"I'm in no hurry to get there," agreed her son.
"He won't say no to you. He never has yet, and he likes you."
"Oh, he won't say no. Nothing new will happen to me in this town; not even that."
Neil's mother paused, balancing her clothes basket against one hip, and deftly favouring the string-mended handle, then put it heavily down, and leaned on the table and looked at him—a small, tired, pretty woman, with gray, far-away eyes that were like no other eyes in Green River, and a smile like Neil's.
"Tired?" she said.
"Dog tired."
"Well, you were out till three."
"One. That was Maggie you heard at three. Where was she?"
"That's her business."
"It's Charlie's, if he's going to marry her."