of a man like you
even though it might have made you a millionaire. But now I see how
mistaken you are about this girl I doubt if you could be correct about
other things."

"How am I mistaken in her?"

"She is lazy and dissatisfied. But that is not all of it. Supposing
her to be as good a woman as any you can find, which she certainly is
not, why do you wish to connect yourself with anybody at present?"

"Well, there are practical reasons," Clym began, and then almost broke
off under an overpowering sense of the weight of argument which could
be brought against his statement. "If I take a school an educated
woman would be invaluable as a help to me."

"What! you really mean to marry her?"

"It would be premature to state that plainly. But consider what
obvious advantages there would be in doing it. She--"

"Don't suppose she has any money. She hasn't a farthing."

"She is excellently educated, and would make a good matron in a
boarding-school. I candidly own that I have modified my views a
little, in deference to you; and it should satisfy you. I no longer
adhere to my intention of giving with my own mouth rudimentary
education to the lowest class. I can do better. I can establish a
good private school for farmers' sons, and without stopping the
school I can manage to pass examinations. By this means, and by the
assistance of a wife like her--"

"Oh, Clym!"

"I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools
in the county."

Yeobright had enunciated the word "her" with a fervour which, in
conversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a
maternal heart within the four seas could, in such circumstances, have
helped being irritated at that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new
woman.

"You are blinded, Clym," she said warmly. "It was a bad day for you
when you first set eyes on her. And your scheme is merely a castle in
the air built on purpose to justify this folly which has seized you,
and to salve your conscience on the irrational situation you are in."

"Mother, that's not true," he firmly answered.

"Can you maintain that I sit and tell untruths, when all I wish to do
is to save you from sorrow? For shame, Clym! But it is all through
that woman--a hussy!"

Clym reddened like fire and rose. He placed his hand upon his
mother's shoulder and said, in a tone which hung strangely between
entreaty and command, "I won't hear it. I may be led to answer you in
a way which