e
passed that way, for standing, as he always did at this season of the
year, with his specimen apple-tree in the midst, the boughs rose above
the heads of the crowd, and brought a delightful suggestion of orchards
among the crowded buildings there. When her eye fell upon him for the
last time he was standing somewhat apart, holding the tree like an
ensign, and looking on the ground instead of pushing his produce as he
ought to have been doing. He was, in fact, not a very successful
seller either of his trees or of his cider, his habit of speaking his
mind, when he spoke at all, militating against this branch of his
business.

While she regarded him he suddenly lifted his eyes in a direction away
from Marty, his face simultaneously kindling with recognition and
surprise. She followed his gaze, and saw walking across to him a
flexible young creature in whom she perceived the features of her she
had known as Miss Grace Melbury, but now looking glorified and refined
above her former level. Winterborne, being fixed to the spot by his
apple-tree, could not advance to meet her; he held out his spare hand
with his hat in it, and with some embarrassment beheld her coming on
tiptoe through the mud to the middle of the square where he stood.

Miss Melbury's arrival so early was, as Marty could see, unexpected by
Giles, which accounted for his not being ready to receive her. Indeed,
her father had named five o'clock as her probable time, for which
reason that hour had been looming out all the day in his forward
perspective, like an important edifice on a plain. Now here she was
come, he knew not how, and his arranged welcome stultified.

His face became gloomy at her necessity for stepping into the road, and
more still at the little look of embarrassment which appeared on hers
at having to perform the meeting with him under an apple-tree ten feet
high in the middle of the market-place. Having had occasion to take off
the new gloves she had bought to come home in, she held out to him a
hand graduating from pink at the tips of the fingers to white at the
palm; and the reception formed a scene, with the tree over their heads,
which was not by any means an ordinary one in Sherton Abbas streets.

Nevertheless, the greeting on her looks and lips was of a restrained
type, which perhaps was not unnatural. For true it was that Giles
Winterborne, well-attired and well-mannered as he was for a yeoman,
looked rough beside her. It