“Maids there be a plenty in that village for we never kill them there as they do in some towns when babes are girls, and they are allowed to grow however many a mother has, and so the village is full of them. I saw a dozen that I knew myself, sister, all well grown and full of flesh and color, and any would have done for any son I have. But still only one was needed and I narrowed my two eyes and looked at this one and that one, and chose out three, and out of the three I looked again and saw one had a cough and a bubbly nose, and one was with some soreness of the eyes, and the third was best. She is a sharp and clever maid, I swear, very careful in all she says and does, and they say she is the quickest seamstress in the town. She makes her own clothes and clothes for all her father’s house and some for others and turns a bit of silver in. A little old she is, perhaps, for your lad, because once she was betrothed, and the man died out of time, or she would be wed by now. But this is not ill, either, for the father is eager to wed her somehow and will not ask much for her. She is not so pretty perhaps as the others--her face a little yellow from sewing overmuch, but she is clean-eyed.” Then the mother answered quickly, “We have sore eyes enough in our house, I swear, and my eyes are not what they were either, and we need someone who sews and likes it. Settle it then, my sister, with this one, and if she is not above five years older than my son, it is well enough.” So was it done, and the days of the month and the years in which the two were born and the hours of their birth were compared upon a geomancer’s table in the town, and they were all favorable. The young man was born under the sign of horse, and the maid under the sign of cat, which do not devour each other, and thus was harmony foretold in the marriage. All things being right by destiny, therefore, the gifts that must be given were given. Now out of her little hidden store the mother brought forth bits of silver and odd copper coins and she bought good cotton stuffs and made two garments for the maid, herself. And as the custom was in those parts she wished a lucky woman to cut the garments, some woman whose life was whole with man and sons. What woman then was more lucky in the hamlet than the cousin’s wife? The mother took the good stuff to her and said, “Set your hand here, my sister, so that your luck may fall upon my son’s wife.” And so the cousin’s wife did, and she cut the garments wide and full across the belly so that when the maid conceived they could be worn with ease and not laid aside to waste. And the mother put forth more silver and hired the red marriage chair and the bead crown and the earrings of false pearls and all that was needful for the day, and especially the trousers of red which every bride must wear in those parts. So was the marriage day set and it drew on, and dawned at last, a clear cold day in the winter of that year.