e maid repeated the
information with the addition, "And he's afraid he hasn't much time to
spare, he says."

"Oh! Then tell him that as I have a headache I won't detain him to-day."

The message was taken down, and she heard the door close.

Lucetta had come to Casterbridge to quicken Henchard's feelings with
regard to her. She had quickened them, and now she was indifferent to
the achievement.

Her morning view of Elizabeth-Jane as a disturbing element changed, and
she no longer felt strongly the necessity of getting rid of the girl for
her stepfather's sake. When the young woman came in, sweetly unconscious
of the turn in the tide, Lucetta went up to her, and said quite
sincerely--

"I'm so glad you've come. You'll live with me a long time, won't you?"

Elizabeth as a watch-dog to keep her father off--what a new idea. Yet
it was not unpleasing. Henchard had neglected her all these days, after
compromising her indescribably in the past. The least he could have done
when he found himself free, and herself affluent, would have been to
respond heartily and promptly to her invitation.

Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled her with wild surmise at
their suddenness; and so passed Lucetta's experiences of that day.

24.

Poor Elizabeth-Jane, little thinking what her malignant star had done to
blast the budding attentions she had won from Donald Farfrae, was glad
to hear Lucetta's words about remaining.

For in addition to Lucetta's house being a home, that raking view of
the market-place which it afforded had as much attraction for her as for
Lucetta. The carrefour was like the regulation Open Place in spectacular
dramas, where the incidents that occur always happen to bear on the
lives of the adjoining residents. Farmers, merchants, dairymen, quacks,
hawkers, appeared there from week to week, and disappeared as the
afternoon wasted away. It was the node of all orbits.

From Saturday to Saturday was as from day to day with the two young
women now. In an emotional sense they did not live at all during the
intervals. Wherever they might go wandering on other days, on market-day
they were sure to be at home. Both stole sly glances out of the window
at Farfrae's shoulders and poll. His face they seldom saw, for, either
through shyness, or not to disturb his mercantile mood, he avoided
looking towards their quarters.

Thus things went on, till a certain market-morning brought a new
sensation. Elizabeth