kindness, and why should you be so kind to me?"

A factitious reply had been again upon his lips, but it was again
suspended, and he looked at her with an arrested eye. The truth was,
that as she now stood--excited, wild, and honest as the day--her
alluring beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon
it that he was quite startled at his temerity in advancing them as
false. He said mechanically, "Ah, why?" and continued to look at
her.

"And my workfolk see me following you about the field, and are
wondering. Oh, this is dreadful!" she went on, unconscious of the
transmutation she was effecting.

"I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it was my one
poor patent of nobility," he broke out, bluntly; "but, upon my soul,
I wish you would now. Without any shamming, come! Don't deny me the
happiness of wearing it for my sake? But you are too lovely even to
care to be kind as others are."

"No, no; don't say so! I have reasons for reserve which I cannot
explain."

"Let it be, then, let it be," he said, receiving back the watch at
last; "I must be leaving you now. And will you speak to me for these
few weeks of my stay?"

"Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if I will! Oh, why did you come
and disturb me so!"

"Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself. Such things have
happened. Well, will you let me work in your fields?" he coaxed.

"Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you."

"Miss Everdene, I thank you."

"No, no."

"Good-bye!"

The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his head,
saluted, and returned to the distant group of haymakers.

Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. Her heart erratically
flitting hither and thither from perplexed excitement, hot, and
almost tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring, "Oh, what have I
done! What does it mean! I wish I knew how much of it was true!"

CHAPTER XXVII

HIVING THE BEES

The Weatherbury bees were late in their swarming this year. It was in
the latter part of June, and the day after the interview with Troy in
the hayfield, that Bathsheba was standing in her garden, watching a
swarm in the air and guessing their probable settling place. Not
only were they late this year, but unruly. Sometimes throughout a
whole season all the swarms would alight on the lowest attainable
bough--such as part of a currant-bush or espalier apple-tree; next
year they would, with just the sam