A widow, poor and somewhat advanced in years, dwelt once in a little cottage that stood in a dale beside a grove. Since the day she was last a wife, this widow of whom I tell this tale had lived patiently and simply; for her goods and earnings were small. By managing carefully what God sent, she provided for herself and her two daughters; she had three large sows and no more, three cows and a sheep named Molly. Her bedroom and living area, where she ate many slender meals, were rather sooty; she never needed a bit of pungent sauce, nor did a dainty morsel ever pass her throat; her diet was in keeping with her livestock shed. Overeating never was the cause of any sickness; her only treatment was a temperate diet, with exercise and heart's content. The gout never kept her from dancing, nor did the apoplexy bother her head. She drank neither red wine nor white; her table was served for the most part with white and black--milk and brown bread, of which she found no lack, with broiled bacon and at times an egg or two, for she was a kind of dairy woman. 2846