market, nor your father the Earl watching with the end of his eye."
"But come," quoth the Earl's daughter, "this a very strange thing, that you would have me wed for a shoe of a horse, and it rusty."
"In my thought," quoth the man, "one thing is as good . . ."
"O, spare me that," said the Earl's daughter, "and tell me why I should marry."
"Listen and look," said the man.
Now the wind blew through the Poor Thing like an infant crying, so that her heart was melted; and her eyes were unsealed, and she was aware of the thing as it were a babe unmothered, and she took it to her arms, and it melted in her arms like the air.
"Come," said the man, "behold a vision of our children, the busy hearth, and the white heads. And let that suffice, for it is all God offers."
"I have no delight in it," said she, but with that she sighed.
"The ways of life are straight like the grooves of launching," said the man, and he took her by the hand.
