Volume 100 / Act 2 — CHAPTER V.

Then gently I bore my MARIAN home, and mother greeted her fondly, saying, "Miss MUFFET, I presume?" which pleased me, thinking it only right that mother should use ceremony with my love. But she, poor darling, lay quiet and pale, scarce knowing her own happiness or the issue of the fight. For 'tis the way of women ever to faint if the occasion serve and a man's arms be there to prop them. And often in the warm summer-time, when the little lads and lasses gather to the plucking of buttercups and daisies, likening them gleefully to the gold and silver of a rich man's coffers, my darling, now grown matronly, sitteth on the tuffet in their midst, and telleth the tale of giant SPIDER and his fate.—[THE END.]