d yet, an'
you're younger nor me, an' mebbe we'd change our minds, an' anyway
there's a quare differs atween us."

"What difference is there between us?" he said, indignantly.

"Aw, there's a quare deal of differs," she maintained. "A quare deal.
You're a quality-man!..."

"As if that matters," he interrupted.

"It matters a quare lot," she said.

They sat down on a bank by the roadside and he took hold of her hand and
pressed it, and then he put his arm about her and drew her head down on
to his shoulder.

"Somebody'll see you," she whispered.

"There's no one in sight," he replied.

"Do you love me an awful lot?" she asked, looking up at him.

"You know I do."

"More nor anybody in the world?"

He bent over and kissed her. "More than anybody in the world," he
answered.

"You're not just lettin' on?" she continued.

"Letting on!"

"Aye. Makin' out you love me, an' you on'y passin' the time, divertin'
yourself?"

He was angry with her. How could she imagine that he would pretend to
love her?...

"I do love you," he insisted, "and I'll always love you. I feel that ...
that!..."

He fumbled for words to express his love for her, but could not find
any.

"Ah, well," she said, "it doesn't matter whether you're pretendin' or
not. I'm quaren happy anyway!"

She struggled out of his embrace and put her arms round his neck and
kissed him. She remained thus with her arms round him and her face close
to his, gazing into his eyes as if she were searching for something....

"What are you thinkin', Sheila?" he asked.

"Nothin'," she said, and she drew him to her and kissed him again.

"I wish I was older," he exclaimed presently.

"Why?"

"Because I could marry you, then, and we'd go away and see all the
places in the world...."

"I'd rather go to Portrush for my honeymoon," she said. "I went there
for a trip once!"

"We'd go to Portrush too. We'd go to all the places. I'd take you to
England and Scotland and Wales, and then we'd go to France and Spain and
Italy and Africa and India and all the places."

"I'd be quaren tired goin' to all them places," she murmured.

"And then when we'd seen everything, we'd come back to Ireland and start
a farm...."

She sat up and smiled at him. "An' keep cows an' horses," she said.

"Yes, and pigs and sheep and hens and ... all the things they have.
Ducks and things!"

"I'd love that," she said, delighted.

"We'd go up to Belfast every now and then, an