ed
abruptly round the margin, and the grass was unbroken. A green
cattle-track skirted the spot, without, however, emerging from
the screen of fern, and this path Eustacia followed, in order to
reconnoitre the group before joining it. The lusty notes of the
East Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and she now beheld
the musicians themselves, sitting in a blue waggon with red wheels
scrubbed as bright as new, and arched with sticks, to which boughs
and flowers were tied. In front of this was the grand central dance
of fifteen or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferior
individuals whose gyrations were not always in strict keeping with
the tune.

The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a flush on
their faces footed it to the girls, who, with the excitement and the
exercise, blushed deeper than the pink of their numerous ribbons.
Fair ones with long curls, fair ones with short curls, fair ones
with love-locks, fair ones with braids, flew round and round; and
a beholder might well have wondered how such a prepossessing set
of young women of like size, age, and disposition, could have been
collected together where there were only one or two villages to choose
from. In the background was one happy man dancing by himself, with
closed eyes, totally oblivious of all the rest. A fire was burning
under a pollard thorn a few paces off, over which three kettles hung
in a row. Hard by was a table where elderly dames prepared tea, but
Eustacia looked among them in vain for the cattle-dealer's wife who
had suggested that she should come, and had promised to obtain a
courteous welcome for her.

This unexpected absence of the only local resident whom Eustacia knew
considerably damaged her scheme for an afternoon of reckless gaiety.
Joining in became a matter of difficulty, notwithstanding that, were
she to advance, cheerful dames would come forward with cups of tea
and make much of her as a stranger of superior grace and knowledge
to themselves. Having watched the company through the figures of two
dances, she decided to walk a little further, to a cottage where she
might get some refreshment, and then return homeward in the shady time
of evening.

This she did; and by the time that she retraced her steps towards the
scene of the gipsying, which it was necessary to repass on her way
to Alderworth, the sun was going down. The air was now so still that
she could hear the band afar off, and it seemed to be p