a crunching of sand as between millstones raised the picture
of Humphrey's, Fairway's, or Sam's heavy feet crossing the stone floor
of the kitchen; a light boyish step, and a gay tune in a high key,
betokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden break-off in the
Grandfer's utterances implied the application to his lips of a mug of
small beer, a bustling and slamming of doors meant starting to go to
market; for Thomasin, in spite of her added scope of gentility, led a
ludicrously narrow life, to the end that she might save every possible
pound for her little daughter.

One summer day Clym was in the garden, immediately outside the parlour
window, which was as usual open. He was looking at the pot-flowers on
the sill; they had been revived and restored by Thomasin to the state in
which his mother had left them. He heard a slight scream from Thomasin,
who was sitting inside the room.

"O, how you frightened me!" she said to someone who had entered. "I
thought you were the ghost of yourself."

Clym was curious enough to advance a little further and look in at the
window. To his astonishment there stood within the room Diggory Venn,
no longer a reddleman, but exhibiting the strangely altered hues of
an ordinary Christian countenance, white shirt-front, light flowered
waistcoat, blue-spotted neckerchief, and bottle-green coat. Nothing in
this appearance was at all singular but the fact of its great difference
from what he had formerly been. Red, and all approach to red, was
carefully excluded from every article of clothes upon him; for what is
there that persons just out of harness dread so much as reminders of the
trade which has enriched them?

Yeobright went round to the door and entered.

"I was so alarmed!" said Thomasin, smiling from one to the other. "I
couldn't believe that he had got white of his own accord! It seemed
supernatural."

"I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas," said Venn. "It was a
profitable trade, and I found that by that time I had made enough to
take the dairy of fifty cows that my father had in his lifetime. I
always thought of getting to that place again if I changed at all, and
now I am there."

"How did you manage to become white, Diggory?" Thomasin asked.

"I turned so by degrees, ma'am."

"You look much better than ever you did before."

Venn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how inadvertently she had
spoken to a man who might possibly have tender feelings for her stil