The Return of the Native

on the Tu

which, though dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winter weather having as yet arrived to beat them down. Their Tartarean situation might by some have been called an imprudent one

hen the incline had become so much less steep that th

answered slowly

iving with 'ee as a daug

miss

from rendering them offensive. Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with i

'd agreed to it, ma'am, that I

t year this time, Olly. There are a good many sides to that

Keeping an inn-what is it? But 'a's clever, that's true, and they say he was

, it would be better she sh

him what they will-he've several acres of heth-ground broke up here, besides the public house, an

"See, here's the waggon-track at l

sent her sick husband the bottle of wine promised on the occasion of his marriage. The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house, behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright f

ught into cultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilled died of the labour; the man who succeeded him in possessi

ards beyond it, coming towards her, a man walking alongside with a lantern in his hand. It was soon evident that this

th little notice, when she turned to him and said, "I think you

topped the horses, and beckoned to her to withdraw

me, ma'am, I s

I do! You are young Venn-your fat

Miss Tamsin, a little. I ha

lieve, with her husband. They arranged to r

not t

o you

e. She's in my van

murmured Mrs. Yeobright, pu

e out of Anglebury, I heard something trotting after me like a doe, and looking round there she was, whit

Christian name?" said M

her up and put her in, and there she has been ever since. She has cried a good deal, but she has hardly spoke; all she has told me bei

" said Mrs. Yeobright, h

of the van an extemporized couch, around which was hung apparently all the drapery that the reddleman possessed, to keep the occupant of the little couch from c

ndwork of the face was hopefulness; but over it now lay like a foreign substance a film of anxiety and grief. The grief had been there so shortly as to have abstracted nothing of the bloom, and had as yet but given a dignity to what it might eventually undermine. The scarlet of her lips

cious of as much, and, while Mrs. Yeobright looked in upon her, he cast his eyes aside with a delicacy

ughts, as signalled by the changes on her face, were exhibited by the light to the utmost nicety. An ingenuous, transparent

htened you are, and how you cannot believe it; but

ght, stooping over the young woman

an unexpected self-command she uttered no sound

s state, any more than you me," she

In Egdon Bottom. What

, are we? Then I will get out and w

to my house?" said the aunt, turning to the reddleman, who had withdrawn fr

necessary to ask me? I

nt, and when I saw him today I thought I should prefer his van to any conve

with tender relucta

saying to its owner, "I quite recognize you now. What mad

asin, who blushed a little. "Then you'll n

, and at the lighted window of the inn they had neared. "I think not," she said, "sinc

two women remaining standing in the road. As soon as the vehicle and its driver had withdraw

rnly, "what's the meaning of