. I'm puttin' by
pence; but it 's so plaguy little a gal can earn, best o' times and with
the best will."

"If I could only write the things I think! But they vanish before pen
and paper and the need of words, as the mists of the night vanish before
the hard, searching sun. I am ignorant of how to use words; and those in
the world who might help me will never know of me. As for those around
about, they reckon me three parts fool, with just a little gift of
re-writing names over their dirty shop-fronts."

"Yet it 's money. What did 'e get for that butivul fox wi' the goose in
his mouth you painted 'pon Mr. Lamacraft's sign to Sticklepath?"

"Ten shillings."

"That's solid money."

"It isn't now. I bought a book with it--a book of lies."

Chris was going to speak, but changed her mind and sighed instead.

"Well, as our affairs be speeding so poorly, we'd best to do some gude
deed an' look after this other coil. You must let Will knaw what 's
doin' by letter this very night. 'T is awnly fair, you being set in
trust for him."

"Strange, these Grimbal brothers," mused Clement, as the lovers
proceeded in the direction of Chagford. "They come home with everything
on God's earth that men might desire to win happiness, and, by the look
of it, each marks his home-coming by falling in love with one he can't
have."

"Shaws the fairness of things, Clem; how the poor may chance to have
what the rich caan't buy; so all look to stand equal."

"Fairness, you call it? The damned, cynical irony of this whole
passion-driven puppet-show--that's what it shows! The man who is loved
cannot marry the woman he loves lest they both starve; the man who can
give a woman half the world is loathed for his pains. Not that he 's to
be pitied like the pauper, for if you can't buy love you can buy women,
and the wise ones know how to manufacture a very lasting substitute for
the real thing."

"You talk that black and bitter as though you was deep-read in all the
wickedness of the world," said Chris; "yet I knaw no man can say sweeter
things than you sometimes."

"Talk! It 's all talk with me--all snarling and railing and whining at
hard facts, like a viper wasting its venom on steel. I'm sick of
myself--weary of the old, stale round of my thoughts. Where can I wash
and be clean? Chrissy, for God's sake, tell me."

"Put your hope in the Spring," she said, "an' be busy for Will."

In reality, with the approach of Christmas, affairs betw