Now was it a strange day for this mother when she must welcome to her house a new and younger woman, so long had she been master there as well as mistress. When she was dressed in her best and stood waiting at her door, when she saw the red bridal chair come near with its burden of the bride within, it seemed suddenly but a little while ago when she herself had come in that same chair, and the old woman dead stood where she stood today and her own man where her son stood. Rarely did she think these days of that man of hers, and truly did he seem dead to her, but the strangest longing fell on her for him while she stood waiting. It was not the longing of the flesh; no, that was dead and gone now. It was some other longing, the longing for some completeness of her own age, for she felt alone. She looked at her son newly, no longer only son to her, but husband to another now, and there he stood, very still, his head hung down, stiff in the new black robe she had made for him, and shoes upon his feet most often bare. He seemed unmoved, or so she thought until she saw his hanging hands trembling against the black of his robe. She sighed again then, and again she thought of her own man and how she had peeped out at him from behind the curtains of her chair and how her heart leaped to see how fair he was and how good a man to look on in every way. Yes, he had been prettier far than this son of hers was today, and she thought to herself now that he was the prettiest man she had ever seen. But before she had time to grieve more than in this dim way the first of the procession came, the small wedding fruits, the cock she had sent to the bride’s house and that according to custom they sent back and with it a hen they mated to it, and after these few things, the chair was fetched and set down there before the door and the cousin’s wife and the gossip and the other elder women of the hamlet took the bride’s hand and tried to pull her forth. And she was proper and reluctant and came at last but most unwillingly, and when she did come she made her eyes downcast and did not look up once. Then the mother withdrew into her cousin’s house, as was the custom too in those parts where it was said a son’s wife must not see too easily her husband’s mother, lest she do not fear her thereafter, and all that day the mother stayed in the cousin’s house.