bash and variable holding directories with spaces

["H.S." <hs.samix@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I am writing up a rsync script to back up a Windows box using cygwin
running on it. On my Debian Testing, which will do the backups, I plan
to run a cron job.

In the script, I am faced with this problem of defining the source
directories (dirs on the remote machine to be backed up) in a bash
variable. I want to define a variable DIRS so that it expands to:
'/cygdrive/c/Documents\ and\ Settings /cygdrive/d/My\ Data'

*with* the quotes, to copy "/cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings" and
"/cygdrive/d/My Data" to my local machine. I want to use this variable
in the rsync command, like so:
rsync -av remotehost:$DIRS /mnt/backups

I have tried a few ways to define the DIRS variable, but I am able to
get quotes in the expanded value of the variable.

Can anyone help in this?
->HS