suffering from the reverse feeling just then, and they
bowled along in silence. A low carriage, bowling along still more
rapidly behind a horse of unimpeachable breed, overtook and passed
them.

"Why, there he is!" she said.

Liddy looked. "That! That's Farmer Boldwood--of course 'tis--the
man you couldn't see the other day when he called."

"Oh, Farmer Boldwood," murmured Bathsheba, and looked at him as he
outstripped them. The farmer had never turned his head once, but
with eyes fixed on the most advanced point along the road, passed as
unconsciously and abstractedly as if Bathsheba and her charms were
thin air.

"He's an interesting man--don't you think so?" she remarked.

"O yes, very. Everybody owns it," replied Liddy.

"I wonder why he is so wrapt up and indifferent, and seemingly so far
away from all he sees around him."

"It is said--but not known for certain--that he met with some bitter
disappointment when he was a young man and merry. A woman jilted
him, they say."

"People always say that--and we know very well women scarcely ever
jilt men; 'tis the men who jilt us. I expect it is simply his nature
to be so reserved."

"Simply his nature--I expect so, miss--nothing else in the world."

"Still, 'tis more romantic to think he has been served cruelly, poor
thing'! Perhaps, after all, he has!"

"Depend upon it he has. Oh yes, miss, he has! I feel he must have."

"However, we are very apt to think extremes of people. I shouldn't
wonder after all if it wasn't a little of both--just between the
two--rather cruelly used and rather reserved."

"Oh dear no, miss--I can't think it between the two!"

"That's most likely."

"Well, yes, so it is. I am convinced it is most likely. You may take
my word, miss, that that's what's the matter with him."

CHAPTER XIII

SORTES SANCTORUM--THE VALENTINE

It was Sunday afternoon in the farmhouse, on the thirteenth of
February. Dinner being over, Bathsheba, for want of a better
companion, had asked Liddy to come and sit with her. The mouldy pile
was dreary in winter-time before the candles were lighted and the
shutters closed; the atmosphere of the place seemed as old as the
walls; every nook behind the furniture had a temperature of its own,
for the fire was not kindled in this part of the house early in the
day; and Bathsheba's new piano, which was an old one in other annals,
looked particularly sloping and out of level on the warped