rt-front, light flowered
waistcoat, blue-spotted neckerchief, and bottle-green coat. Nothing
in this appearance was at all singular but the fact of its great
difference from what he had formerly been. Red, and all approach to
red, was carefully excluded from every article of clothes upon him;
for what is there that persons just out of harness dread so much as
reminders of the trade which has enriched them?

Yeobright went round to the door and entered.

"I was so alarmed!" said Thomasin, smiling from one to the other. "I
couldn't believe that he had got white of his own accord! It seemed
supernatural."

"I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas," said Venn. "It was a
profitable trade, and I found that by that time I had made enough to
take the dairy of fifty cows that my father had in his lifetime. I
always thought of getting to that place again if I changed at all, and
now I am there."

"How did you manage to become white, Diggory?" Thomasin asked.

"I turned so by degrees, ma'am."

"You look much better than ever you did before."

Venn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how inadvertently she
had spoken to a man who might possibly have tender feelings for
her still, blushed a little. Clym saw nothing of this, and added
good-humouredly--

"What shall we have to frighten Thomasin's baby with, now you have
become a human being again?"

"Sit down, Diggory," said Thomasin, "and stay to tea."

Venn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen, when Thomasin said
with pleasant pertness as she went on with some sewing, "Of course
you must sit down here. And where does your fifty-cow dairy lie, Mr.
Venn?"

"At Stickleford--about two miles to the right of Alderworth, ma'am,
where the meads begin. I have thought that if Mr. Yeobright would
like to pay me a visit sometimes he shouldn't stay away for want of
asking. I'll not bide to tea this afternoon, thank'ee, for I've got
something on hand that must be settled. 'Tis Maypole-day tomorrow,
and the Shadwater folk have clubbed with a few of your neighbours here
to have a pole just outside your palings in the heath, as it is a nice
green place." Venn waved his elbow towards the patch in front of the
house. "I have been talking to Fairway about it," he continued, "and
I said to him that before we put up the pole it would be as well to
ask Mrs. Wildeve."

"I can say nothing against it," she answered. "Our property does not
reach an inch further than the white pali