While Jamie got the Bible she wiped her glasses and complained in a gentle voice about the "mortal pity of it" that texts were pins for Christians to stick in each other's flesh.
"Here it is," she said, "'Th' poor ye haave always with ye.'"
"Aye," Sam said, "an' how true it is."
"'Deed it's true, but who did He mane by 'ye'?"
"Th' world, I suppose."
"Not all th' world, by a spoonful, but a wheen of thim like Sandy Somerville, who's got a signboard in front of his back that tells he ates too much while the rest of us haave backbones that could as aisily be felt before as behine!"
"So that's what you call an undisputed text?"
She looked over the rim of her spectacles at him for a moment in silence, and then said, slowly:
"Ochane—w-e-l-l—tell Mister Gwynn t' read what he likes, it'll mane th' same aanyway."
Kitty Coyle came in. Henry and she were engaged. They had known each other since childhood. Her eyes were red with weeping. Henry's mother led her by the arm.