r roused her. Without preface, and as the
continuation of a scene already progressing in her mind, Mrs. Henchard
said: "You remember the note sent to you and Mr. Farfrae--asking you to
meet some one in Durnover Barton--and that you thought it was a trick to
make fools of you?"

"Yes."

"It was not to make fools of you--it was done to bring you together.
'Twas I did it."

"Why?" said Elizabeth, with a start.

"I--wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae."

"O mother!" Elizabeth-Jane bent down her head so much that she looked
quite into her own lap. But as her mother did not go on, she said, "What
reason?"

"Well, I had a reason. 'Twill out one day. I wish it could have been in
my time! But there--nothing is as you wish it! Henchard hates him."

"Perhaps they'll be friends again," murmured the girl.

"I don't know--I don't know." After this her mother was silent, and
dozed; and she spoke on the subject no more.

Some little time later on Farfrae was passing Henchard's house on a
Sunday morning, when he observed that the blinds were all down. He rang
the bell so softly that it only sounded a single full note and a
small one; and then he was informed that Mrs. Henchard was dead--just
dead--that very hour.

At the town-pump there were gathered when he passed a few old
inhabitants, who came there for water whenever they had, as at present,
spare time to fetch it, because it was purer from that original fount
than from their own wells. Mrs. Cuxsom, who had been standing there for
an indefinite time with her pitcher, was describing the incidents of
Mrs. Henchard's death, as she had learnt them from the nurse.

"And she was white as marble-stone," said Mrs. Cuxsom. "And likewise
such a thoughtful woman, too--ah, poor soul--that a' minded every little
thing that wanted tending. 'Yes,' says she, 'when I'm gone, and my last
breath's blowed, look in the top drawer o' the chest in the back room
by the window, and you'll find all my coffin clothes, a piece of
flannel--that's to put under me, and the little piece is to put under my
head; and my new stockings for my feet--they are folded alongside, and
all my other things. And there's four ounce pennies, the heaviest I
could find, a-tied up in bits of linen, for weights--two for my right
eye and two for my left,' she said. 'And when you've used 'em, and my
eyes don't open no more, bury the pennies, good souls and don't ye go
spending 'em, for I shouldn't like it. And open the windo