dark dress, and carrying a sunshade. In this latter article she drew
the line at fringe, and had it plain edged, with a little ivory ring for
keeping it closed. It was odd about the necessity for that sunshade. She
discovered that with the clarification of her complexion and the birth
of pink cheeks her skin had grown more sensitive to the sun's rays.
She protected those cheeks forthwith, deeming spotlessness part of
womanliness.

Henchard had become very fond of her, and she went out with him more
frequently than with her mother now. Her appearance one day was so
attractive that he looked at her critically.

"I happened to have the ribbon by me, so I made it up," she faltered,
thinking him perhaps dissatisfied with some rather bright trimming she
had donned for the first time.

"Ay--of course--to be sure," he replied in his leonine way. "Do as you
like--or rather as your mother advises ye. 'Od send--I've nothing to say
to't!"

Indoors she appeared with her hair divided by a parting that arched like
a white rainbow from ear to ear. All in front of this line was covered
with a thick encampment of curls; all behind was dressed smoothly, and
drawn to a knob.

The three members of the family were sitting at breakfast one day, and
Henchard was looking silently, as he often did, at this head of
hair, which in colour was brown--rather light than dark. "I thought
Elizabeth-Jane's hair--didn't you tell me that Elizabeth-Jane's hair
promised to be black when she was a baby?" he said to his wife.

She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and murmured, "Did I?"

As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchard resumed. "Begad,
I nearly forgot myself just now! What I meant was that the girl's hair
certainly looked as if it would be darker, when she was a baby."

"It did; but they alter so," replied Susan.

"Their hair gets darker, I know--but I wasn't aware it lightened ever?"

"O yes." And the same uneasy expression came out on her face, to which
the future held the key. It passed as Henchard went on:

"Well, so much the better. Now Susan, I want to have her called
Miss Henchard--not Miss Newson. Lots o' people do it already in
carelessness--it is her legal name--so it may as well be made her usual
name--I don't like t'other name at all for my own flesh and blood. I'll
advertise it in the Casterbridge paper--that's the way they do it. She
won't object."

"No. O no. But--"

"Well, then, I shall do it,"