She stopped and faced me suddenly. She was panting and her cheeks were flushed. 'Will you have some sense? If you're seen out here you'll be recognised at once — anybody would recognise you from that description.'
'Oh, you know about that,' I said.
'I can read,' she answered. 'Now be sensible and go back to the mine. Besides, the milk will spoil out there in the sun.'
'Do you know everything that goes on here?' I asked.
'Enough to know you shouldn't be standing out here in the open like this.'
'Why the hell don't you leave Cripples' Ease?' I said. 'It's no place for a girl like you. Have you always been here?'
She nodded. 'Yes, always,' she said.
'Didn't you go to school?'
'No.'
'Then how did you learn to read?'