With jealous care piled up her plate with lean,
Not knowing that all lean was hateful to her.
And day by day she thought to tell him o't,
And watched the fat go out with envious eye,
But could not speak for bashful delicacy.
At last it chanced that on a winter day,
The beef—a prize joint!—little was but fat;
So fat, that John had all his work cut out,
To snip out lean in fragments for his wife,
Leaving, in very sooth, none for himself;