“Dear me!” he said—and now there was only one eye in love, so fierce was her air—“If my courtship seems inopportune to you, I will retire at once and wait till another time....”
“I rather think that’s the wisest thing you could do,” said she. “Clear out, this minute, or I’ll....”
He slid down a thread in no time and she after him. But he escaped and, a little later, she was sitting in her web again, looking sourer than ever.
“What a woman!” said the mouse.
“Yes, just so!” said the spider.
“It doesn’t do to take the first that comes,” said the parsley.
“It’s only that he wasn’t the right one,” said the goat’s-foot.
But the unfortunate suitor went round the hedge telling the other spiders about the charming and remarkable lady whose web hung between the parsley and the goat’s-foot.
“She is so big,” he said, spreading his legs as wide as he could. “I have never seen any one so pretty in my life. But she’s as proud as a peacock. I shall certainly die of grief at her refusal. In any case, one thing is sure, that I shall never marry.”
They listened to him wide-eyed and made him tell them again. It was not long before the story of the proud and beautiful spider-princess went the round of the hedge. As soon as the men had finished their day’s work, they came together and sat and talked about her. Each of them had his own observations to make, but gradually they were all so excited with love that they thought they simply could not live unless they won the fair one.