“Heaven preserve us all!” screamed the mouse. “To eat one’s own, lawful husband!”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” said the goat’s-foot and the parsley.
“Stuff!” said the spider.
7
That day was very quiet in the hedge and the next was no livelier.
The spider attended to her web and caught and ate more flies than ever. She did not speak a word and looked so fierce that no one dared speak a word to her. The gentleman-spiders took good care not to come near her. They met every evening and talked about it.
“Yes, but he got her all the same!” said the most romantic of them.
Then the others fell upon him and asked him if he thought that that was happiness, to be eaten by one’s wife on the morning after the wedding. And he didn’t know what to answer, for his romance wasn’t so very real, after all.
The mouse stole away dejectedly and went to her hole. She took the thing to heart as though it had happened in her own family. The goat’s-foot and the parsley hung their screens and felt sheepish and ashamed in the face of the twigs on the stubs. And so great was their overthrow that even the twigs thought it would be a shame to scoff at them.