her mother's ear, "Does
he seem to you not likely to befriend us? I thought he looked a generous
man. What a gentleman he is, isn't he? and how his diamond studs shine!
How strange that you should have said he might be in the stocks, or in
the workhouse, or dead! Did ever anything go more by contraries! Why do
you feel so afraid of him? I am not at all; I'll call upon him--he can
but say he don't own such remote kin."

"I don't know at all--I can't tell what to set about. I feel so down."

"Don't be that, mother, now we have got here and all! Rest there where
you be a little while--I will look on and find out more about him."

"I don't think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard. He is not how I thought he
would be--he overpowers me! I don't wish to see him any more."

"But wait a little time and consider."

Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested in anything in her life
as in their present position, partly from the natural elation she felt
at discovering herself akin to a coach; and she gazed again at the
scene. The younger guests were talking and eating with animation; their
elders were searching for titbits, and sniffing and grunting over their
plates like sows nuzzling for acorns. Three drinks seemed to be sacred
to the company--port, sherry, and rum; outside which old-established
trinity few or no palates ranged.

A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on their sides, and each
primed with a spoon, was now placed down the table, and these were
promptly filled with grog at such high temperatures as to raise
serious considerations for the articles exposed to its vapours. But
Elizabeth-Jane noticed that, though this filling went on with great
promptness up and down the table, nobody filled the Mayor's glass, who
still drank large quantities of water from the tumbler behind the clump
of crystal vessels intended for wine and spirits.

"They don't fill Mr. Henchard's wine-glasses," she ventured to say to
her elbow acquaintance, the old man.

"Ah, no; don't ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining worthy of
that name? He scorns all tempting liquors; never touches nothing. O
yes, he've strong qualities that way. I have heard tell that he sware
a gospel oath in bygone times, and has bode by it ever since. So they
don't press him, knowing it would be unbecoming in the face of that: for
yer gospel oath is a serious thing."

Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in by inquiring,
"How much l