'All through the night an you will,' she said. 'But first you shall tell a prettier tale before a man in a frock.'
He sprang full four feet back at one spring.
'I have wedded no woman, yet,' he said.
'Then it is time you wed one now,' she answered.
'Oh widow, bethink you,' he pleaded. 'Would you spoil so pretty a tale? Would you humble so goodly a man's pride?'
'Why, it were a pity,' she said. 'But I am minded to take a husband.'
'You have done well this ten years without one,' he cried out.
Her face seemed to set like adamant as she turned her cheek to him.
'Call it a woman's mad freak,' she said.
'Six and twenty pupils in the fair game of love I have had,' he said. 'You shall be the seven and twentieth. Twenty and seven are seven and two. Seven and two are nine. Now nine is the luckiest of numbers. Be you that one.'