Besides, he might safely reckon on the more work from me, when I should have naught to tempt me nightly from my case.

As for my mistress, she was already making ready to take her younger children to visit a gossip of hers, one Mistress Crane; and it eased her of some little difficulty to find her party lightened by one for a season.
So all fell out well for the maiden, and sorrowfully for me.

Yet, when she reproached herself for her selfishness in robbing me of my sweetheart, I had not the heart to show her all I felt.

In sooth, this maiden needed a friend and comforter sorely; and how was she to fare on that long troublesome journey with no comrade but a rough man, and perchance a half-witted poet?
For the poet, vowing that Aphrodite should never need for a gallant, nor a maiden in distress for a knight, begged so hard to go too, that she was fain to yield and admit him of the party.
'Twas late in March when our house was left desolate.

On the last evening before they went, she asked me to row her and Jeannette once again on the river.