simple affection. The daughter carried in her outer hand a withy basket of old-fashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, which contrasted oddly with her black stuff gown. 

 Reaching the outskirts of the village they pursued the same track as formerly, and ascended to the fair. Here, too it was evident that the years had told. Certain mechanical improvements might have been noticed in the roundabouts and high-fliers, machines for testing rustic strength and weight, and in the erections devoted to shooting for nuts. But the real business of the fair had considerably dwindled. The new periodical great markets of neighbouring towns were beginning to interfere seriously with the trade carried on here for centuries. The pens for sheep, the tie-ropes for horses, were about half as long as they had been. The stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen-drapers, and other such trades had almost disappeared, and the vehicles were far less numerous. The mother and daughter threaded the crowd for some little distance, and then stood still. 

 “Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you wished to get onward?” said the maiden. 

 “Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane,” explained the other. “But I had a fancy for looking up here.” 

 “Why?” 

 “It was here I first met with Newson—on such a day as this.” 

 “First met with father here? Yes, you have told me so before. And now he’s drowned and gone from us!” As she spoke the girl drew a card from her pocket and looked at it with a sigh. It was edged with black, and inscribed within a design resembling a mural tablet were the words, “In affectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner, who was unfortunately lost at sea, in the month of November 184—, aged forty-one years.” 

 “And it was here,” continued her mother, with more hesitation, “that I last saw the relation we are going to look for—Mr. Michael Henchard.” 

 “What is his exact kin to us, mother? I have never clearly had it told me.” 

 “He is, or was—for he may be dead—a connection by marriage,” said her mother deliberately. 

 “That’s exactly what you have said a score of times before!” replied the young woman, looking about her inattentively. “He’s not a near relation, I suppose?” 

 “Not by any means.” 

 Prev. P 16/278 next