The next morning, a really nice gentleman-spider was sitting on the parsley, but a good way off from the snappish young lady.
He had brushed his clothes and spun a couple of fine threads to show what he could do. He bent and stretched his legs for her to see that he was well-shaped. Seven of his eyes beamed with love, while the eighth took care that she didn’t eat him:
“Allow me, miss, to offer you my hand and heart,” said he.
“He’s a fair-spoken man,” said the parsley.
“A charming man,” said the goat’s-foot.
“It was I that sent him here,” said the mouse.
But the spider did not throw up the game so easily. He gracefully bowed his thorax, set two of his eyes to watch that nothing happened to him and looked doubly enamoured with the other six:
“Do not think that I mean to be a burden to you,” he said. “I have my own web a little way down the hedge and I can easily catch the few flies I require. I have even got five real fat ones hanging and spun up, which I shall esteem it an honour to offer you to-morrow, so that you may see that it is love alone that urges me to propose to you.”
“Is that you talking your nonsense?” said the damsel. “What the blazes should I do with such a silly man?”