He went on wiping the glasses dry.
“Tell me, Dame Catherina, does the miller Tapihans still come to see you?”
“Tapihans!” cried Mother Windling; “don’t speak of him to me! I laugh at him; he wants to marry my house, my garden, my five-and-twenty acres of meadow-land, the shabby fellow!”
“Take my word for it, he’s not at all the sort of man you want,” replied the fiddler; “the sort of man to suit you is——”
Fat Soffayel came up the cellar-stairs at the moment, and Dame Catherina appeared beaming.
“That’s right—that’s right,” she said, taking the bottle; “I’ll go and wait upon the gentleman myself. Go, Soffayel, and put four good ladlesful of milk into the tub. Look and see whether I am tidy, Coucou Peter—is my hair out of order?”
“You are as fresh as a rose, Dame Catherina.”
“Do I really look so?”
“Yes; and you smell like a dish of strawberries.”
“Go along with your nonsense!” she cried.