rown
fern, which, from its abundance, was used on Egdon in packing away
stores of all kinds. The pigeons were flying about her head with the
greatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just visible above
the floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of light, as she stood
halfway up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was not climber
enough to venture.

"Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well as
ribstones."

Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where more
mellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking them out
she stopped a moment.

"Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?" she said, gazing
abstractedly at the pigeon-hole, which admitted the sunlight so directly
upon her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost seemed to
shine through her.

"If he could have been dear to you in another way," said Mrs. Yeobright
from the ladder, "this might have been a happy meeting."

"Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?"

"Yes," said her aunt, with some warmth. "To thoroughly fill the air with
the past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and keep clear
of it."

Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. "I am a warning to
others, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are," she said in a
low voice. "What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them? 'Tis
absurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me think that I do,
by the way they behave towards me? Why don't people judge me by my acts?
Now, look at me as I kneel here, picking up these apples--do I look
like a lost woman?... I wish all good women were as good as I!" she added
vehemently.

"Strangers don't see you as I do," said Mrs. Yeobright; "they judge from
false report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to blame."

"How quickly a rash thing can be done!" replied the girl. Her lips were
quivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that she could
hardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued industriously
searching to hide her weakness.

"As soon as you have finished getting the apples," her aunt said,
descending the ladder, "come down, and we'll go for the holly. There is
nobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear being
stared at. We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in our
preparations."

Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together they
went throu