y have scorned, and he began to wish that
he had not taken upon himself to arrive at such a juncture. However,
his progress was made unexpectedly easy by his discovering alone in
the kitchen an elderly woman who seemed to be acting as provisional
housekeeper during the convulsions from which Farfrae's establishment
was just then suffering. She was one of those people whom nothing
surprises, and though to her, a total stranger, his request must have
seemed odd, she willingly volunteered to go up and inform the master and
mistress of the house that "a humble old friend" had come.

On second thought she said that he had better not wait in the kitchen,
but come up into the little back-parlour, which was empty. He thereupon
followed her thither, and she left him. Just as she got across the
landing to the door of the best parlour a dance was struck up, and she
returned to say that she would wait till that was over before announcing
him--Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae having both joined in the figure.

The door of the front room had been taken off its hinges to give more
space, and that of the room Henchard sat in being ajar, he could see
fractional parts of the dancers whenever their gyrations brought them
near the doorway, chiefly in the shape of the skirts of dresses and
streaming curls of hair; together with about three-fifths of the band in
profile, including the restless shadow of a fiddler's elbow, and the tip
of the bass-viol bow.

The gaiety jarred upon Henchard's spirits; and he could not quite
understand why Farfrae, a much-sobered man, and a widower, who had had
his trials, should have cared for it all, notwithstanding the fact that
he was quite a young man still, and quickly kindled to enthusiasm by
dance and song. That the quiet Elizabeth, who had long ago appraised
life at a moderate value, and who knew in spite of her maidenhood that
marriage was as a rule no dancing matter, should have had zest for this
revelry surprised him still more. However, young people could not be
quite old people, he concluded, and custom was omnipotent.

With the progress of the dance the performers spread out somewhat,
and then for the first time he caught a glimpse of the once despised
daughter who had mastered him, and made his heart ache. She was in a
dress of white silk or satin, he was not near enough to say which--snowy
white, without a tinge of milk or cream; and the expression of her face
was one of nervous pleasure rather than of g