Then the man looked up in his slow way, a bit of rice stalk in his mouth which he had sat chewing as he listened, and he answered thoughtfully, “Oh, aye--good enough--” and his wife laughed again to hear his luke-warmness and then she said, “Well, and I can go there and see, sister, and there are two hundred families or so in that village, a market-town it is, and doubtless one maid among so many ready to be wed.” So they talked on of it and the mother said plainly there must not be too great a cost, and she said, “I know very well I cannot hope for one of the very best in every way, since I am poor and my son has no great lot of land and we must rent more than we own.” But the man spoke up and said to this, “Well, but you do own some land, and it is something nowadays when many have nothing at all, and I had liefer wed a maid of mine to a man who has some land and little silver than to one who has much silver and no firm land to stand on. A good man and good land--that would be sound promise for any maid if she were mine.” And when his wife said, “Well, then, children’s father, if you will let me go, I can go to that town a day or two, and look about,” then he said in his spare way, “Oh, aye, I will--the maids are old enough to free you now and then.” So soon thereafter the cousin’s wife dressed herself clean and took the babe and a child or two among the little ones to show her father’s family and she took an elder two or so to help her with the little ones, and hired a wheelbarrow to put them all upon and she rode her husband’s gray ass he did not need these days now that the harvest was over and he could use his ox to tread the grain. They set forth thus and were gone three days and more. And when she was come back she was right full of all the maids that she had seen and she said to the mother, who ran to hear her when the news came she had returned,