o walk
some four or five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason
pointed to only one conclusion--the man must be amazingly interested in
that glove's owner.

"Were you dancing with her, Diggory?" she asked, in a voice which
revealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her
by this disclosure.

"No," he sighed.

"And you will not come in, then?"

"Not tonight, thank you, ma'am."

"Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person's glove, Mr.
Venn?"

"O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. The moon will rise
in a few minutes."

Thomasin went back to the porch. "Is he coming in?" said Clym, who had
been waiting where she had left him.

"He would rather not tonight," she said, and then passed by him into the
house; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms.

When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just
listening by the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she
went to the window, gently lifted the corner of the white curtain, and
looked out. Venn was still there. She watched the growth of the faint
radiance appearing in the sky by the eastern hill, till presently
the edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley with light.
Diggory's form was now distinct on the green; he was moving about in a
bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the precious missing
article, walking in zigzags right and left till he should have passed
over every foot of the ground.

"How very ridiculous!" Thomasin murmured to herself, in a tone which was
intended to be satirical. "To think that a man should be so silly as to
go mooning about like that for a girl's glove! A respectable dairyman,
too, and a man of money as he is now. What a pity!"

At last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood up and raised it to
his lips. Then placing it in his breastpocket--the nearest receptacle to
a man's heart permitted by modern raiment--he ascended the valley in a
mathematically direct line towards his distant home in the meadows.

2--Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road

Clym saw little of Thomasin for several days after this; and when they
met she was more silent than usual. At length he asked her what she was
thinking of so intently.

"I am thoroughly perplexed," she said candidly. "I cannot for my life
think who it is that Diggory Venn is so much in love with. None of the
girls at the Maypole were good enough for