"And if I do it's small loss." He gripped her right elbow. "It's the hard walking it is, Mrs. Nolan—what with the wind and the steep hill and an old lady of your age."
"Oh, yeh, it is—coming on to seventy-five."
"Seventy-five? And you still hopping about active as a grasshopper! A great age that. 'Tis little, I'm afraid, many of us young ones will be thinking of climbing steep hillsides when we're coming on to seventy-five. 'Tis you was the active one in your young days, I'll wager."
"'Tis me that was, sir; but oh, I'm not that now."
"It's sad it must be to be looking back on the bright dancin' days o' youth, Mrs. Nolan."
"Sure and it is, sir; but why—the fine bouncin' lad ye are—why should you be sayin' it?"
"Ah, sure, youth has its trials and tribulations too, ma'am, sometimes. And is this your little place?"
"It is. An' will you come in, sir?"
"I will and thank ye kindly, ma'am. 'Tisn't every day a lady invites me into her place."
"Whisht! There are ladies enough to be pleasant to a fine strappin' lad like you, with nothing on earth to be botherin' you."