pped it up, and gave it to
the lad, whose eyes had filled with tears. He kissed the packet, put
it in his pocket, and said in a voice of emotion, "O, Mr. Clym, how
good you are to me!"

"I will go a little way with you," said Clym. And amid the noise of
merriment from below they descended. Their path to the front led them
close to a little side-window, whence the rays of candles streamed
across the shrubs. The window, being screened from general
observation by the bushes, had been left unblinded, so that a person
in this private nook could see all that was going on within the room
which contained the wedding-guests, except in so far as vision was
hindered by the green antiquity of the panes.

"Charley, what are they doing?" said Clym. "My sight is weaker again
tonight, and the glass of this window is not good."

Charley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred with moisture,
and stepped closer to the casement. "Mr. Venn is asking Christian
Cantle to sing," he replied, "and Christian is moving about in his
chair as if he were much frightened at the question, and his father
has struck up a stave instead of him."

"Yes, I can hear the old man's voice," said Clym. "So there's to be
no dancing, I suppose. And is Thomasin in the room? I see something
moving in front of the candles that resembles her shape, I think."

"Yes. She do seem happy. She is red in the face, and laughing at
something Fairway has said to her. O my!"

"What noise was that?" said Clym.

"Mr. Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against the beam in
gieing a skip as he passed under. Mrs. Venn has run up quite
frightened and now she's put her hand to his head to feel if there's a
lump. And now they be all laughing again as if nothing had happened."

"Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?" Clym asked.

"No, not a bit in the world. Now they are all holding up their
glasses and drinking somebody's health."

"I wonder if it is mine?"

"No, 'tis Mr. and Mrs. Venn's, because he is making a hearty sort of
speech. There--now Mrs. Venn has got up, and is going away to put on
her things, I think."

"Well, they haven't concerned themselves about me, and it is quite
right they should not. It is all as it should be, and Thomasin at
least is happy. We will not stay any longer now, as they will soon be
coming out to go home."

He accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home, and, returning
alone to the house a quarter of an h