the elder. Underneath his name was pencilled, in Miss Aldclyffe's
handwriting, 'Mr. Manston.'

Manston had arrived on the estate, in the capacity of steward, three or
four days previously, and occupied the old manor-house, which had been
altered and repaired for his reception.

'Call on Mr. Manston,' said the lady impressively, looking at the name
written under Cytherea's portion of the list.

'But he does not subscribe yet?'

'I know it; but call and leave him a report. Don't forget it.'

'Say you would be pleased if he would subscribe?'

'Yes--say I should be pleased if he would,' repeated Miss Aldclyffe,
smiling. 'Good-bye. Don't hurry in your walk. If you can't get easily
through your task to-day put off some of it till to-morrow.'

Each then started on her rounds: Cytherea going in the first place to
the old manor-house. Mr. Manston was not indoors, which was a relief
to her. She called then on the two gentleman-farmers' wives, who
soon transacted their business with her, frigidly indifferent to her
personality. A person who socially is nothing is thought less of by
people who are not much than by those who are a great deal.

She then turned towards Peakhill Cottage, the residence of Miss Hinton,
who lived there happily enough, with an elderly servant and a house-dog
as companions. Her father, and last remaining parent, had retired
thither four years before this time, after having filled the post of
editor to the Casterbridge Chronicle for eighteen or twenty years. There
he died soon after, and though comparatively a poor man, he left his
daughter sufficiently well provided for as a modest fundholder and
claimant of sundry small sums in dividends to maintain herself as
mistress at Peakhill.

At Cytherea's knock an inner door was heard to open and close, and
footsteps crossed the passage hesitatingly. The next minute Cytherea
stood face to face with the lady herself.

Adelaide Hinton was about nine-and-twenty years of age. Her hair
was plentiful, like Cytherea's own; her teeth equalled Cytherea's in
regularity and whiteness. But she was much paler, and had features
too transparent to be in place among household surroundings. Her mouth
expressed love less forcibly than Cytherea's, and, as a natural result
of her greater maturity, her tread was less elastic, and she was more
self-possessed.

She had been a girl of that kind which mothers praise as not forward, by
way of contrast, when disparaging those wa