just begun to blow down in wavy sheets, alternately thick
and thin. The trees of the fields and plantations writhed like miserable
men as the air wound its way swiftly among them: the lowest portions of
their trunks, that had hardly ever been known to move, were visibly
rocked by the fiercer gusts, distressing the mind by its painful
unwontedness, as when a strong man is seen to shed tears. Low-hanging
boughs went up and down; high and erect boughs went to and fro; the
blasts being so irregular, and divided into so many cross-currents, that
neighbouring branches of the same tree swept the skies in independent
motions, crossed each other, or became entangled. Across the open spaces
flew flocks of green and yellowish leaves, which, after travelling a long
distance from their parent trees, reached the ground, and lay there with
their under-sides upward.

As the rain and wind increased, and Fancy's bonnet-ribbons leapt more and
more snappishly against her chin, she paused on entering Mellstock Lane
to consider her latitude, and the distance to a place of shelter. The
nearest house was Elizabeth Endorfield's, in Higher Mellstock, whose
cottage and garden stood not far from the junction of that hamlet with
the road she followed. Fancy hastened onward, and in five minutes
entered a gate, which shed upon her toes a flood of water-drops as she
opened it.

"Come in, chiel!" a voice exclaimed, before Fancy had knocked: a
promptness that would have surprised her had she not known that Mrs.
Endorfield was an exceedingly and exceptionally sharp woman in the use of
her eyes and ears.

Fancy went in and sat down. Elizabeth was paring potatoes for her
husband's supper.

Scrape, scrape, scrape; then a toss, and splash went a potato into a
bucket of water.

Now, as Fancy listlessly noted these proceedings of the dame, she began
to reconsider an old subject that lay uppermost in her heart. Since the
interview between her father and Dick, the days had been melancholy days
for her. Geoffrey's firm opposition to the notion of Dick as a son-in-
law was more than she had expected. She had frequently seen her lover
since that time, it is true, and had loved him more for the opposition
than she would have otherwise dreamt of doing--which was a happiness of a
certain kind. Yet, though love is thus an end in itself, it must be
believed to be the means to another end if it is to assume the rosy hues
of an unalloyed pleasure. And su