good
wife and companion, though she had made herself what is called cheap to
him; but in that she was like another domestic article, a cheap tea-pot,
which often brews better tea than a dear one. One autumn Hipcroft found
himself with but little work to do, and a prospect of less for the
winter. Both being country born and bred, they fancied they would like
to live again in their natural atmosphere. It was accordingly decided
between them that they should leave the pent-up London lodging, and that
Ned should seek out employment near his native place, his wife and her
daughter staying with Car'line's father during the search for occupation
and an abode of their own.

Tinglings of pleasure pervaded Car'line's spasmodic little frame as she
journeyed down with Ned to the place she had left two or three years
before, in silence and under a cloud. To return to where she had once
been despised, a smiling London wife with a distinct London accent, was a
triumph which the world did not witness every day.

The train did not stop at the petty roadside station that lay nearest to
Stickleford, and the trio went on to Casterbridge. Ned thought it a good
opportunity to make a few preliminary inquiries for employment at
workshops in the borough where he had been known; and feeling cold from
her journey, and it being dry underfoot and only dusk as yet, with a moon
on the point of rising, Car'line and her little girl walked on toward
Stickleford, leaving Ned to follow at a quicker pace, and pick her up at
a certain half-way house, widely known as an inn.

The woman and child pursued the well-remembered way comfortably enough,
though they were both becoming wearied. In the course of three miles
they had passed Heedless-William's Pond, the familiar landmark by Bloom's
End, and were drawing near the Quiet Woman Inn, a lone roadside hostel on
the lower verge of the Egdon Heath, since and for many years abolished.
In stepping up towards it Car'line heard more voices within than had
formerly been customary at such an hour, and she learned that an auction
of fat stock had been held near the spot that afternoon. The child would
be the better for a rest as well as herself, she thought, and she
entered.

The guests and customers overflowed into the passage, and Car'line had no
sooner crossed the threshold than a man whom she remembered by sight came
forward with glass and mug in his hands towards a friend leaning against
the wall; but,