o make her visit appear to
Eustacia not abject but wise.

From her elevated position the exhausted woman could perceive the roof
of the house below, and the garden and the whole enclosure of the
little domicile. And now, at the moment of rising, she saw a second man
approaching the gate. His manner was peculiar, hesitating, and not that
of a person come on business or by invitation. He surveyed the house
with interest, and then walked round and scanned the outer boundary
of the garden, as one might have done had it been the birthplace of
Shakespeare, the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Chateau of Hougomont.
After passing round and again reaching the gate he went in. Mrs.
Yeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on finding her son and his
wife by themselves; but a moment's thought showed her that the
presence of an acquaintance would take off the awkwardness of her first
appearance in the house, by confining the talk to general matters until
she had begun to feel comfortable with them. She came down the hill to
the gate, and looked into the hot garden.

There lay the cat asleep on the bare gravel of the path, as if beds,
rugs, and carpets were unendurable. The leaves of the hollyhocks hung
like half-closed umbrellas, the sap almost simmered in the stems, and
foliage with a smooth surface glared like metallic mirrors. A small
apple tree, of the sort called Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate, the
only one which throve in the garden, by reason of the lightness of
the soil; and among the fallen apples on the ground beneath were wasps
rolling drunk with the juice, or creeping about the little caves in each
fruit which they had eaten out before stupefied by its sweetness. By the
door lay Clym's furze-hook and the last handful of faggot-bonds she had
seen him gather; they had plainly been thrown down there as he entered
the house.

6--A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian

Wildeve, as has been stated, was determined to visit Eustacia boldly, by
day, and on the easy terms of a relation, since the reddleman had spied
out and spoilt his walks to her by night. The spell that she had thrown
over him in the moonlight dance made it impossible for a man having no
strong puritanic force within him to keep away altogether. He merely
calculated on meeting her and her husband in an ordinary manner,
chatting a little while, and leaving again. Every outward sign was to be
conventional; but the one great fact would