man, stop
the horses, please."

The man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped them.

Aunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright saying to
its owner, "I quite recognize you now. What made you change from the
nice business your father left you?"

"Well, I did," he said, and looked at Thomasin, who blushed a little.
"Then you'll not be wanting me any more to-night, ma'am?"

Mrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills, at the
perishing bonfires, and at the lighted window of the inn they had
neared. "I think not," she said, "since Thomasin wishes to walk. We
can soon run up the path and reach home: we know it well."

And after a few further words they parted, the reddleman moving
onwards with his van, and the two women remaining standing in the
road. As soon as the vehicle and its driver had withdrawn so far as
to be beyond all possible reach of her voice, Mrs. Yeobright turned
to her niece.

"Now, Thomasin," she said sternly, "what's the meaning of this
disgraceful performance?"

V

Perplexity among Honest People

Thomasin looked as if quite overcome by her aunt's change of manner.
"It means just what it seems to mean: I am--not married," she replied
faintly. "Excuse me--for humiliating you, aunt, by this mishap: I am
sorry for it. But I cannot help it."

"Me? Think of yourself first."

"It was nobody's fault. When we got there the parson wouldn't marry
us because of some trifling irregularity in the license."

"What irregularity?"

"I don't know. Mr. Wildeve can explain. I did not think when I went
away this morning that I should come back like this." It being dark,
Thomasin allowed her emotion to escape her by the silent way of tears,
which could roll down her cheek unseen.

"I could almost say that it serves you right--if I did not feel that
you don't deserve it," continued Mrs. Yeobright, who, possessing two
distinct moods in close contiguity, a gentle mood and an angry, flew
from one to the other without the least warning. "Remember, Thomasin,
this business was none of my seeking; from the very first, when you
began to feel foolish about that man, I warned you he would not make
you happy. I felt it so strongly that I did what I would never have
believed myself capable of doing--stood up in the church, and made
myself the public talk for weeks. But having once consented, I don't
submit to these fancies without good reason. Marry him you must after
th