yes. Market--business! I wish there were no business in the
warrld."

Lucetta almost laughed--she would quite have laughed--but that there was
a little emotion going in her at the time. "How you change!" she said.
"You should not change like this.

"I have never wished such things before," said the Scotchman, with a
simple, shamed, apologetic look for his weakness. "It is only since
coming here and seeing you!"

"If that's the case, you had better not look at me any longer. Dear me,
I feel I have quite demoralized you!"

"But look or look not, I will see you in my thoughts. Well, I'll
go--thank you for the pleasure of this visit."

"Thank you for staying."

"Maybe I'll get into my market-mind when I've been out a few minutes,"
he murmured. "But I don't know--I don't know!"

As he went she said eagerly, "You may hear them speak of me in
Casterbridge as time goes on. If they tell you I'm a coquette, which
some may, because of the incidents of my life, don't believe it, for I
am not."

"I swear I will not!" he said fervidly.

Thus the two. She had enkindled the young man's enthusiasm till he was
quite brimming with sentiment; while he from merely affording her a new
form of idleness, had gone on to wake her serious solicitude. Why was
this? They could not have told.

Lucetta as a young girl would hardly have looked at a tradesman. But her
ups and downs, capped by her indiscretions with Henchard had made her
uncritical as to station. In her poverty she had met with repulse from
the society to which she had belonged, and she had no great zest for
renewing an attempt upon it now. Her heart longed for some ark into
which it could fly and be at rest. Rough or smooth she did not care so
long as it was warm.

Farfrae was shown out, it having entirely escaped him that he had called
to see Elizabeth. Lucetta at the window watched him threading the maze
of farmers and farmers' men. She could see by his gait that he
was conscious of her eyes, and her heart went out to him for his
modesty--pleaded with her sense of his unfitness that he might be
allowed to come again. He entered the market-house, and she could see
him no more.

Three minutes later, when she had left the window, knocks, not
of multitude but of strength, sounded through the house, and the
waiting-maid tripped up.

"The Mayor," she said.

Lucetta had reclined herself, and she was looking dreamily through
her fingers. She did not answer at once, and th