“‘I’m the happiest man alive,’ ses he. ‘Because the woman I love has never wounded or slighted me in any way, and what’s more, she never will. She don’t want to be going out to balls and parties at night, and gallivanting with other women’s husbands, and she cares as little about the latest fashions as I do myself. And we have never had as much as a single quarrel, and we are the same to each other now as when first we met. I have yet to be disillusioned,’ ses he, ‘and that’s something worth boasting about.’
“‘But,’ ses I, ‘for all you know, the lady of the moon might be in love with the man in the moon.’
“‘That’s so,’ ses he. ‘And maybe your wife might be in love with the man next door, or across the street, or some one away in the wilds of Africa, Australia, or America, or she may be in love with some one who’s dead and gone, or some good-looking stranger who came into her life for a day or a week and went out of it for ever. Women can keep their own secrets,’ ses he. ‘They don’t tell us all they think, and very often when they say no, they mean yes. You have a lot to learn,’ ses he.
“‘Maybe I have,’ ses I. ‘But ’tis as bad for a man to know too much or too little, as to know nothing at all, I’m thinking.’
“‘Maybe it is,’ ses he.
“‘And when are you going to wed the lady in the moon? Is it when she comes down from the sky?’ ses I.
“‘No,’ ses he, ‘but when she comes up from the lake.’ And then a large dark cloud floated past and the lady of the moon was seen no more that night.”
“’Tis about time we went indoors,” said Padna.
“’Tis,” said Micus. “The Angelus is ringing, and I’m feeling hungry.”