ther hadn't come along.'

'At the time of the courtship,' resumed the woodman, 'the regiment was
quartered in Casterbridge Barracks, and he and she got acquainted by his
calling to buy a penn'orth of rathe-ripes off that tree yonder in her
father's orchard--though 'twas said he seed her over hedge as well as the
apples. He declared 'twas a kind of apple he much fancied; and he called
for a penn'orth every day till the tree was cleared. It ended in his
calling for her.'

''Twas a thousand pities they didn't jine up at once and ha' done wi' it.

'Well; better late than never, if so be he'll have her now. But, Lord,
she'd that faith in 'en that she'd no more belief that he was alive, when
a' didn't come, than that the undermost man in our churchyard was alive.
She'd never have thought of another but for that--O no!'

''Tis awkward, altogether, for her now.'

'Still she hadn't married wi' the new man. Though to be sure she would
have committed it next week, even the licence being got, they say, for
she'd have no banns this time, the first being so unfortunate.'

'Perhaps the sergeant-major will think he's released, and go as he came.'

'O, not as I reckon. Soldiers bain't particular, and she's a tidy piece
o' furniture still. What will happen is that she'll have her soldier,
and break off with the master-wheelwright, licence or no--daze me if she
won't.'

In the progress of these desultory conjectures the form of another
neighbour arose in the gloom. She nodded to the people at the well, who
replied 'G'd night, Mrs. Stone,' as she passed through Mr. Paddock's gate
towards his door. She was an intimate friend of the latter's household,
and the group followed her with their eyes up the path and past the
windows, which were now lighted up by candles inside.

II

Mrs. Stone paused at the door, knocked, and was admitted by Selina's
mother, who took her visitor at once into the parlour on the left hand,
where a table was partly spread for supper. On the 'beaufet' against the
wall stood probably the only object which would have attracted the eye of
a local stranger in an otherwise ordinarily furnished room, a great plum-
cake guarded as if it were a curiosity by a glass shade of the kind seen
in museums--square, with a wooden back like those enclosing stuffed
specimens of rare feather or fur. This was the mummy of the cake
intended in earlier days for the wedding-feast of Selina and the soldier,
which ha