Now every morning and evening the same thing happened, and every evening she had her three guesses; but she never guessed right. And every day the small, little, black Thing laughed louder and louder and smirked more and more, and looked at her quite maliceful out of the corners of its eyes until she began to get frightened, and instead of eating all the fine foods left for her, spent the day in trying to think of names to say. But she never hit upon the right one.
So it came to the last day of the month but one, and when the small, little, black Thing arrived in the evening with the five skeins of flax all ready spun, it could hardly say for smirking:
"Ain't you got That's name yet?"
So says she—for she had been reading her Bible:
"Is That Nicodemus?"
"No, it ain't," says That, and twirled its tail faster than you could see.
"Is That Samuel?" says she all of a flutter.
"No, it ain't, my beauty," chuckles That, looking maliceful.
"Well—is That Methuselah?" says she, inclined to cry.
Then That just fixes her with eyes like a coal a-fire, and says, "No, it ain't that neither, so there is only to-morrow night and then you'll be mine, my beauty."