you call me your sweetheart. I could not, indeed, Diggory. I hope you
will not much mind my saying this, and feel in a great pain. It makes me
very sad when I think it may, for I like you very much, and I always put
you next to my cousin Clym in my mind. There are so many reasons why we
cannot be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter. I did not
in the least expect that you were going to speak on such a thing when
you followed me, because I had never thought of you in the sense of a
lover at all. You must not becall me for laughing when you spoke; you
mistook when you thought I laughed at you as a foolish man. I laughed
because the idea was so odd, and not at you at all. The great reason
with my own personal self for not letting you court me is, that I do not
feel the things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you
with the meaning of being your wife. It is not as you think, that I have
another in my mind, for I do not encourage anybody, and never have in
my life. Another reason is my aunt. She would not, I know, agree to it,
even if I wished to have you. She likes you very well, but she will
want me to look a little higher than a small dairy-farmer, and marry
a professional man. I hope you will not set your heart against me for
writing plainly, but I felt you might try to see me again, and it is
better that we should not meet. I shall always think of you as a good
man, and be anxious for your well-doing. I send this by Jane Orchard's
little maid,--And remain Diggory, your faithful friend,

THOMASIN YEOBRIGHT.

To MR. VENN, Dairy-farmer.

Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning long ago,
the reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today. During the interval
he had shifted his position even further from hers than it had
originally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he was really in
very good circumstances still. Indeed, seeing that his expenditure was
only one-fourth of his income, he might have been called a prosperous
man.

Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and the
business to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many ways
congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions,
had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon
her who attracted him thither. To be in Thomasin's heath, and near her,
yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure left to him.

Then came the incident of that