"Yes. Those women talk."
"But haven't they—haven't they any faith in their kind?"
"Not much," she said frankly.
"But why should you care what they say?"
She looked back at him. "I mean that you are so far above them," he added. "You are worth all of them put together."
"It is very kind of you to say so. But I am not."
"I would swear it on a stack of Bibles."
"Your oath would not be taken. But let us not talk about it. You do not know what you say when you praise me. I don't place myself above them. I know myself." She halted, turned about and held forth her hand. "See, I have worked in the potato field. I have been a laborer."
"I am a laborer now," he said as they walked on. "There's no disgrace in work."
"Not for a man, not for a woman, but in a field with rough men—" she shrugged her shoulders.