CHAPTER 19
Longinus had never professed to be an expert as far as the fairer s*x was concerned — however, the very expression ‘fairer s*x’ had always seemed to imply that women, on the whole, were more graceful and beautiful than men. This belief had been sorely tested when he had met Rory and then Cruikshank, but now that he knew them a little better, he could, from time to time, spot hints of attractiveness in them. When Rory smiled, for example, there was a certain rustic charm to it — if one liked that sort of thing.
The specimen that he beheld before him in the Old Girl’s Arms, however, seemed to fly in the very face of the word beauty. She was sitting on one of the high stools at the bar counter — the only seats in the establishment — and her prodigious size meant that she towered
