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