The Project Gutenberg eBook, Life's Little Ironies, by Thomas Hardy

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Title: Life's Little Ironies
A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters

Author: Thomas Hardy

Release Date: May 18, 2007 [eBook #3047]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES***

Transcribed from the 1920 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES
A SET OF TALES
WITH SOME COLLOQUIAL SKETCHES
ENTITLED
A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS

BY
THOMAS HARDY

WITH A MAP OF WESSEX

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1920

COPYRIGHT

_First Collected Edition_ 1894. _New Edition and reprints_ 1896-1900
_First published by Macmillan & Co._, _Crown_ 8_ov_, 1903. _Reprinted_
1910, 1915
_Pockets Edition_ 1907, 1910, 1913, 1916, 1919 (_twice_), 1920
_Wessex Edition_ 1912

CONTENTS

The Son's Veto
For Conscience' Sake
A Tragedy of Two Ambitions
On the Western Circuit
To Please his Wife
The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four
A Few Crusted Characters

THE SON'S VETO

CHAPTER I

To the eyes of a man viewing it from behind, the nut-brown hair was a
wonder and a mystery. Under the black beaver hat, surmounted by its tuft
of black feathers, the long locks, braided and twisted and coiled like
the rushes of a basket, composed a rare, if somewhat barbaric, example of
ingenious art. One could understand such weavings and coilings being
wrought to last intact for a year, or even a calendar month; but that
they should be all demolished regularly at bedtime, after a single day of
permanence, seemed a reckless waste of successful fabrication.

And she had done it all herself, poor thing. She had no maid, and it was
almost the only accomplishment she could boast of. Hence the unstinted
pains.

She was a young invalid lady--not so very much of an invalid--sitting in
a wheeled chair, which had been pulled up in the front part of a green
enclosure, close to a bandstand, where a concert was going on, during a
warm J