be," said she. "Nor will it till fifty years more of
civilization have passed over the town. It took a waggon and four horses
to get it here."

"H'm. It looks as if you were living on capital."

"O no, I am not."

"So much the better. But the fact is, your setting up like this makes my
beaming towards you rather awkward."

"Why?"

An answer was not really needed, and he did not furnish one. "Well," he
went on, "there's nobody in the world I would have wished to see enter
into this wealth before you, Lucetta, and nobody, I am sure, who will
become it more." He turned to her with congratulatory admiration so
fervid that she shrank somewhat, notwithstanding that she knew him so
well.

"I am greatly obliged to you for all that," said she, rather with an air
of speaking ritual. The stint of reciprocal feeling was perceived, and
Henchard showed chagrin at once--nobody was more quick to show that than
he.

"You may be obliged or not for't. Though the things I say may not have
the polish of what you've lately learnt to expect for the first time in
your life, they are real, my lady Lucetta."

"That's rather a rude way of speaking to me," pouted Lucetta, with
stormy eyes.

"Not at all!" replied Henchard hotly. "But there, there, I don't wish
to quarrel with 'ee. I come with an honest proposal for silencing your
Jersey enemies, and you ought to be thankful."

"How can you speak so!" she answered, firing quickly. "Knowing that my
only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl's passion for you with
too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent
all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I
suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of
your wife's return and my consequent dismissal, and if I am a little
independent now, surely the privilege is due to me!"

"Yes, it is," he said. "But it is not by what is, in this life, but by
what appears, that you are judged; and I therefore think you ought to
accept me--for your own good name's sake. What is known in your native
Jersey may get known here."

"How you keep on about Jersey! I am English!"

"Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to my proposal?"

For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta had the move; and yet
she was backward. "For the present let things be," she said with some
embarrassment. "Treat me as an acquaintance, and I'll treat you as
one. Time will--" She stopped; and he said nothing t