"They are three aunts of my father," she replied, "that I invited to my wedding."
The nabob, who was mannerly, went to speak to the aunts and find them seats.
"Tell me," he said to the first, "what makes one of your arms so short and the other so long?"
"My son," answered the old woman, "it was spinning so much that made them grow that way."
The nabob hurried to his wife and told her to burn her distaff and spindle, and to take care that she never let him see her spin.
He immediately asked the second old woman what made her so humpbacked and crooked.
"My son," she answered, "I grew so by working all the while at my broidery-frame."
With three strides the gentleman put himself beside his wife, and said to her: "Go this minute, and burn your broidery-frame, and take care that in the lifetime of God I do not catch you with another."
Then he went to the third old woman, and asked her what made her eyes look so red and as if they were going to burst?
"My son," she answered, giving them a frightful roll, "this comes of continual sewing, and of keeping my head bent over the work."