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sfactory in every way as Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from her personal recommendations a reconciliation with his former friend Henchard would, in the natural course of things, flow from such a union. He therefore forgave the Mayor his curtness; and this morning on his way to the fair he had called at her house, where he learnt that she was staying at Miss Templeman's. A little stimulated at not finding her ready and waiting--so fanciful are men!--he hastened on to High-Place Hall to encounter no Elizabeth but its mistress herself. "The fair to-day seems a large one," she said when, by natural deviation, their eyes sought the busy scene without. "Your numerous fairs and markets keep me interested. How many things I think of while I watch from here!" He seemed in doubt how to answer, and the babble without reached them as they sat--voices as of wavelets on a looping sea, one ever and anon rising above the rest. "Do you look out often?" he asked. "Yes--very often." "Do you look for any one you know?" Why should she have answered as she did? "I look as at a picture merely. But," she went on, turning pleasantly to him, "I may do so now--I may look for you. You are always there, are you not? Ah--I don't mean it seriously! But it is amusing to look for somebody one knows in a crowd, even if one does not want him. It takes off the terrible oppressiveness of being surrounded by a throng, and having no point of junction with it through a single individual." "Ay! Maybe you'll be very lonely, ma'am?" "Nobody knows how lonely." "But you are rich, they say?" "If so, I don't know how to enjoy my riches. I came to Casterbridge thinking I should like to live here. But I wonder if I shall." "Where did ye come from, ma'am?" "The neighbourhood of Bath." "And I from near Edinboro'," he murmured. "It's better to stay at home, and that's true; but a man must live where his money is made. It is a great pity, but it's always so! Yet I've done very well this year. O yes," he went on with ingenuous enthusiasm. "You see that man with the drab kerseymere coat? I bought largely of him in the autumn when wheat was down, and then afterwards when it rose a little I sold off all I had! It brought only a small profit to me; while the farmers kept theirs, expecting higher figures--yes, though the rats were gnawing the ricks hollow. Just when I sold the markets went lower, and I bought up the corn of those who had been holding back a
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