morning she came
downstairs and stepped out into the starlight. The weather was still
favourable, the ground ringing under her feet like an anvil.

Marian and Izz were much interested in her excursion, knowing that
the journey concerned her husband. Their lodgings were in a cottage
a little further along the lane, but they came and assisted Tess
in her departure, and argued that she should dress up in her very
prettiest guise to captivate the hearts of her parents-in-law; though
she, knowing of the austere and Calvinistic tenets of old Mr Clare,
was indifferent, and even doubtful. A year had now elapsed since
her sad marriage, but she had preserved sufficient draperies from
the wreck of her then full wardrobe to clothe her very charmingly as
a simple country girl with no pretensions to recent fashion; a soft
gray woollen gown, with white crape quilling against the pink skin of
her face and neck, and a black velvet jacket and hat.

"'Tis a thousand pities your husband can't see 'ee now--you do look
a real beauty!" said Izz Huett, regarding Tess as she stood on
the threshold between the steely starlight without and the yellow
candlelight within. Izz spoke with a magnanimous abandonment of
herself to the situation; she could not be--no woman with a heart
bigger than a hazel-nut could be--antagonistic to Tess in her
presence, the influence which she exercised over those of her own sex
being of a warmth and strength quite unusual, curiously overpowering
the less worthy feminine feelings of spite and rivalry.

With a final tug and touch here, and a slight brush there, they let
her go; and she was absorbed into the pearly air of the fore-dawn.
They heard her footsteps tap along the hard road as she stepped out
to her full pace. Even Izz hoped she would win, and, though without
any particular respect for her own virtue, felt glad that she had
been prevented wronging her friend when momentarily tempted by Clare.

It was a year ago, all but a day, that Clare had married Tess, and
only a few days less than a year that he had been absent from her.
Still, to start on a brisk walk, and on such an errand as hers, on a
dry clear wintry morning, through the rarefied air of these chalky
hogs'-backs, was not depressing; and there is no doubt that her dream
at starting was to win the heart of her mother-in-law, tell her whole
history to that lady, enlist her on her side, and so gain back the
truant.

In time she reached the edg