"You kin manage me now all you've a mind to; I ain't worryin'"
And her sixty-year-old suitor blushed. "I know more'n I did then, Peachy; I was frightened of your managin' ways." He was feeling a considerable anxiety, for the woman beside him was like a piece of fruit, no longer in her summer time, but reaching her perfection in late autumn.
Very quietly then Peachy withdrew her arm.
"I'm managin' now, Ambrose," she confessed. "Seems like growin' old don't lose us our faults; it kind er makes 'em set deeper. I should be sorry to try you, but I'm some past fifty and ain't able to change."
However, Uncle Ambrose simply put his arm around her, drawing her closer to him. "Lord, Peachy, ef that's all, don't you fret. You kin manage me now all you've a mind to; I ain't worryin'. I was young and didn't understand then that no man kin git on comfortable in this world 'thout bein' managed by a good woman." And he laughed and kissed her with an ardour that was in its way as good a thing as the springtime.
A minute later, the light dying quickly down, the autumn moon rose up above the orchard, and with the disappearance of the day the warmth ended so abruptly that, with a little shiver, the two middle-aged figures moved away, the woman watching the man anxiously. "It ain't moonlight we're needin', Ambrose Thompson," she whispered; "I'm thinkin' it's the light of the fireside."