o waste an afternoon she remained indoors
waiting for the time to pass till his return, her face being visible to
Elizabeth-Jane from her window aloft. The latter, however, did not say
to herself that Farfrae should be thankful for such devotion, but,
full of her reading, she cited Rosalind's exclamation: "Mistress, know
yourself; down on your knees and thank Heaven fasting for a good man's
love."

She kept her eye upon Henchard also. One day he answered her inquiry
for his health by saying that he could not endure Abel Whittle's pitying
eyes upon him while they worked together in the yard. "He is such a
fool," said Henchard, "that he can never get out of his mind the time
when I was master there."

"I'll come and wimble for you instead of him, if you will allow me,"
said she. Her motive on going to the yard was to get an opportunity of
observing the general position of affairs on Farfrae's premises now that
her stepfather was a workman there. Henchard's threats had alarmed her
so much that she wished to see his behaviour when the two were face to
face.

For two or three days after her arrival Donald did not make any
appearance. Then one afternoon the green door opened, and through came,
first Farfrae, and at his heels Lucetta. Donald brought his wife forward
without hesitation, it being obvious that he had no suspicion whatever
of any antecedents in common between her and the now journeyman
hay-trusser.

Henchard did not turn his eyes toward either of the pair, keeping them
fixed on the bond he twisted, as if that alone absorbed him. A feeling
of delicacy, which ever prompted Farfrae to avoid anything that might
seem like triumphing over a fallen rivel, led him to keep away from the
hay-barn where Henchard and his daughter were working, and to go on to
the corn department. Meanwhile Lucetta, never having been informed that
Henchard had entered her husband's service, rambled straight on to the
barn, where she came suddenly upon Henchard, and gave vent to a little
"Oh!" which the happy and busy Donald was too far off to hear. Henchard,
with withering humility of demeanour, touched the brim of his hat to
her as Whittle and the rest had done, to which she breathed a dead-alive
"Good afternoon."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am?" said Henchard, as if he had not heard.

"I said good afternoon," she faltered.

"O yes, good afternoon, ma'am," he replied, touching his hat again. "I
am glad to see you, ma'am." Lucetta looked