be you going to do?" she asked.

"I wish I had seen Mrs d'Urberville," said Tess.

"I think you mid as well settle it. Then you'll see her soon
enough."

Her father coughed in his chair.

"I don't know what to say!" answered the girl restlessly. "It is for
you to decide. I killed the old horse, and I suppose I ought to do
something to get ye a new one. But--but--I don't quite like Mr
d'Urberville being there!"

The children, who had made use of this idea of Tess being taken up by
their wealthy kinsfolk (which they imagined the other family to be)
as a species of dolorifuge after the death of the horse, began to cry
at Tess's reluctance, and teased and reproached her for hesitating.

"Tess won't go-o-o and be made a la-a-dy of!--no, she says she
wo-o-on't!" they wailed, with square mouths. "And we shan't have a
nice new horse, and lots o' golden money to buy fairlings! And Tess
won't look pretty in her best cloze no mo-o-ore!"

Her mother chimed in to the same tune: a certain way she had of
making her labours in the house seem heavier than they were by
prolonging them indefinitely, also weighed in the argument. Her
father alone preserved an attitude of neutrality.

"I will go," said Tess at last.

Her mother could not repress her consciousness of the nuptial vision
conjured up by the girl's consent.

"That's right! For such a pretty maid as 'tis, this is a fine
chance!"

Tess smiled crossly.

"I hope it is a chance for earning money. It is no other kind of
chance. You had better say nothing of that silly sort about parish."

Mrs Durbeyfield did not promise. She was not quite sure that she did
not feel proud enough, after the visitor's remarks, to say a good
deal.

Thus it was arranged; and the young girl wrote, agreeing to be ready
to set out on any day on which she might be required. She was duly
informed that Mrs d'Urberville was glad of her decision, and that a
spring-cart should be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top
of the Vale on the day after the morrow, when she must hold herself
prepared to start. Mrs d'Urberville's handwriting seemed rather
masculine.

"A cart?" murmured Joan Durbeyfield doubtingly. "It might have been
a carriage for her own kin!"

Having at last taken her course Tess was less restless and
abstracted, going about her business with some self-assurance in the
thought of acquiring another horse for her father by an occupation
which would not be onerous.