of partners,
every girl being in a coming-on disposition towards one who so
thoroughly understood the poetry of motion as he.

All the town crowded to the Walk, such a delightful idea of a ballroom
never having occurred to the inhabitants before. Among the rest of the
onlookers were Elizabeth and her mother--the former thoughtful yet
much interested, her eyes beaming with a longing lingering light, as
if Nature had been advised by Correggio in their creation. The dancing
progressed with unabated spirit, and Henchard walked and waited till
his wife should be disposed to go home. He did not care to keep in the
light, and when he went into the dark it was worse, for there he heard
remarks of a kind which were becoming too frequent:

"Mr. Henchard's rejoicings couldn't say good morning to this," said one.
"A man must be a headstrong stunpoll to think folk would go up to that
bleak place to-day."

The other answered that people said it was not only in such things as
those that the Mayor was wanting. "Where would his business be if
it were not for this young fellow? 'Twas verily Fortune sent him to
Henchard. His accounts were like a bramblewood when Mr. Farfrae came.
He used to reckon his sacks by chalk strokes all in a row like
garden-palings, measure his ricks by stretching with his arms, weigh his
trusses by a lift, judge his hay by a chaw, and settle the price with a
curse. But now this accomplished young man does it all by ciphering and
mensuration. Then the wheat--that sometimes used to taste so strong
o' mice when made into bread that people could fairly tell the
breed--Farfrae has a plan for purifying, so that nobody would dream the
smallest four-legged beast had walked over it once. O yes, everybody
is full of him, and the care Mr. Henchard has to keep him, to be sure!"
concluded this gentleman.

"But he won't do it for long, good-now," said the other.

"No!" said Henchard to himself behind the tree. "Or if he do, he'll be
honeycombed clean out of all the character and standing that he's built
up in these eighteen year!"

He went back to the dancing pavilion. Farfrae was footing a quaint
little dance with Elizabeth-Jane--an old country thing, the only one she
knew, and though he considerately toned down his movements to suit her
demurer gait, the pattern of the shining little nails in the soles of
his boots became familiar to the eyes of every bystander. The tune
had enticed her into it; being a tune of a bus