ether and I was holding your arm ... you know!... like
this...." He took hold of her arm as he spoke and pressed it in his....
"I felt like ... like...."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Like anything. You _will_ marry me, Sheila? You _do_ love
me?..."

She withdrew her arm from his and struck him lightly with a wisp of hay.
"You're in a terrible hurry all of a sudden!" she said. "One minute you
hardly know me, an' the next minute you're gettin' ready to be married
to me. You're a despert wee fella!"

_Wee fellow_ again!

"I'm not so very young," he said.

"What age are you?" she asked.

"I'm nearly seventeen," he replied.

She jumped up and stood over him. "God save us," she said, "that's the
powerful age. You'd nearly bate Methusaleh!"

He stood up beside her. "Now, you're laughing at me again," he
complained.

"No, I'm not," she answered.

She laid her hand on his shoulder and gripped it firmly, and stood thus,
looking at him intently. Then she drew him into her arms and kissed him.
"I like you quaren well," she said, holding him to her.

"Do you, Sheila?"

"Aye, of course I do, or I wouldn't be huggin' you like this, would I?
Did you bring the yella male?"

He nodded his head. "It's down below," he said.

"Dear, oh, dear," she sighed. "I've wasted a terrible lot of time on
you, Mr. Quinn!..."

"Call me 'Henry,'" he said.

"I'll call you 'Harry,'" she answered.

"You can call me anything you like!..."

She pinched his cheek. "You're a dear wee fella," she said. He did not
mind being called a "wee fella" now. "But you're keepin' me from my
work," she went on.

He seized her hand impetuously. "Take a day off," he said, "and we'll go
for a long walk together!"

She laughed at him. "You quality people is the great ones for talk," she
replied. "An' how could I take a day off an' me with my work to do?"

"Well, this evening then," he urged.

"There'll be the cows to milk!..."

"I'll come and help you."

"But sure you can't milk!"

"No, I can't milk, of course, but I can do anything else you want done.
I can hold things and ... and run messages ... and just help you. Can't
I? And then, when you've finished your work, we'll go and sit in the
clover field...."

"An' get our death of cold sittin' on the damp ground. Dear O, but men
talks quare blether!"

He tried to persuade her that dew was not damping. ... "Ah, quit!" she
exclaimed ... and then he begged for her company in a walk along th