Not,” said she, looking at me very archly, “not while there are well-looking young fellers sitting in the woods.”
“Well, deliver me!” said I, “d’ye take me for the Angel Gabriel or the duke of the world!”
“It’s not anything I’m taking you to be, young man ... give me a chew of that bread.”
She came and sat beside me and took it from my hands.
“Little woman ...” I began it to her; but at that she flung the crust back in my face, laughing and choking and screaming.
“Me ... that’s fat as a ewe in January!”
“Fat, woman!” says I, “you’re no fat at all.”
But, I declare it, she’d a bosom like a bolster. I lay on my back beside her. She was a rag of a woman. I looked up through the tree branches at the end of the shaw; they were bare, spring was late that year. The sky was that blue ... there wasn’t a cloud within a million miles ... but up through the boughs it looked hard and steely like a storm sky. I took my hat from her, for she had put it on her own head, and I stood on my feet.
“Fat, ma’am!” says I ... and she looked up at me, grinning like a stuffed fox.... “Oh no, ma’am, you’re slim as the queen of Egypt!”